Final Garden update of 2012

It is almost September and my garden is done for the year.  I put the last plant in the trash, put my tomato cages back in the garage, pulled the last weed and turned the last spade of soil on it yesterday. 

This year was a lot like last year in some ways: it wasn't the seasons changing that did my garden in.  It was negligence.  Last year my grandfather suffered a stroke and we left town for over a week, when our area was consistently getting 100 degree days and the garden died.

This year I left for a week to clean out a barn back home while my wife was incredibly busy (we're talking 14+ hour days busy) and the weather was 100 degrees.  The garden went unwatered, and predictable results followed.

I got to thinking about a general overview of this year gardening, and thought yall might enjoy it too.

What we did differently this year:

• Added 3 planters to the garden.  One with herbs in it (Only Basil did well) and the other two with strawberries (that never produced anything)
• Put down mulch/sheeting around to garden to help prevent grass growth in the beds.  This was mostly successful, though there was still some grass that popped up in the garden beds.
• Planted less peppers and tomatoes to add watermelon and squash.  
• I didn't bother setting up  drip irrigation this year.  Last year I had problems with the lines clogging a little, and the pressure always seemed too high or low.  I either flooded plants or they didn't get enough water.

 Plants that did well this year:

• Tomatoes
• Squash
• Jalapenos
• Basil

Plants that underperformed:

•   Bell peppers
• Pretty much every pepper besides the Jalapenos
• Watermelons
• Strawberries

Over all, it was another good year.  We got a TON  of squash and tomatoes, used the basil a lot, and had a decent amount of jalapenos.

Got a quick hint for yall of an upcoming post now.....when I actually post about it I'll include some installation details as well:

Garden Update (4?)

Not sure what update I'm on, but I have lot of garden news! First a couple of quick pictures of the garden:

The tomato plants, due to their continued instance that "I grow where I want", have been placed in govt reeducation centers, also known as "cages".  These cages should help the tomatoes grow upright, though the quality of the cages leaves much to be desired, as they were obtained by govt contract or "at walmart".

Our watermelon plants continue to grow wherever as well, but hopefully the intimidation of seeing the tomatoes cages will show them how to get in line.  I doubt it though, because they're dirty fuzzy watermelon hippies.

The Cherry tomato plants have begun producing lots of flowers and little tomatoes, and should be ready for taxing or  "harvesting"  soon.  The strawberry and herbs planted in our gardening pots continue to under perform, proving yet again that separate but equal is a crock of BS.  

The peppers are the soccer moms or "most confusing" plants of the lot.  They can't decide what they want to do yet.  I'm not sure if its just not hot enough for them, if they haven't been pandered to enough, or if I simply need to start getting more expensive haircuts to win their love, but we have some pepper plants that are very big but haven't so much as flowered, and some that are tiny and will probably crush themselves under the weight of the single pepper they're growing. 

Our squash, like most politicians, are very pretty and have promised lots and lots of crop for harvest.  Unfortunately, just like most politicians...our squash have promised lots and delivered little.  We have one small squash that is starting to grow, but they promise to do better if we reelect them in November.

All of our plants, minus the political squash, seem to be suffering the effects of bugs or "1000s of pages of petty laws and regulations" which isn't helping them to grow and produce.  Man, my garden has lots of issues! 

Tomatoes:

Peppers:

Squash:

Garden Visitor

Went out to check on the garden the other day and found this little guy, a red footed tortoise.  They're apparently native to South America, but have been exported as pets in the past.  Its possible this guy got out from somewhere I suppose. 

Either way, after a few pictures he ran off.  I guess he's camera shy. 

Garden Update

Our garden has been in the ground for a week now, so I thought it was time for a status update.

In general, things are looking pretty good.  1 watermelon plant is dead, our squash have come up, and 2 of my pepper plants are looking sickly..but its early, so I can always replant if needed.

The other addition I've made is a fence.  Some of our friends with dogs live in apartments (my wife is in school), so we make it a point to invite friends and their dogs over to take advantage of our big backyard.  Unfortunately, not all of those dogs respect the garden like our dog does, so if I want to avoid my plants being chewed on, peed and pooped on, or dug up...I have to have a fence.

Alright, enough chatter, its picture time.

Garden with the fence around it:

My squash poking their little heads out:

My 4 watermelon plants (3 looking good, one with no leaves left):

My pepper plants, showing the contrast between a healthy and sickly plant.

Next update will be about our potted herbs and strawberries and how we set up our pots this year.
 

We're in the ground!

Its central Texas, so April first is long enough to wait before planting.  Last year we planted in mid March with no difficulties, but weather and other obligations pushed us back this year.

We have 3 cherry tomato plants, 3 large tomato plants, 4 watermelon seedlings, 2 jalapenos, 1 serrano, 1 anaheim, 1 bell pepper and 1 poblano pepper plants along with 1 sweet basil, 2 strawberries, and seeds in the ground for squash, rosemary, and cilantro. 

Here's to another great year of gardening, grilling and guns!

 

Reclaiming the garden

After the tomatoes died off last year and I cut down the pepper plants, I just left our garden beds alone all winter, so they needed a little TLC this year.

 One thing we noticed last year was the tendency of grass to creep up over the beds, and for both purely aesthetic reasons and the practical "i hate grass in my garden" reasons, we decided to put in a plastic liner, spray to kill the grass, cover with a lawn tarp, and add mulch.  It didn't even take a full day of work, but made things look MUCH nicer in my opinion.

Here's how things were looking after a good 6 months of outright neglect (Yes, I threw our dead tree onto the beds so I could mow).

First thing we did was mow on the shortest grass setting around the beds to get a feel for how it would look with the mulch. 

