The peas have really come on strong, we went out the other evening and with about 40 minuted of picking, we had a large utility bucket full, it’s about a bushel or so! Check it!

Bucket Full Of Purple Hulls.

And it don’t look they are stopping anytime soon!  We have Vacuum Sealed quite a few bags already. If you don’t have a food saver sealer or similar product, shell out the cash, its well worth it.

Anyway , like I said we have picked and shelled peas until were purple in the fingers..lol  couldn’t resist!

Cucumber Trellis

I set up two of these this year, one for the slicing cucumbers, and one for the pickling cukes!

The slicers have got a jump start on the others since the chickens got in the garden and scratched the picklers to death, they had to be replanted …dang chickens!

Cucumber Trellis

As you can see the slicers are on the left in this photo, and they have really shot up the trellis, which I made out of  4″x4″ goat wire and an old gate.

Pickling Cucumbers

This one is last years model, it is one 16 ft piece of cattle panel, bent into a gentle arc, works great, if you can keep the chickens off the seedling.

The Cukes are starting to get to a good size and I have picked a few already, they should start cranking out soon.

Well as I write this a well needed rain shower has started up, with lightning, so I’ll Send this on up to the interwebs for your viewing pleasure.

Good Growing to you!

Some Ideas For Your Spring Garden Preparations.

Here in my zone, it won’t be long until the cold weather goes away for a while, and will be replaced with the scorching temps that Southeast Texas is known for. In between those two extremes is the three week period known as Spring, when fair weather and sunshine prevail.

Until then the time is nye to make the preps for the long gardening season ahead. So here are some ideas to get you jump started.  Oh and If your are still under the 6 week sentence of  Punxsutawny Phil, adjust you times accordingly.

1. Order Some Seeds!

Get your seed catalogs out and order your new crops, get the beans, get the lettuce, get the melons , just get something! Also make sure you get the right crops for the right season!  There is no way I can grow lettuce  anytime after June in my area, its just way to hot.

2. Prepare the Planting Beds.

No matter if you till , or follow the no till, lasagna methods of bed prep, now is the time to start. I have loads of unraked leaves that haven’t made it to the compost pile yet, If you till, now is the time to work them in to the soil, They need time to break down properly.

Set up some raised beds, I have used concrete blocks landscape timbers, old tires, the possibilities are endless.  Also set up any fencing to keep the pests and varmints out! Bird netting too, don’t forget the bird netting! Its a life saver.

3. Start Some Seeds!

When the seeds you ordered come in, or the seeds you saved from last years garden, you did save some seeds didn’t you? You’ll need to start the seeds. Some plants do better being direct seeded, others do better with a head start, tomatoes are one example.

You can use the “Mini-Greenhouse”  kits you get at the box stores, or if you have a florescent light , and some space you can make a better homemade set up…Look for my post on this coming soon!  Anyway, use some loose seed starting soil and get to it, In five to fifteen days the seeds will begin to sprout, keep the grow light close to the seedlings so they don’t get to leggy!

Before you plant the seedlings, let them acclimate outside for a few days, wait till the weather will cooperate, this will keep the new tender plants from getting “weather shock”.

Well I hope these ideas get you started on the way to a great garden this year, lemme know what you get planted when the time comes, I’ll keep ya’ll up to date too!

And as always , thanks for stopping by!

We have had some pretty cool temps around here for the last month, also alot of rain too. Everything is one big, cold, mud puddle so doing anything around the garden has been difficult.  Today it warmed up to around 50 and the sun was out so I decided to dig up the Horseradish , which is better after a frost, we have had at least six in the last 2 weeks. I will grate this up later when I get a chance , I just wanted to get it out of the ground today since it was so nice outside. So without further delay here are the pixs!

Horseradish Ready for Harvest

Here is the plant about to be dug out, it looks pretty big from the top.

Horseradish Dug Up

Here I have chopped the tops off and dug it out, it was down pretty deep, there are alot of side shoots which will start new plants. I have to tell you that as I’m digging this out the smell is awesome, like really sweet horseradish sauce!

Horseradish Cleaned

Here I have hosed off most of the dirt and it looks good, there is one main root and a pretty good side root, I’ll grate this up later tonight and let you Know how it turns out!

And Have a good New Year BTW!!

I know I said in a previous post that we get the mild winters, well every now and then Mother Nature pulls a fast one. Friday afternoon, it started snowing here , not a blizzard mind you but snow.  This was the earliest recorded snowfall in our area since they started recording stuff like this. It was quite a shocker!!  The Friday evening the clouds and snow cleared off and the temps began to plummet, when I woke up Saturday it was 23 degrees , unheard of around here at this time of year, and oh the frost we saw!!

Frosty

Yep , I put it off until it was almost too late. i made a mad dash Friday afternoon to spread some hay around the garden in hopes that everything won’t be frozen solid, let’s hope it worked.

Frost in the back pasture

The shadow of the house and the frost that follows it.

This shot is of the shadow of the house and the frost like, the sun melts it so fast .

More frost out back

Yep, so forget all I said about mild winters here, let me rephrase that and say, Unpredictable Winters hahahahaha!

