May 29, 2017

 I have noted that the garden is a month or two ahead of last year. This is also true with my alliums. I planted them all at the same time as I do every year but maybe because they actively grew through the winter they have matured early. No clue!

None the less a third to a half of the lower leaves have died on the garlic which indicates they are ready to be dug. And the bulb onions are falling over too. I have noticed more of the white onions have fallen over than the reds.

The garlic has been harvested and is hanging to dry. This allows it to be stored. This is also true with the onions. With this warm weather, the allium harvest should be completed soon.

I hang the alliums on my front porch which has great airflow and is warm, this quickens the drying process. When Deb came home from work she thought it smelled like an Italian restaurant.

It is nice to see it all hanging. Alliums are one of my longest to mature crops. It is unique that it is a one-shot deal that is if you are raising the onions from seeds. There was one year where we had a cold damp winter and I was not being attentive enough, this caused 90% of my seedlings to dampen off. Damp conditions and temperatures in the 50’s are perfect conditions for this to happen. Live and learn. Anyway, I did go ahead and purchase onion plants that year. The white onions were of proper size (less than ¼ inch) but a lot of the reds were ½ inch or larger. The vast majority of the red onions that I purchased bolted before they could form a bulb. They were harvested as green onions.

I have noticed that the red seedlings tend to be bigger than the whites. There were a few that I transplanted in mid-February that I thought could bolt. Maybe because it was such a warm spring but I have not seen any flower heads forming. Soon the crop will be harvested and I can sigh in relief.

In Oregon, I never had any problem with onions. I planted and waited for the tops to fall over and then harvest. It took quite some time with trial and error to find the key to growing onions from seeds in the south. This is true with peas too. Both crops have begun to be quite successful on a regular basis. I am impressed that my pea harvest started the last week of march and is still going. It is almost June?

I have another crop that I hope to figure out the culture on, Irish potatoes. I have found a variety that does develop larger spuds on a regular basis but I would like to have plants that produce 1 to 2 pounds per plant. My average is somewhere around ¾ or less. With 90 feet of spuds, this produces enough for Deb and I to eat through the year. 

I used to dig a trench and plant the spuds. Then back fill the trench as they grow only to get marginal success.

In recent years, I save the small spuds (<1 inch). These are then direct planted in November (the date is determined by how warm the fall has been). Then they come up on their own. There is no need to hill or any of that other fussy stuff that I was not successful at. These come up on their own timing. This method does extend the harvest over a longer time frame. For personal consumption, this works quite well. None the less I would still like to increase the poundage. Ah yes more trial and error.

A thought that I will try next fall is to put an inch or two of compost in each hole. Then wait to see the results.

May 25, 2017

Good morning, I mentioned that I was trying a new root knot nematode (RKN) treatment. I had started this treatment last fall. Because our pump went out and with the well service, things got stirred up in the well and this made it difficult to use my siphon injector. I did not do regular treatments and was not very impressed.

The well has since settled down and I have started to make regular treatments. This week will be the second installment. It is interesting to note that my bean bed that just about got fried from the last freeze Is making a dramatic comeback. A couple things of note last year I grew cucumbers in this bed. The eastern portion is more or less RKN free whereas the western is pretty infected. These plants are shorter and their crowns did not fill the bed. After the last treatment, I am impressed with these infected beans. Even with the freeze damage their canopy has nearly filled the bed and their height has increased. My first okra bed is not showing as good of results. I am not sure if this was a more infected bed or that okra is more susceptible to RKN. It will be interesting to monitor the results from this second treatment. I do notice that the flea beetles or wreaking havoc on the okra in this bed too. To help the okra I may need to apply some neem oil to kill and chase off the flea beetles. It is helpful after such a treatment to cover the plants, but some of the okra are too tall to allow me to do this. Such as it is!

Originally, I was advised to do the initial treatments a week apart and then go with additional treatments every 30 days. But I was unable to do this due to the well being unsettled. Now that this is not a problem, I am going with the closest application rate and see what happens.

RKN are an ongoing problem and have been a cause for the production in the garden decreasing. Time will tell if this new treatment will work. I am hopeful. It is interesting that the main ingredient is Thyme oil. The days I chemigate it sure makes the garden smell nice.

This RKN treatment is also works on soil fungi too. In years past I have noticed on some of my sweet potatoes that I get what is called scurf. It is a soil borne fungus and causes the sweets to have a russeted appearance on the skins. This does not affect the flavor but it does affect the look and storability. It lets the sweet dehydrate quicker and the spuds get wrinkled. This year I soaked the sets in Actinovate (a natural fungicide) and then with the RKN treatment, I wait to see what happens at harvest time. It is interesting to note that ALL of the unrooted cuttings I planted last year did not develop scurf. So, I do not know if this came from the grower of my sets or is something that is just in my soil. No clue! So much I do not know about soil.

