Late September in an Austin Urban Garden September 29, 2010

Finally Fall is here, and we are actually having Fall-like weather!    Gardening is enjoyable again, and I’ve been doing as much as I can.  So, the 4x8x12 bed in the back yard is full.

Small raised bed in back

This is the raised bed in which I planted potatoes in August.  Nothing ever came up, so I assumed they had composted and planted over them.  Now, some of them are coming up.  Go figure.  I’ll deal with that later.  In this bed, broccoli seeds, broccoli transplants, bok choi, a volunteer tomato, broccoli raab, and lettuce in the back.  And maybe potatoes.

The big bed is now heavily seeded for lettuce, and spinach and still has some peppers, cabbage, some not thriving Fall tomatoes, and the lemon cucumber which is flowering but not setting fruit as of yet.  There is another either lemon cucumber or butternut squash that had failed to thrive, but is starting to perk up.  It didn’t like the heat, but the cool weather is making it happy.

Large bed in back

Lemon Cucumber Flowers

The raised garden under my bedroom window is full of Royal Burgundy Beans, which appear to be starting to flower.  I can’t wait to see these purple beans!

Royal Burgundy Beans

The wood beds on the side are looking pretty good too.  This will house loads of onions all winter, so any production in the Fall is a bonus.  In this bed, the latest planting of corn, all of which did not come up, and some Blue Lake Green Beans.

Corn and Green Beans

Beans put nitrogen into the soil and are a perfect companion plant to corn, which in turn needs nitrogen to thrive.

The tomatoes in both the raised bed and my Earthbox are not thriving.  I’m not sure why.   So, I’m not optimistic for Fall tomatoes.  Hopefully, some of the local farms are having better luck.  At least I was able to make lots of sauces and freeze them for winter.

The heat loving Serrano Pepper plant, is enjoying the cooler weather, and is continuing to set peppers.

Serrano Peppers

The basil on the patio is still going gangbusters, and will do for one more round of pesto making.

Basil

Almost Fall in an Austin Urban Garden September 5, 2010

The garden is a little boring right now.  The only thing that I’m eating from the garden is serrano and jalapeno peppers.  The lettuce I sowed last week, didn’t survive the heat – it came up, but the sun baked it and it disappeared.  The broccoli is up and looking good.

Baby Broccoli

For comparison sake, I planted more corn a few days ago.  I’m trying to compare growing seasons and different varieties, since I have enough space to do it.  One of my friends makes fun of me for my corn garden, and says I need a Golf Cart combine to harvest my little 5′x5′ patch of corn.  I won’t be sharing.  But, the newly sowed corn is peeking out.

The tomatoes look great, especially those in the Earthbox.  Most are flowering but none have set fruit yet.  The peppers are going great guns.  The cucumber/butternut squash looks great.  Can’t wait to see which it is.  A few days ago I planted Royal Burgundy Bush beans.  They aren’t up yet.

Royal Burgundy Bush Beans

Something is coming up where I planted the potatoes.  I’m not sure it is potatoes yet. I’m fairly confident that many of the potatoes composted because the soil was so warm.  I’m on a wait and see still for the potatoes.  I’ll plant more lettuce and perhaps some chard today, and hope for the best!

September 1, Austin Urban Garden – Stress and Success September 2, 2010

With this lingering heat, parts of the garden are struggling to get through each day.  The Corn in the Three Sisters Garden, has been looking pale and tired, although most of the stalks are making corn.  Setting cobs?  Since the other two sisters flew the coop, the beans and pumpkins, the garden isn’t getting nitrogen from the beans.  And corn needs nitrogen.  So I picked up some fish emulsion and hand watered the corn with a diluted mixture.  I also threw some worm castings on top of the soil, because I have an irrational belief that worm poo fixes everything.  We’ll see.  But for now:

Heat stressed corn

corn cobs growing

The peppers are doing fine, but do look a bit stressed in the heat of the day.

Peppers hanging in

The tomatoes in the garden are waiting for less heat to fully thrive.

Garden Tomatoes look puny

Butternut Squash or Cucumber?

This is either butternut squash or lemon cucumber.  I planted both and can’t tell the difference.  Whatever it is, it is happy.  Hoping for the butternut, but if life hands me lemon cucumbers, I’ll make lemon cucumber pickles again.

The broccoli seeds are up.  I need to thin them a bit every day.  I never know how they all show up in one end of the garden.  Watering, maybe.

Broccoli seedlings

The Black Seeded Simpson lettuce has sprouted as well.  I really hope it cools off, or it will be too hot for this lettuce.

Black Seeded Simpson Lettuce

There are some strange things sprouting in the potato bed, although I’m not sure any of them are potatoes.  Still waiting.   They might be compost.

On the Herb Patio, the Bay Laurel, which sat as a barron stick for a year, has sprouted a friend!  This will be fabulous for winter soups and stews.  I love Bay.

