The joys of gardening

In honor of my 1000th page view today(thank you loyal readers!) I've decided to make today a double post day! So make sure you enjoy the post just below this one as well.

One of the good things about growing a garden in TX is the long growing season. I believe the last frost hit around March here. Which makes people in Montana jealous. The bad thing about growing a garden in TX is the over bearing heat. Which has decimated my tomato plants this year. I even bought a pair of "heat resistant" plants to see how they would do. They actually ended up producing more tomatoes than my non heat resistant plants but the tomatoes are small and there were not very many of them. The plants that seem to do the best in this heat seem to be my cucumbers. They have spread over a quarter of my garden and encroached on some of my other crops.

I underestimated the size those cucumber plants would need. I also put them up against my fence line with the intent of them climbing the fence and saving some space. I tried to train them the best I could. Apparently the plants had other plans growing more the exact opposite direction from the fence. I'm still not sure why.


I also underestimated the size of my watermelon plant. It actually came as a surprise. I had thought all was lost with the sowing of those seeds. At least 6 weeks had gone by after sowing and no signs of sprouts. Finally a single plant out of about 6 seeds planted showed up. The plan was to transplant after the plant had a chance to get a little stronger but as usual, other things always come up and its put off till tomorrow. Well tomorrow ended up being weeks later and by that point I decided to just leave it. It has entirely consumed a 3ft by 12ft space in the back of my garden. Surprisingly it has only produce one melon. But it sure is a beaut.

My soil here is crap as well so I used a method taught to me by a master gardener(my father). Each plant had a hole dug about 8 - 12 inches deep and about 12 inches wide and filled with a good potting soil.

The plants themselves did great before this heat hit. I will be using the method again early next spring. I will be sowing early in the planting season to see if I can get a pre-summer harvest.

I only have one more growing season before I have to replace all the grass I've killed in my backyard to prepare to sell this house and hopefully move on to our small homestead somewhere in KS. If any of you have any tips or tricks to beat this summer heat beating down our gardens leave a comment and let me know.

Thanks again to all of you, my loyal readers. This truly is a labor of love when you know people are returning time and time again to check out and read the posts on the site. Make sure you are clicking the share to Facebook or the Tweet This link at the top of the page and help me in spreading the word about self sustainment practices.

Y'all keep it straight out there.