This week I harvested chard, kale, lettuce, carrots, beets, peas, beans, cucumbers, summer squash, and tomatoes. Please email me as to prices and availability.

May 22, 2017

Since the man who would regularly bring compostable material by for me, it has been difficult for me to get into a new “rhythm” for garden fertility and mulch.

Last year was the first year that I had not mulched the surface of most of my beds. As the year progressed I really noticed the folly in this move. It was difficult to keep things hydrated especially during July. The garden completely shut down due to heat. I wonder if not having mulched the beds may have contributed to this.

Most years in the recent past I have done various things to combat the moisture issue here in West Texas. In normal years May and June are our Nasty hot and dry months. Last year they were very tolerable but it was July that seemed to be the trouble maker.

The first thing I find that works for me is to start the garden at the extreme earliest date possible. This gives the plants ample time to mature to shade the ground and to have deep well developed root systems.

Second is to mass plant the bed. At maturity, this acts like a living mulch.

Third is to use agriculture fabric. This does several things; cuts the wind, helps retain moisture, is an insect barrier, and most important reduces the amount of sunlight hitting the plants. I feel the intensity of our sun is much much more than what any of the plants in West Texas can use. I have used Agribon 70 (only 30 percent of the light gets through the fabric) on various beds year-round and have NEVER seen any signs of the plants underneath showing any kind of light deprivation! If only we could bottle, sell and ship this commodity!

Fourthly mulching the beds.  Especially in west Texas mulching and the use of fabric are important. It was when I was a very recent transplant to West Texas in 2003 that I learned how techniques used in one place are not applicable here without modification. Ah yesss that learning curve thingy!!! I had grown some very nice broccoli plants to be transplanted. This was before I had discovered fabric. I transplanted them, mulched them and then proceeded to watch them grow in reverse. Extremely perplexed I began to explore around each plant. My exploration did not last long before I discovered my problem. In the mulch around every broccoli were at least 3 of 4 cutworms. The mulch went by by! And Mulch around plants was in most cases discontinued until I discovered fabric. This happened within the first couple of years of gardening in Alpine.

It was the combination of ALL these things that allowed me to succeed during the drought in 2011. I might add this was when I was still hand watering the garden. With a drip system in 2011 it would not have been quite as exhausting.

Yes, learning to adapt to your conditions is paramount in order to have success!

May 18, 2017

Good morning, it is very interesting to note that I had thought most of the damage from the last freeze was only leaf burn and little else. I have observed a little more extensive damage that is only now showing itself. 

I knew that my yellow squash had several very immature fruits abort from getting frosted. I expected it because this fruiting area on the yellow squash was touching the fabric. I have started to notice this in the zucchini too. It is strange that these young fruits are located close to the base of each plant, near the ground and covered with a canopy of leaves along with the fabric.

This is not the first time I have noticed strange freezing behavior. Earlier this winter we had one of those events where the day before the cold front was warm and real windy. I was unable to cover my potato plants and the bed got froze. The strange thing was that not all the plants got hit. There was no pattern to indicate there was a warmer area in the bed. It was just a random hit here and there throughout the bed. Very strange.

On a larger scale when a large rain event moves into the area, quite often the clouds are not evenly saturated with moisture. Here at the garden I might get a tenth of an inch and Sul Ross campus will have a huge cloud burst and water running everywhere.  This as the crow flies might be a mile away and visible from the garden. This too I find strange.

Man would like to think he is in control but he is but child’s play to the forces of nature. I am in awe!!

This week I harvested chard, kale, carrots, lettuce, beets, summer squash, cucumbers, and green beans. Please email as to availability

May 15, 2015

I have noticed that even though there were no plants killed by the last freeze, it did shock the garden. When we had the few very chilly events this past “winter” the garden reacted the same way. I think it is very stressing on plants to go from very warm and then to below freezing. It appears to force the plants into a short dormancy and it takes several days to reactivate growth.

There were two veggies this effected the most, my beans and my yellow squash. The beans were frosted the worst and I thought that I would lose some of them but with the return to warmth they have recuperated nicely and I think I will be able to wait on sowing a second bed. The yellow squash was effected differently. The variety that I grow is more of a vining variety instead of a bush variety. In the past I grew only bush varieties for space saving reasons. This new variety of yellow squash is extremely productive along with being strongly powdery mildew resistant. Powdery mildew (PM) is a real problem on the summer squash around the end of summer  (MID TO LATE August). It will cover the plants with a whiteish mold and causes a very slow but progressive death. What I have found is most organic fungicides just slow this progressive death. I feel that even though this squash takes up a lot of space the PM quality warrants this varieties use.

