What's In The Vegetable Garden Now (Fall 2009)

Box 1:
*Onion (seedlings)
*2 Bell pepper (left over from last season, but still have viable fruit)


Box 2:
*3 Bell pepper (left over from last season, start to fruit, I grew these from seed)
*Jalapeno pepper (left over from last season, I thought it was done producing, but as soon as I took the tomato plants out, it started blooming and fruiting again).
*Mixed lettuce (from seed) Noticed that I may have to lay more seed as not all germinated.
*Romaine lettuce (seedling)
*Arugula (from seed) Started this indoors and moved outside recently


Box 3: (this box is from items that I help seed and transplant with a non-profit volunteer program, I was able to bring home some of the left overs, I did have to add more seed to take place of the failed plants as they were used to being in a green house)
*Spinach (seedling and seed)
*Kale (seedling)
*Cabbage (seedling and seed)
*Collard Greens (seedling)
*Mustard Greens (seedling)
*Carrots (from seed)
*Radish (from seed
*Onions (from seed)
*Swiss Chard (seedling)
*Broccoli (seedling and seed)

Stand alone:
*Sweet potato (I grew these from splits from store bought potatoes, they are growing like crazy and I am so ready to pick them, but I will be patient
*Mixed green beans (seed) (Now that these are real good size seedlings, I found out that I may have been over zealous in starting these now as it may not be the season).
*Snow peas (seed) (plated these today)
*2 Cherry Tomato (seedling) I am still trying to get tomatoes, it may be futile, but I am going to keep trying.

Fall Is Here In Texas

YAHOOOOO!!!!!, it is now fall in Texas. I was dying with the over 50 continuous days of triple digit heat. My garden felt it (needless to say this was my first year doing a garden, what was I thinking, glad I did, so that I have that experience under my belt). I am so looking forward to gardening in the fall weather. I heard that in Texas this is the perfect weather to garden. I have many things already planted and they are starting to take hold. I decided to try planting a lot of my plants from seed. However, while at Home Depot one day I saw that they had quite a bit of their fall seedlings available, so I had to take some home. I will have to keep you all updated on the progress. Hope your garden does well this year.

Peper Jelly

This weekend I had some time on my hands and decided to finally make some pepper jelly for my husband and father-in-law. Well I was nervous as this is not something that I will eat and had never tasted before. I got the recipe off the Ball box of liquid pectin and started on my way. It ended up making way more than number of small jars I had could have used 2 more small jars, but had a large jar on hand and decided to use that. My husband said it taste good and taste similar to what he had when he was in Georgia as a kid. I really enjoyed making it once I got over the scare of the liquid boiling over the pot (all I could see was me in the hospital having to explain....I was attempting to make pepper jelly). Funny now that I look back on it.

Is this Midew? (Update)

Update to Is this Midlew? (Originally posted 07/29/09) Well, I took out one of the plants that looked the worst and replaced it with another plant from a pot that seemed to suck all the liquid from the plant when I watered. Can you believe this is less than 2 weeks later. I already have zucchini (quite a few). I should have some to pick in a week or so. This is amazing. Also, I think by putting in a soaker hose in the raised bed really helped with mildew, since the root of the plant was getting the water and not the leaves.

My Garden-Update

Well over last week, I surveyed the garden more closely since it has been so hot and this being my first year gardening, I wanted to see what type of changes occur during this time.

Keep in mind that I now know how important it is to keep track of dates so you know if things should already be ready, next planting season this will be monitored

Carrots-I decided to pull these to see if maybe I had anything (since it had been a few months since seeding/sprouting, well I have micro mini carrots, none edible. I pulled them all to make room to plant my tomato plants. BUMMER, just like the radishes

Lettuce-Way to hot to continue trying to grow these, so I pulled them and planted another tomato plant in its place.

Lima Beans-Nothing so far, I saw flowers, but no beans have formed. Seems to be the story of my garden. Here is a recent photo of them. I think they may be done for, not sure. I still see lots of flowers, but no beans.

Tomato plants-I have a total of 3 yellow tomato plants that I did from seed, only one lonely tomato is forming. I battle the tomato horn worms daily, you think you picked them all the night before and the next day, BAM you see more. I decided to use a safe caterpillar killer, I know this may affect butterflies, but I am loosing my tomatoes due to the horn worms (I thought by now the birds would have started to eat the worms, but I guess not).


Peppers-My hot and bell peppers have produced all season long. Next season, I won't plant as many, maybe just one plant of each kind. My family don't like green bell peppers that much and the others colors won't be eaten as fast, so I will have to think about the ones to plant.

Strawberry Jam

Last month I tried my hand at doing a little preserving. I took a class in June on preservation/storage of food. I did not have strawberries in my garden, so I picked up some frozen ones, because the fresh I had prior to this were not all that great. I followed the directions on the pectin package by Ball. The process was very easy and fast. After letting the frozen strawberries thaw enough to mash them, it took 30-40 minutes for the whole process and most of that time was letting the mixture in the individual containers set up. The great thing is that they last up to 1 year in the freezer and 3 weeks in the fridge. I have plans for other fruits to make into preserves. You should try it. Since we already had some store bought jam in the fridge, all 5 of the containers went to the freezer. My father-in-law will receive 2 of these.

My Garden-Cucumbers (UPDATE-2)

Update To My Garden-Cucumbers (Originally posted 06/07/09 and 06/29/09) Well I have lost all the cucumber plants as of yesterday the last one died on me. When I started noticing the last one going, I started planting a new large pot with seeds and hopefully I will have at least one edible cucumber this year. If not hopefully in the future planting seasons. Oh my was I hoping to pickle some up. Oh Well, live and learn.