Greening Austin Daily

Moderate Gardening Success Part 5

23rd June, 2010 - Posted by katherine - No Comments

I’ve still been really enjoying gardening, although I haven’t had a ton of success. But I’m learning a lot about when to plant things in Texas and all about organic methods, so hopefully I will have a nice fall garden.  Here are some pics of what’s going on now in the garden, along with some facts and tips I’ve learned from reading this book:

My lettuce is doing  well, but I’ve realized from my reading that lettuce does not like hot weather.  My gardening book suggests planting lettuce August 10-September 30th for a fall garden, so I am going to try that too.  I tasted a leaf from this plant though, and it was pretty good – not bitter at all, just slow growing.

My Serrano pepper plant is doing really well, which is expected in hot weather in Texas. I had at least 10 little peppers on my plant before I took off these 3 which were the largest. I used them on Sunday to make an Indian dish for dinner.  We also harvested 1 jalapeño pepper already from another plant, which was very spicy and delicious.

This plant is the best of my beets. Apparently beets don’t love hot weather either, preferring either to be planted in very early spring or late summer.  My gardening book suggests August 1-September 30th for fall beets, and I have plenty of seeds left so I am going to try again.

My tomato plants are doing ok – out of 7 only 3 have fruit, but 1 more is close to getting fruit.  In Ohio, it’s so easy to grow tomatoes – I feel like they just go crazy with very little attention, so I’m a little disappointed. I’ve also never grown roma tomatoes before though, so maybe the plants just don’t get as big. I also think I waited too long to plant them, but tomatoes also can be grown in the fall, so I am going to leave these plants in and see if they start to do better in the fall.  I’ve also planted some tomato plants inside that I’m starting for a fall crop, and they are a bigger variety, so maybe they will do well. My gardening book suggests planting for a fall crop between July 1st and August 5th.

On the squash field, things are more disappointing.  I started 8 plants from seed, and have had a lot of flowers which never turned into fruit. Then I realized after reading my gardening book that I was having all male flowers! Every single one has been a little guy, destined to fade out and produce nothing. I don’t really know if it’s just bad luck or if there’s something about the conditions they are in that they aren’t producing female flowers, but I”m going to try again with a fall crop of a different variety.

eggplant coming up

2 of my 7 okra plants

I started these guys recently as some of the few vegetable plants that are supposed to really thrive in the hottest days of summer, so I’m excited to see what will happen.