At the risk of jinxing myself and my garden, I will cautiously say that I think I’ve figured out Texas gardening.
At least a little.
The garden, though still in it’s infancy for the 2011 season, is bursting. Our greens have been plentiful, and the new transplants are established and growing heartily.
Starting seeds was not as successful as we hoped, but the transplants have been doing well. We took two of the older beds, dug them out, and replaced the soil with square foot garden mix. In them we are growing winter and summer squash, sweet and hot peppers, watermeon and cantaloupe, with a few marigolds mixed in. There are also cucumbers, mustard greens (still growing huge leaves), beats, garlic, onions, tomatillos and tomatoes!
Some of the tomatoes we started from seed survived and are growing. They aren’t nearly as large as the transplants, particularly in the square bed where Andy dug down 3 feet so they would have a deep root system before the summer heat set in. There are numerous green tomatoes all over those plants, and we just need to put in supports so they won’t topple over.
We also added a new tree to our orchard — a Cara Cara orange. I’ve decided to try growing citrus again, but in a container. I miss Limey, and I don’t want anything to happen to Cara. She’s a little thorny, but we’ll manage when it’s time to bring her inside for the winter. In the meantime, both peaches and both plums are growing well, and the blackberries are covered in little green berries.
Ah, the hope of spring. Now I just need to defend my garden against the drought, heat and insect invaders. No rest!