Bay for Winter

The garden winners of the day, strangely, are the tomatoes in the Earthbox.  They are the healthiest and heartiest of the whole lot.

Tomatoes in an Earthbox Surviving the Heat

So, it’s still hot, but I’m ever hopeful for Fall weather, and a more and more productive Fall and Winter garden.  The Fall and Winter garden are my favorites.  So abundant and with such good food.

Earthbox Beats the Heat August 27, 2010

I’ve been chronicling my Earthbox adventures since Spring, when I gave myself one (OK, two).   I figured if we were going to sell them, I should be able to talk about them from experience.  The Spring tomatoes in my Earthbox were the most productive, of all the tomatoes I planted, and the least afflicted with pests, although I’m not sure the Earthbox gets credit for that.  They turned into a wild tomato jungle, just two plants in one little box.  I attributed the difference to the fact that the Earthbox holds water in a reservoir, that the plants can seek out as needed.

Now, I’m doing the same experiment with Fall tomatoes which I planted a few weeks ago.  Not surprisingly, the tomatoes planted in the Earthbox look better than those in the raised bed.

Tomatoes in an Earthbox

Tomatoes in the raised bed

The most interesting thing about this is that the tomatoes in the raised bed almost didn’t make it at all, during those triple digit days, and had to be covered.  They are spindly and just don’t look good.  The tomato plants in the Earthbox never even needed to be covered, they just soldiered through the triple digits, sucking up water from the reservoir, I guess and are greener and much heartier.  I wish I’d invented it, I think they are amazing.

Late August Harvest, Austin Urban Garden August 20, 2010

It is actually like Hades out in the gardens, and I’m glad anything is still alive.  I’m harvesting and eating very few foods from the gardens now, and per my previous post, not planning to keep some of the less productive plants going.  This makes me sad, but I also hate my water bill and am a little scared about the next one.  So, today’s harvest:

Late August Harvest, limes, serranos and a watermelon

How random, I know!    I was afraid the watermelon wasn’t ready to be picked, but my instinct was good.  The bottom was softening and it was perfect!

Perfect Watermelon!

I have now successfully grown two watermelons.  Who would have thunk it?  I’m a bit of a watermelon farmer.

The rest of the garden is just hanging in.  I’ll pull up the low yield crops, per my earlier post, tomorrow.  Thank goodness for farmer’s markets or I’d be struggling for the next month, since my garden isn’t providing much food.

Dog Days of Summer – How to protect the garden August 14, 2010

By this time last year, after prolonged record setting heat, I had pulled up most of my herbs because watering them was such an unpleasant chore.  Now, they are mostly safe under the shade of a pecan tree on my patio, and I’m still watering them every day.  The tomatoes in the raised bed are still looking good. I think I got some particularly heat resistant varieties, mostly Valley Girls.  Still, this morning, I improvised some shade cloth from burlap and covered the most exposed tomatoes up.  It reminds me of the straw hat that will adorn my head this afternoon when I deliver soil in the heat of the day.

burlap shade cloth

The corn in the Three Sisters Garden is now setting tassles!  The other two sisters have mostly given up their fight through the heat.  I’m watering the corn, and everything else right now, every day in the early morning.  The corn also gets a misting in the heat of the afternoon.

tassles on the corn

The lone watermelon is growing every week. I’m not sure how big this variety is supposed to get, because I always lose the cards that say all that important stuff, but it looks healthy nonetheless.

Ever Growing watermelon

I planted two tomato plants in an Earthbox, hoping that the constant supply of water provided to the roots would help them through these final (hopefully) horrid days of heat.  They look as good or better as those in the raised bed.

Tomatoes in Earthbox

The serrano peppers need no protection, and are setting peppers faster than I can keep up with.   However, the pimiento varieties I bought the last couple weeks at the farmer’s market did not tolerate the heat at all and gave up the ghost rather quickly.

happy peppers

Sorry for the foggy pictures.  I’ve got a gazillion people coming to my house this weekend and I was impatient with the camera fogging up, so I just rolled with the bad pictures.

State of the Garden, Surviving the August Heat August 7, 2010

The last week of 100 degree temperatures has stressed some of the garden plants, yet some seem unfazed.  I’m watering pretty much every day, and spritzing the plants in the heat of the afternoon.  The Lemon Cucumbers look horrible, but there are so many flowers on them, they are covered with bees.  Basically, at this point, I’m leaving them in for the bees.  The Purple Hull Peas are gorgeous, and seemingly sprang out of nowhere.  They will be ready to pick when about half of the pod has turned purple, so very soon.

Purple Hull Peas

The one Celebrity plant I left in from Spring, looks like Hell, but true to form, is still setting fruit.

Celebrity Tomato

I also have another watermelon. This one is from a different plant than the last, and is a different variety.  It’s very cute though.

Watermelon

The peppers, of course, are happy as can be and getting hotter by the day.  Heat begets heat, so they are fiery.  I’m going to make homemade Siracha (not spelled right) with the Thai Chiles.

