Texas Fall/Winter thread!

[Bird]

7:43am now and as Jim predicted it is now 29*. I see plenty of frost outside too!

I can see plenty of frost outside, and the temperature got down to 30, but the sun's coming up and so is the temperature. Officially, it's 32, but my infrared thermometer shows 34 everywhere on the patio.

 

[jinman]

I have two thermometers on two sides of the house. One showed 27 and the other 28 at 7:30 this morning. Brrr! Lots of frost on the grass. My yard is white as snow. I'd bet this will put the trees into fall in earnest.

 

[MRSDOUGLAS]

Don't have a thermometer out here yet but our second night in the country and we woke up to beautiful frost covered grass and steam coming off the pond, egrets walking through the shallows. God I love this! With the sun coming up the only frost left is in the shadows of the trees.

 

[Western]

I have two thermometers on two sides of the house. One showed 27 and the other 28 at 7:30 this morning. Brrr! Lots of frost on the grass. My yard is white as snow. I'd bet this will put the trees into fall in earnest.

Plenty cold Jim!! and who is Earnest:scratchchin::rotfl:

 

[jinman]

and who is Earnest:scratchchin::rotfl:

Earnest. . . know what I mean?

 

[jinman]

My peppers have lost their pep. The sub-freezing temperature really put an end to my remaining plants.

 

[Western]

Jim, I hear ya! I had 4 watermelon plants I have been "playing" with, actually had 4 melons on when the freeze hit. Overnight the plants turned black. Side note: For some reason all the melons but 1 have gotten a Black spot, that in time consumed the whole melon, never had this problem until we moved out here. Any ideas?? I wasn't expecting much fro these melons since they where planted late in mid-summer, but the "black" spot happened when I planted melons on the upper part of the place a few years back also. I have even tried putting a piece of treated wood under the young melons to keep them a bit elevated...thoughts?

 

[jinman]

Dennis, I have trouble with melons dark spotting when I have to water them in late summer. Melons really don't like to be watered. The early spring rains soak the ground and produce a large melon plant, but when the melons start to grow, we always had luck in dry sandy soil on my dad's place in Denton where the melon roots could go deep and find the proper amount of moisture. The best melons I can remember were never watered. In my garden, I'm guilty of over-watering. I'm sure the uneven moisture is part of the problem. I can't believe our soil here is low in calcium, but I guess it could be. When I first put my garden in, Bird reminded me to get a soil test. Now that I have the final mix of soils, that's probably what I should do. I grow great cantaloupes, but not-so-good watermelons.

 

[Western]

Jim, same here on the cantaloupes? They seem to thrive, same with pumpkins. There is a farmer half way between my place and Decatur, (where 114 and hwy 51 run together) That grows melons every year on around 50 acres, melons every where, they even will sell them on the side of the road too. Maybe next year if I can stop, I'll throw it at him and see what his take on it is.

I would be surprised if this time it was a "water issue", but the ones we tried up in the garden only got rain for watering (big reason the rest of the garden died)

 

[jinman]

Yep, Dennis. That melon farm is all sandy bottom land. It has "please grow melons" signs all over it. You can grow anything in soil like that. If he wanted to grow sugar cane or cotton, he'd also have a bumper crop. It's the kind of land farmers kill for.