This ain't no Garden of Eden

[jinman]

Time for more braggin'. . .

It's been 100+ so many days that I quit counting. Right now, it's 106.2 by my thermometer and I'd bet that is pretty close to correct. Even so, my garden is showing very few signs of being damaged by the heat. My tomatoes have started producing nicely. As usual, my cherry tomatoes are great producers of some of the best tasting fruit. I pick them when they are about half ripe and let them finish inside. Every salad I eat is loaded with cherry tomatoes and a few grape tomatoes. My grape tomato production is again lower than I'd expect. I think it is too hot for them despite the fact that the plants are almost 8' tall and very healthy. I read somewhere that they won't set tomatoes above 90 degrees. I just may have to plant more cherry tomatoes next year and skip the grape tomatoes.

As usual, my Early Girl tomatoes are doing very well. Each plant is so loaded that I've picked well over two dozen and tossed them to encourage the remaining tomatoes to get bigger. My 444 tomato is also doing very well and is full of baseball size tomatoes. I'm picking enough to have all the tomatoes I can eat and give away. I made some pico de gallo using my fresh cilantro. It was terrific. I made about a pint and a half and I have only one serving left. Time to get busy and make some more.

I'm not really please with the production of the Better Boys. It may be a heat thing too. I suspect if I had set out tomatoes about 3 or 4 weeks earlier, The fruit would have set and I'd be harvesting baskets full of tomatoes. As it is, I'm getting plenty, but tomatoes are not setting on some varieties. The really late plants I set out have a few tomatoes, but the heat is getting to them too. If it cools off a bit, I'm sure they will set more fruit.

I've picked half a dozen cantaloupes so far and they are delicious. They're Hales Best variety and very sweet and tasty. If something doesn't get them, I'll have about 50 more. They seem to thrive in the heat.

My squash and zucchini is struggling to fight off viruses and bugs. I can handle the bugs, but the plant viruses are tough on them. I've lost three plants that slowly wilted and died. Even so, we are picking lots of squash.

Cukes? Well, they just shock me by how many they can produce. If I go two days without picking, I'll have a small basket full. If I wait three days, I'll have a 5-gal bucket full. We give away 95% of the cukes and haven't had any problem finding a home for them yet.

My favorites are my banana peppers and okra. Our okra and peppers are just awesome. Every week, the okra production seems to grow exponentially. Every other day, we get over a gallon of okra. With the heat, it seems production just increases. I'm also picking a dozen and a half of nice sized banana peppers every other day. Bell peppers are also healthy and very productive.

Right now, we are drying parsley, thyme, and basil. The cilantro doesn't keep it's flavor really well when it's dried, so I'm picking it fresh and chopping it for my salsa and pico. We haven't picked any sage yet, but it is about 1' tall and very healthy.

So that's about a full report on my little garden. I sure hope it cools to the 90s soon. I don't know how long the plants can take all this heat. Right now, the south wind is gusting 15-20 mph. It will almost burn you when you step outside. Here are some pictures from this morning.

1. Big tomatoes - Yes, the grape tomato plants are taller than the Mule
2. Early Girl plant
3. Another Early Girl
4. 444 tomato (supposed to be overwatering, heat and disease resistant)
5. Cantaloupe Carpet - They are in there, you just can't see them
6. Squash-Cukes-Zucchini
7. Banana peppers growing and very healthy
8. Okra - I love this plant and I love its fruit.

 

[Bird]

Since I don't have a garden anymore, we stopped by the little Farmer's Market they have 3 days a week in Denton this morning. Of course, we bought the usual: tomatoes, yellow squash, white squash, zucchini, and okra, but I also got some fresh figs; first fresh figs I've had in about 8 years.

 

[J35]

In S AZ I would put the Early girl tomatoes out on March 15, usually we would have tomatoes by late May right on thru Thanksgiving. Most of that time was above 100* during the day. The trick for us was to plant them close so three or four plants would look like one large bush, that way they shaded each other thru the heat of the day, they were on drip irrigation three or four hrs ea night.