Since we thought that was a pretty good border, I went ahead and sprayed the low cut grass with a grass/weed killer to keep it from coming back up through our tarp/mulch.  After that, it was time to put in our 4" plastic border.  Honestly, I don't know if the border will do a lick of good other than keeping the mulch kind of where its supposed to be, but it looks okay and clearly defines the edge, so thats good enough.  Installing it required digging a nice little trench all the way down the 3 sides of the garden.

While I dug, my wife pulled the stray grasses out of the garden beds.  After I got the border installed, we staked down our weed mat tarp in the feeble hope this spray/tarp/mulch combo will keep grass out of  our gardening area.  Time will tell if it does or not.

10 bags of mulch around the beds and 2 bags of compost on the beds later, I'd say our garden is looking much improved! 

The plan is to go ahead and plant seedlings this weekend.  We will probably go with one full bed of tomatoes again, varying types from cherry and grape to full sized, and one bed of squash/peppers. 

We are also going to be putting some pots between the beds and the fence and attempting to grow some herbs this year as well.  Basil for certain, maybe rosemary as well. 

Amazing what an afternoon of work can do to transform how a garden looks! 

Garden Teaser

This is a teaser post that's going to kind of recap how BAD our backyard looked when we moved into this house, and what we've done to improve it.

So far, we've put in grass seed, raised garden beds, planted 2 bushes and a tree, dug up 2 dead bushes and a tree (all three died in the desert of a summer we had this last year), and put some mulch around our raised beds (detailed post on that to follow later this week). 

Plans this year include expanding our 10x10 concrete patio to a larger gravel patio with space for our outdoor patio furniture and a fire pit, and some sort of "bench feature" with hanging plants and a trellis at the rear right of the yard to offset the garden on the left.

All in all, I am very proud of how far we've come, and look forward to our continued backyard improvements. 

Some pictorial proof of my boasting....

When we signed papers on the house:

When we moved in (2010):

Last year:

Today, 3/25/2012:

And my dog enjoying the good weather and nice grass:

Stay tuned for another gun post tomorrow (a discussion of pistol caliber carbines), followed Tuesday by a detailed post on our mulch project around the garden beds.

Tomatoes, Tomatoes, Tomatoes!!!

It's been a few days since I've posted.  In that time, our garden has EXPLODED.  It absolutely loves this hot, humid weather we've had here in central Texas this last week.  As of last count, I have over 70 green tomatoes, 2 bell peppers, and at least 6 jalapeno peppers growing. 

I've decided growing your own vegetables is like Christmas for kids.  Every day, I go out and look at my "presents" and hope someday soon I can begin unwrapping them!  After smelling my green tomatoes, I got so depressed by store tomatoes that I didn't buy any during my weekly grocery shopping last week.  I later regretted this decision, because a sandwich is next to WORTHLESS without tomatoes on it, even crummy store bought ones. 

There will be some new cooking posts this week as well.  On the menu is ribs, chicken stuffed with shrimp, and shrimp kabobs.  (can ya tell I like buying one ingredient and making multiple meals?)

Until next time, here's some pictures of the developments in the garden.  The white powder is Sevin Dust.  Something's been tearing my poor peppers to pieces, so I put a little on the whole garden since we're a ways away from harvest.  The stuff works!  My leaves are looking a little more intact and less nibbled on. 

Only one of our squash plants is acting like its going to make it.  Here it is next to its fallen comrade.

Our first garden

Gr0wing up, my parents always had tomatoes growing in the backyard. The difference in taste between homegrown and store bought tomatoes is kind of like the difference between a Honda Civic and a Mercedes CL65 AMG . Yes, they're both technically cars, but its hard to enjoy the Civic after driving the AMG. I feel the same way about tomatoes. Yes, what you buy in the store is technically a tomato....but it doesn't compare to the taste of homegrown.

With that in mind, we put in a garden this year to the house we purchased last year.

Because central Texas soil in our area is about 99.9999% pure clay, we chose to build a couple of raised beds for our garden and bring in garden quality composted soil.

We decided on 2 4x8 foot beds built with 2x6 boards, one for tomatoes and one for peppers and squash. After laying boards down in the approximate location, I put out some sand to mix in with the clay for better drainage and turned the soil to a depth of about 6".


The next fun task was filling the newly built raised beds with a cubic yard of composted soil. After many lemonade breaks and with my muscles promising a fun morning, we finally got it all put together.


Now it was time to plant! After an always amusing Wal Mart trip (If you don't think Wally World visits are fun, I recommend you check this site out: www.peopleofwalmart.com ) , we returned home with our retinas thankfully intact and 8 tomato plants, 7 pepper plants and 3 squash plants in tow.

Our tomato varieties: 2 Celebrity, 2 Grape tomato, Better Bush, Better Boy, German Queen, and Superfantastic. The peppers consist of 1 each green, yellow and red bell peppers, 2 jalepeno peppers, 1 serrano, and 1 anaheim pepper plants.

As they were planted, Tomato bed first, then peppers and squash:
Now that its 3 weeks later and I'm finally blogging, the tomatoes are showing tremendous growth. The peppers are looking pretty decent as well, and the squash are busy trying to die on me, because I've been essentially waterboarding them. (Hint: squash don't need as much water as tomatoes do). I also got drip irrigation installed, and we have our first tiny green tomato.


So far, our German Queen is looking the best, with strong stalks and nice big leaves.

This is the Better Boy tomato variety. Ironically, it is our sorriest looking plant, which just a week ago would have received my prestigious Most likely to Die First in my Garden award, was the first to produce a tomato, and has passed on the crown of Most Likely to Die First to the terrorist squash I've been waterboarding.

Until next time, Shoot safe, grill weekly, and go have fun in the garden!