Cat's Garden in Austin, TX

Go figure. We've had a couple of cool nights, down to 33 last night, but now we are back to warm weather. Warm as in the 10 day forecast says highs in the 70's, with a possible 80 thrown in for good measure. That means the nights will be in the low 50's. Maybe rain on Christmas day, but we'll see. Getting sorry we picked all the tomatoes. Though some of the plants I left look great. The bok choy never looked better.

Ever wonder what they mean when they talk about a cold front moving in. Well hopefully this will help explain it. This happened last night. Yes we had temperatures in the 70's most of the day, actually pretty much all day, then the temperature just dropped. Yes as the temperature dropped we got rain. About two inches of rain. What is interesting it we had a few cold days a couple of weeks ago, but mostly the weather has been nice. So far its been overall a fairly nice autumn. And that's not always good.  We did have a previous cold front come thru a couple of weeks ago, but the cold didn't last. The concern is the almanac said it would be a cold winter. So far it looks like we might have nice weather for Christmas. After the rain last night the skies have cleared up. The garden took a beating from our previous cold front. The watermelon and other squash plants are pretty much died and gone. They got pulled out of the ground. Some of the tomato plants have been pull...

We left Mid October for a trip, gone 3 weeks. We left, and the rain began. The house got rain, enough to fill our almost empty water tanks. It almost kept the temperatures in the mid 60-70's. The plants loved it. We came back to happy and healthy plants. I don't think we lost anything. Then last night, we got our first freeze. Last night we hit a low of 31.8 degrees. We are due for the same tonight. It looks like the weather is changing. We'll warm up for a few days, then nights will cool down. They aren't expecting more freezing nights, at least not in the 10 day forecast. Most nights will be in the 50-40's. We were lucky enough to have our friend come help cover plants before the freeze. He also picked the produce we had ready or ready-ish to pick. He picked a lot of green tomatoes. I'm thinking of trying to make pickled green tomatoes. I found a recipe online that looks easy enough - greens tomatoes, jalapenos, garlic, and then a brine. I might try it wit...

It is still hot over here. But this week we are due for some cooling weather - down to the 80's. And possible rain. But the real way you know the weather is changing - the tomato plants are coming back to life. I pull out the dead corn, cleared out the cucumbers, and cut back the marigolds. I need to cut back of the the melons, but it was just too hot. But this weekend I did some weeding and feeding in the garden. Which is good because it looks like its growing season again. It seems too hot, but I'm found a lot of new growth on lots of the plants. Since I cleaned out dead stuff I went ahead and planted more seeds. I put in bok choy, beets, beans, acorn squash, fennel, carrots, and some broccoli. According to Mother Earth News app this is the time to start planting these guys. I also got some seed for cabbage, swiss chard, and onions. I'll put those in the ground tomorrow. I may put in some other things that should grow this time of year too. Some spinach would be nice. I...

Yes, I know. Its been a while. We made it home from our trip. The trip was great - wonderful cool weather, good food, good company, and fabulous new places. What we came home to wasn't quite so fabulous. Apparently it was hot while we were gone. Triple digit hot. So since we were not around to give plants the extra water they needed, we lost stuff. The cucumbers are toast (yup that's what they looked like) as were some of the squash plants. Apparently one of the connectors came undone, so out of about 8 squash plants only 2-3 sort of survived. One is doing okay, but I'm not sure the other two will survive. And the corn is entirely dead. Oh well.  Did not lose a single tomato plant, but they were a bit worse for the wear. And some of the strawberry plants didn't make it - not enough water. Now that we're back I am watering some of the plants to see how well they'll survive. Also we've cooled down to the low 90's (that's Texas for you, low 90's...

Yes, the comfortable temperatures we had are gone. Austin area has hit the mid to high 90's already. Yesterday's high hit 93, with a heat index of 100. Our low - 74. Its warm out there. Plants are not growing well. Though some tomatoes are getting red, many are just sitting there green on the plant. Last year we left them on the plants, and when the weather began to cool they all started ripening. We do have some yellow tomatoes that are ripe, but again, most of the plants are just trying to hold their own. On the other hand we are having a wasp problem. We have found many more wasp nests than we normally do. And some have been big nests. They are high up under the eaves and difficult to spray. But hopefully the spraying will work and they won't come back. It does help that Bill knocked some of the nests down. I'm just hoping the wasps don't come back and build new nests. I've also noticed a lot more young fawns still. And quite a few twins this year. Some o...

I actually gave these away to a friend. Though we did keep a few of the carrots for dinner.  They were good. The carrots had been growing in a big barrel. So after harvesting I planted more seeds.