How My Garden Grows

The garden is starting to produce. Green tomatoes are plentiful on the vine, my first batch of "outside" potatoes are nearly ready to be picked, and the snow peas rarely make it in the house because I keep munching on them. I even picked eggplants early this year. (Thanks to the greenhouse.)

Cabbage worms once again attacked my kale. I thought I had outsmarted them because I moved the plants to the farthest part of the garden, but they got nailed. 

Although, I planted sweet peppers and pimentos, I didn't do any hot peppers. I've since decided to start a couple of jalapeno. I'll keep them in pots so I can get a few for fresh eating this year, then overwinter them to start early next year.

The green beans did great this year despite the fact I had to plant them twice. Something ate them the first time. 

I also found squash bugs in and around my garlic bed. They don't bother garlic, they're just sheltering from the sun--and waiting for me to plant my squash. Suckers! All my squash are in pots this year and away from the garden. We'll see how it goes. 

Speaking of garlic, They've been pulled and are currently curing. I already harvested the garlic scapes. I'm going to try my niece's garlic scape pesto. 

I found an article where this woman stored her hardneck garlic intact with the stalks, but left loose in a tall box. She claims they kept fresh for 9 months. I'm going to try it.

My big surprise this year have been the grapes. Last year they had black spot, a very destructive fungal disease. I sprayed it with a fungicide and cut it back severely over the winter. If the disease had come back this year, I intended to tear both vines down.

As a matter of fact I had bought two new grape vines and had put them in pots, thinking I was going to need them as replacements. Instead I get bushels of grapes from all four plants. I've never seen such a transformation.

I'm not quite sure what I'm going to do them with them all. Jelly for sure. 

The garden and front yard landscaping is getting there. The greenhouse has helped a lot. It's kept me more organized and I'm better able to keep up with plants' needs. 

I'm still having problems keeping one bed in my front yard populated with plants. It's in dappled shade during the day until late afternoon. Unfortunately, most of the flowers/grasses I've planted there either don't make it, or get eaten by deer. So far only the bulbs seem to make it but I think they'd be happier in full sun.

Zone 8B in Texas is an odd mix. Perennials must survive extreme heat, some drought, 2-4 weeks of freezing weather, and deer. Most everything I've planted there has lost the battle to one of those things. 

I'll keep experimenting until I find something that likes to live there. 

Greg has had a bee in his bonnet (for me) to grow dragon fruit. He's even promised to build it its own little tent so it'll stay warm during the winter months. I'm researching now for the best tasting dragon fruit. Apparently, the ones from the grocery stores are sad versions of real dragon fruit that's allowed to ripen on the vine. 

My big win this year is that we're seeing fireflies again! When I was a kid I used to see them all the time in forests and nature preserves, but their populations have dwindled dramatically, even where we live. This year, we're seeing a lot more. Yay, nature! 

We've been waiting for the weather to be sunny on a weekend so we can have our garage sale. (We've had plenty of nice days--but never on the weekend.) Everything is tagged. All we need is a little cooperation from Mother Nature. 

I apologize for being so absent lately. I've had my hands full to say the least. Do you see fireflies where you live?

 

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