Wednesday, November 9, 2011

Another detour to the veggie garden

     It is November 9th, we had a cold front pass late yesterday which provided a good 1/2" of rain, and a nice day today, the sky is clear and the temperature in the sun is a nice refreshing 72 deg. F and in the shade about 64 F. There is a cool envigorating breeze blowing.
     The day started out with a required visit to the doctor who commented that my blood pressure is that of someone 30 years younger than I, in other words, it is perfect. I reminded him the last time he used those exact words, 2 1/2 years ago, I suffered two strokes, the first within 8 minutes of leaving his office and while driving, the second 12 hours later in the hospital.
     Today, since we had the good rain yesterday, one had to look at the veggie garden which suffered much during the dry summer and fall, but it is still producing on a limited basis.
     The radishes are still doing well, with a new batch started about every 14 days.
Since radishes deter some garden pests they are not planted in nice neat rows, but scattered.
The radishes harvested this afternoon (Nov. 8, 2011)

The Cauliflower are coming up and should make before the first real hard frost,
 if we get a "hard" frost in this part of Texas.

Also looking forward to some Broccoli. (not shown is
what we hope will be Red Cabbage - which the heat and worms got early this year.)
We are still getting a few yellow bell peppers.
The Rosemary loves it in the shade of the non producing Avocado tree.
The oregano really suffered this year but it is producing.
It is also living in the shade of the avocado tree.
There is still an abundance of Anaheim peppers which have tolerated the heat and drought quite well.
Red Bell peppers, they are so good in a salad as well as stir fried.
Though not a great producer, the Pamiento pepper plant is providing some peppers.
And we are looking forward to the fall / early winter crop of Beets.
Those from the very early spring were picled and are delicous.
Starting on the next post we will leave the vegetable garden and go back Out West.

Wednesday, November 2, 2011

Gone for a while

    Once in a great while the task of life interferes with other plans, and having just discovered that I have not posted anything for two months now I will make a few changes to the plans so that posts will resume. We will resume with the "Go West - ..." postings. Without adding photos I can tell all of you that the watermelon plant suddenly took off on its own, greened up and gave us three more watermelons, one which rotted in the bottom, one which actually completely ripened and is now in the process of being eaten, and a smaller melon which was given away for others to enjoy. In the meantime the broccoli and cauliflower plants seem to be doing well, just need some rain, which is supposed to arrive tonight. The last rain of consequence in this part of Texas fell on October 8th, a much needed rain of 4 1/4" at this location, which the ground soaked up in no time at all.