I had two large Mesquites that I put cherry tomatoes under one year , every year after that they would come back on their own ea spring, I had drip irrigation under the tree and the tomatoes thrived, not sure about Texas but in the upper Sonoran desert the very best soil was under the large mesquites, fertilizer was never needed.

have fun

 

[jinman]

Bird, I'd offer you veggies for free, but the extra 100 mile round trip would negate any savings. Trouble is, we go to Fort Worth alot, but don't get to Denton that much and Corinth even less. We give away far more than we keep and you would be at the top of my list if you were closer.

J35: After watering this morning, there was some slight wilting this afternoon in the hot wind, but not that much. One thing about this garden is that it is surrounded by trees. The tomatoes only get about 8 hours of full sun each day. This time of year, that's a real plus. My okra gets full sun except for the very early morning. The late tomatoes I planted get full sun and they aren't setting much fruit that I can tell.

I think you are right about the mesquite tree. They do put nitrogen back into the soil. However, if I had my choice, I'd take a legume crop like peas instead. I hate mesquite thorns.

 

[Ray2310]

Everything looks great Jim.

I have been busy upgrading our garden and did not want to post pictures until I was done. However it seams we are never done. I added 6 more raised beds and added a chicken coop with 20 chickens to the garden area.

Here are some pictures of the garden and coop.

I will post some more pictures of the veggies when I get back from vacation.

 

[jinman]

Ray, your garden just keeps getting better and better. It's really picture perfect. It appears like everything is healthy too. Is that an irrigation pipe I see on each bed? Do you think having chickens that close will reduce the number of bugs? That's a great coop. What is your shade material made of and how did you get such a perfect color match? You did know I was going to ask a thousand questions, didn't you?

 

[Bird]

Ray, that certainly is pretty.

 

[Scooby074]

Jim: looks like you have a nice crop growin.

Ray: nice looking setup. The chicken coop looks almost too nice for some old chickens Ive stayed in cottages that wernt that nice

Great gardens guys.

 

[Ray2310]

Ray, your garden just keeps getting better and better. It's really picture perfect. It appears like everything is healthy too. Is that an irrigation pipe I see on each bed? Do you think having chickens that close will reduce the number of bugs? That's a great coop. What is your shade material made of and how did you get such a perfect color match? You did know I was going to ask a thousand questions, didn't you?

Jim,

sorry I didn't respond earlier..was out of town for a few days.

That is an irrigation pipe. Water comes from the greenhouse to each bed that has an isolation valve. We got a bunch of the soaker tube and put it around all the plants then put newspaper down with grass much to help keep things damp.

I'm hoping the chickens will cut down on bugs. But we do have to keep them out of the garden because they will tear up everything.

My wife bought the shade material at Wal-Mart. The roofing is from Home Depot We just got lucky on the colors. They are nearly a perfect match.

 

[Uncle Doug]

Jim, it does not look like the heat is not doing too much damage to your garden.

I am having the same problem with the wilting back on some of the plants. All the bell peppers over a 2 week period all just gave up. They were covered with peppers about 2-3 inches in size. The only clue was that some of the peppers were getting small brown spots that would grow in size and make the pepper spoil. Then within the past week some of the Jalapino pepper plants have also started to wilt back and not recover. About 3 or 4 of them so far. Each was also covered in peppers. I was able to pick and save all of those peppers. DW cooked up some today with the cream cheeze and bacon.

Been picking 4-5 catalope a week for the past several weeks. Planted some pumpkin over in the old corn patch location. I ran the tiller back over everthing first. Some of the first of them are starting to sprout. I also took some of the guts of one of the catalopes and planted in a couple of the hills last week. Those are also starting to sprout now also.

BTW, had a great time up in Dallas. Sorry we were not able to get up your way. Maybe later this year.

In the early stages of planning the fall garden. Have picked up a few seeds while they are still available. I missed the county agents fall garden class last week.