Cat's Garden in Austin, TX

Its the end of October, 2014. How does your garden grow?  Well, this is how mine is growing. Anaheim peppers Ancho peppers      Basil and kale that won't die  Tomatoes  Yellow Squash Tomatoes   Yes I do have watermelon still growing.

It was a rainy night last night.  We got 3" by the automatic meter system, except the manual rain gauge says we got 4.25".  And we just got about another inch in the last hour. And more rain is on its way. The Weather Channel says we have between 80% and 40% rain over the next 5 days. So it looks like we've hit a wet patch. Its been lightning and thunder, hard to sleep at night. So far all the rain has been either late in the day or at night. Its the night rain that makes it so hard to sleep. But the plants are getting a good watering.  That's the good news. And the temperatures are below 90, so its humid during the day, but at least its not as bad as it could be.

Now this is a cold front.  We just dropped a good 20 degrees, both day and night.  We hit a low of 57 last night, and it's 11:30 AM and only 58 outside. We headed for a high of 75, but if we make that it will be later tonight probably. And we've had 2 inches of rain.  Some came down hard, but then its been a nice gentle mist.  A good soaking wet, and I'm sure the plants are loving it. The garden is okay.  The tomatoes are growing, and we still have a few watermelons on the vine. Those squash seeds I planted are growing and so are the bean plants. Since this is the first rain in a while we'll see how it affects the plants. Who knows, maybe they'll begin growing again.  We'll find out soon. I don't think the cold front will last long. But the 10 day forecast shows cooler temperatures, days in the low 90's and high 80's, with nights in the high to mid 60's.  We can hope. If that's what we get, I expect lots of the plants will begin growing a...

Well it looks like we have finally hit the triple digits days of this area.  Its hot. The low at night is 76. The heat index is over 100 easily. But the garden is alive.  I've got watermelon and cantaloupes growing.  The tomato plants are alive, but not doing anything, and that's expected with this heat. The gardening guides say its time to plant the second crop of squash and green beans so I planted some seeds of both today.  The squash says 45-50 days to harvest so we'll see if they grow. Things to remember for next year:    1.  When you plant tomatoes, put cages around the baby plants.  Don't wait for them to grow up before putting cages on them.   2.  Put trellises up for melon plants.  Otherwise they will take over the yard.  Also remember that melon plants will try to grab onto things - don't plant near the asparagus plants.   3.  The zinnias and petunias are fairing better then the marigolds in the heat....

Okay, its been a bit of a cool summer.  Not cool if we lived elsewhere, but for Austin, its cool.  We are almost to August and have not have a triple digit day yet.  I'm surprised by that.  I would think we would have, but we just have not done so yet.  We've gotten to the mid 90's, but not triple digits.  The weather forecast says we may get them this week.  We'll see. But we lost all the corn, we didn't get a lot of squash, and the melons (watermelon and cantaloupes) are growing but the squirrels are a problem for everything.  They eat the melons when they get ripe.  The squirrels steal the tomatoes, even the green ones. The tomatoes - yes well, they ripen on a strange time table. We got a few at the regular time table. But right now the plants are full of green tomatoes that just have not ripened. Last year they ripened late, it was frost and we were still picking them.  I'm guessing this year may be the same.  We got a few s...

YIPEE!! We got rain!  We've had about 1-1/2 inches of rain yesterday and about an inch of rain today. Though I admit we've also had a temperature drop.  The other day we were in the mid 70's, almost 80 degrees, and today we barely made it to 64.  And the nights have dropped in temperature too. Last night we hit a low of 53, and at 8:30 PM we are already at 55.  I'm not sure how low we will drop tonight, but at least we got rain. Of this I am sure, we're not likely to drop to freezing. And come Thursday, we are back into the 80's.  It is weird weather.  Flagstaff, AZ has a low of 33 tonight, and parts of Colorado may be getting snow. Kind of strange weather. But the good news is my corn is getting tall, my squash plants have baby squashes, my salad patch has more salad then I can eat, and my tomato plants are growing up. My fig tree is growing, the grape plants have leaves, and one of my blackberry plants looks great. The other blackberry is still alive ...

We were gone for a week and the garden took off.  Its like everything is coming up.  I have pea plants, bean plants, the corn is coming up, the stick of a fig tree (new) has a baby fig, the thyme is taking over the pot, and even the lemon trees are showing new growth.  I guess spring has actually sprung.  Oh, and the fruit trees have leaves and some buds left.  But you do have to be careful outside.  Some areas are swarming with bees.  Yes I know, lucky us.  We have bees. But we still haven't had any rain. They keep teasing us and saying 30% chance.  But nothing has come of it.  We can hope.