I’ll keep you posted on any plant damage in the future, too early to tell yet.

So until next time , stay warm!!!

The last three tomatoes of the season have turned red, and we’ll miss the great taste of a red, vine ripe summer tomato, oh well only 5 months till spring!

Now to clean out this area for the next round, or maybe I’ll let this bed sit for a while with a thick layer of compost.

First Sprouts Of The Fall/Winter Garden

So thanks to the extra mild temps we have had these last couple weeks, most of the stuff we direct seeded into the raised beds has started to sprout!

We seeded:

• Cauliflower
• Broccoli
• Brussels Sprouts
• Oriental Cabbage
• Regular Cabbage
• Carrots
• Red and Yellow  Onions
• Soft Neck Garlic
• Beets
• Radishes

I’m trying to figure out my macro settings on the camera , so maybe soon I can get some better pics for ya’ll.

Until then Enjoy the Fall weather, it’s awesome!!!

Hello again,

Well the South Texas heat has finally stopped the relentless assault on us and the rains have returned… we even had a few temps down in the 60′s , you can’t beat that!  So it’s been a busy few weeks around here, we have been horse sitting for a friend of my wife’s, we have moved cattle around to rotate pastures, and the garden work has picked back up.

After the Hornworm Incident last month, I had given up on the tomatoes, but there is one plant that still keeps chugging along.  So we shall see how that goes.  Mostly its been cleanup work, weeding , cutting back the dead stuff, you know how it goes.  We have also been filling up the compost piles, lots of goodies for that endeavor, old hay grass clippings and what not, so now we have two pretty big piles ready for next spring, if everything works as it should!

Now The Garden Plan!

Down here where we live we really don’t get winter. oh yea I hear ya , it gets cool, 40′ s maybe a freeze in January, but over all its more like a hard Fall season…I was stationed in Colorado in The Army, now it gets cold there!!  But that’s all the better for us , with the proper protection , you can garden dang near year round.   Most of your cool season crops just love the mild weather here from October until usually late December, even some root veggies and onions can stay in ground until spring, That is if the cold rainy days don’t get to crazy and it all rots.   So without further delay here’s what I’m planning for this fall season.

• Cabbage – some red and some green
• Carrots – can’t go wrong with carrots
• Onions and Garlic – Two more favorites around here
• Spinach and some Lettuce
• Broccoli – gonna try this again, I never have any luck with good broccoli

And whatever else I have a few extra seeds for , so stay tuned for the next installment now that things have cooled off a bit!

We finally got some good rain! For the last two weeks its been coming a shower here and a thunder boomer there, well we finally got a goos hour long soaker.

Looking out over the back pasture.

The rains have been mostly the summer afternoon 10 minute jobs,  but this one hung around for a while, about a month too late, everything but a few tomatoes and the watermelons have long since burned to a crisp.  Oh well fall garden coming soon!

Another view of the back.

Yep , it kept raining and raining and raining, I wasn’t sure if it was going to stop!  I guess I really didn’t want it to, it was so nice to see.  Not to mention we needed it, we got enough that the county lifted the burn ban!!  woo hoo!

View out the front of the house

So everything is getting greener and it’s actually a little cooler today, maybe its a trend!

We can only hope!

Corn in a raised bed

With the triple digit temps we have had for the past month and some odd days most of the garden is looking a little weak, but not the corn …or the watermelon for that matter!!

Watermelon Patch

The cucumbers have run their course , the tomoatoes are slow to bloom in this heat , but these two , they just keep on truckin.  The corn stands at least six feet tall, and the WM has covered abour a 10×10 area from one single mound of about 4 seeds.   The corn has put out tassle and the melon are small but growing bigger by the day, cant wait for some fresh corn and a lage slice of watermelon.

Here it is the end of April and I thought I better get an update put up.   Well with all the rain its a shock that everything didn’t float away.

The Asparagus bed is looking good, I can’t get a picture yet, it all blends into the green grass of the pasture at this point, but soon my faithful minions …soon!

Onion plants

The onions are looking good, they are shooting right up, no bulbs showing yet. Also have some Garlic right behind these.  The garlic is moving right along too, i know i need to get in there a weed. I mulched everything in these beds with some pine needles from the front yard.  Needs another layer before the real heat shows up… it wont be long.

Onions and Garlic

Here is the Garlic photo, I used construction fencing to keep the chickens out, works real good.

You cam also see the spinach in this photo, we have already harvested some spinach from this bed, It was delish!

Horseradish and Potato

This is a Horseradish plant, actually two, the other one is way smaller and is closer to the near side of the planter. On the left side is a purple potato that I planted in there just to see what it would do, guess we see.

Wow , I can’t tell you how much rain we have had in the last two days! It started Friday afternoon , It came down for a couple hours and cleared off. Then Saturday it really came on strong. It was nice up till 10:30 or so, it started with a lite drizzle, and only got worse from there. It rained for hours and hours, then around 6:00pm it fizzled out. We need the rain , just not all at once!

On another note, the potatoes we set last week started to sprout up, also the cucumbers are peeking out too. So all in all not a bad week!

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