Thai Chiles

The Three Sisters Garden is having mixed results.  The corn looks fantastic, but shows signs of stress at the heat of the day.  The beans and pumpkins are not doing as well, and I can’t predict their outcome.

Three Sisters Garden

The lemons and limes are ready to be picked, I just need to decide what to do with them so none of these precious gems go to waste.

No sign of the potatoes yet, I’m keeping that site slightly damp.  I planted them deep and they are slow, so I’m not looking for signs of life for another couple of weeks.  Hopefully not until it is cooler.

The tomatoes I put out a couple weeks ago are hanging in and a couple have flowered.  I’m pleased with the garden as a whole, but wish this horrible heat would end soon.

Here’s the big garden:

the big garden overall

My First Garden Corn! July 1, 2010

For those of you who follow my little adventures, you know how excited I was to rip out my horrible landscaping (Nandina) and plant corn.  I’ve been so hopeful all along that the corn would make it, but for the last couple of weeks, it seemed to stop its progressive growth.  Yesterday a couple of the stalks fell over.  Was it from the weight of the corn?  Was it a sign that the plants were done?  The corn cobs seemed smallish.  After a day of errands, my friend Christian stopped by to chat about the day’s events.  When time came for him to leave to pick up Jaime, I said come back for a glass of wine and we’ll have happy hour.  I really just wanted support for what was about to happen, the plucking of the corn.  I had no idea if there would be kernals or not, worms or not, or just not anything.

So, I plucked a corn cob.

My first corn!

While not the monumental, lengthy grocery corn of my youth, I found it to be perfect, and wormless.  So, with company coming back, I wanted to celebrate my corn, so I scraped it off the cob, picked a ripe jalapeno, and took a ripe Celebrity from the window, and sauteed them together.

Corn, Garden tomato, and garden pepper

MMM, garden corn

The end result, was amazing to me, topped with shaved Sand Creek Farm Monterrey Jack.  I over peppered it for one of my guests.  Sorry C!  I didn’t know.

Final corn tasting

I have planted 40 corn seeds in the 5 x 5 garden I’ve dedicated to Three Sisters Gardening.   The corn I planted is different, but from Buck Moore Feed, so I’m sure it is corn that grows well here.  I’m excited for more corn adventures.  I picked some more and another tomato to boot!

this evening's harvest

Rain Fueled Planting Day – Three Sisters Garden June 29, 2010

I decided a few days ago to dedicate a 5′ x 5′  raised bed to attempting the Native American Three Sisters Garden, I posted about earlier.   Once the rain subsided this evening, I planted 40 corn kernels from Buck Moore Feed.  The seeds in the Renee’s Garden pack are multicolored Indian Corn, which is used mostly for decorations, and I wanted to plant food, so I substituted sweet corn.

Sweet corn

Then, as if that wasn’t enough planting to do in one late evening, I planted some seeds in little pots in the greenhouse.

Sungold Tomatoes, because they seem to be prolific producers if the local farms and farmer’s market tables are any indication, Butternut Squash, and my most favorite of this season, Lemon Cucumbers.

Seeds

I’m not through, preparing for the Fall Garden.  I’m going to start more seed tomorrow.  I just ran out of light.  The rain certainly inspired me to get the ball rolling.  It will be wonderful if it keeps raining for a few days.

Planting Guide for July

July is the month to start sowing seeds for the Fall Garden.  It isn’t quite time  yet to plant cooler weather crops like lettuce, Kale, cabbage, endive,  mustard, collards and potatoes, so save some room in your garden for planting those things in August.  Keep in mind the days to maturity of these thing for planning purposes.

All month:                   Days to Maturity

Herbs:

Basil, oregano, thyme

Veggies and Fruit:

Chard                             50-55

Sweet corn                  80-100

Cucumbers                  60-65

Eggplant                        75-90

Okra                                 55-60

Black-eyed peas          60-70

Peppers                           65-80

Pumpkin                         90-160 (depending on variety and size)

New Zealand Spinach 65-75

Summer Squash          50-55

Winter Squash              85-90

Tomato Plants*            70-85

Watermelon                  80-90

After July 15:

Lima Beans                    65-75

Snap Beans                    50-75

Canteloupe                     80-90

Carrots                             70-80

Cauliflower                     55-60

Fennel                              90-100

I was at Natural Gardener yesterday, and they said they thought they’d start receiving tomato transplants in late July.  In my experience, the cherry varieties withstand the heat and produce better than the full sized tomatoes, although my Celebrities are hanging tough right now.  I’m currently having the best luck with the Chocolate Cherry Tomatoes, which is the only Cherry variety I planted in Spring.  Last Fall, the Large Red Cherry variety did quite well.

I’m also having lots of luck with the Lemon Cucumbers and love them!  I found Seeds of Change Lemon Cucumber seeds at Natural Gardener yesterday.