Back to the freeze. The growth habit is that male flowers form back at the center of the plant while the female flowers are on the trialing part of the plant. These plants filled the inside of the covers completely.  The trailing part has not grown long enough so it is up in the air ( Later on they will be trailing on the ground) which put the runners in contact with the fabric. This is always a bad thing in a freeze. This did not freeze the tips but it has caused many of the female flowers to abort. This has slowed the harvest dramatically. As of Saturday, morning I noticed that they have grown out of this aborted zone and production should soon resume.

I will have to remember next year that I need to add more layers of fabric when and if there is a potential late freeze. Live and learn.

As for my neem oil soil drench and sowing of okra and cucumbers, the seed has been sown and we are waiting for emergence. I am curious to see if the neem oil and nemicide work better than just the nemicide.

Last week I harvested 3 pounds of tomatoes, a handful of okra, and have noticed that there are eggplants and chilies enlarging. So, it is looking like a July garden in May. I love it when a plan comes together.

 I will say I was wondering if I was a bit crazy to out plant Toms in January and the rest of the garden in February. I am either very lucky or very fortunate to have discovered fabric and learning how to use it. What an amazing tool.

Happy gardening!!!

May 11, 2017

Good morning, it seems of all the warm season crops that I have forced out of season, okra seems to be the only one that is least adaptive to this. I have sown several times to fully stock the beds It does seem to be intolerant of cool soils. Next year I may have to see if I can warm the soil with plastic film before sowing the germinated seeds. Beans, squash, cucumbers and my butternuts seem to be more tolerant of cooler soils.

A few years back when I tried to over winter some eggplants, okra and chilies I was only successful with eggplants. It seems that the other two veggies abhorred soil temps below 50. I feel this may have killed the plants instead of winter freezes. In warmer climes, all three of these veggies are perennial.

The year I had tried to over winter these veggies was a wet winter and there was an abundance of ice and snow. I had not made any preparations to protect these beds from melt water. In normal years, the soil temp down 5 inches does not drop much below 50 degrees. Ice melt chilled the soils much deeper than 5 inches.

Another option would be to use my temporary greenhouse with two layers of 70 over the green house film. When I had made a study of this configuration (with only 1 layer of 70) it was for keeping greens actively growing through the winter. My study had revealed outside temps of 75 degrees warmed the greenhouse into the 90’s and outside temps above 80 pushed the greenhouse to 100 +. It would be interesting to revisit this study for forcing okra. Okra is the only veggie that is tolerant of temps in the upper 90’s and low triple digits. Where okra seems to thrive in these temps all the other veggies are starting to have heat induced dormancy when the temperature is above 95 and complete shutdown at 100.

It is too late this year to experiment with this configuration we will just have to see what next spring’s planting season brings. Sometimes you just have to do these things.

On Wednesday silly me, I thought why not look at what some of the stunted okra roots look like. These plants were not only not thriving but also were being eaten up by flea beetles. The healthier plants did not show any of these traits. Low and behold their shortcomings had nothing to do with climate but everything to do with root knot nematodes. I have been using a new treatment for nematodes that appears to have failed these plants. Well there is a plan “B”. Where each of these infected plants are, I did a 1% neem soil drench. I have some seed soaking and then I will seed them in these spots. This will be interesting to follow. I love solving problems!

This week I harvested chard, kale, lettuce, green onions, carrots, beets, summer squash, cucumbers, and peas. Please email as to availability and quantities.

May 8, 2017

Recently I had an extraordinary garden tour. It was a whole troop of Daisy Girl Scouts. What joy this tour was!  Most of the girls did not have gardens but were enthusiastic about veggies. There were several favorite veggies but it seemed that carrots and tomatoes were at the top of the list.

I like to give garden tours, but I especially like to give tours to young grade school children.

It is at this age that I became enamored with veggie gardening. I started gardening in the fourth grade and have had a garden most every year since except for maybe a handful of years. There is just something so good about growing some of your own food.

One of the big reasons that I like to expose young children to gardening is that there are not enough veggie gardens or gardeners. Along with this and the fact that most people who make a living from agriculture are not spring chickens, most are 50 + years old. There needs to be new “blood” so to speak as the current growers become compost. At least this is my final desire.

It was my mom who inspired me to garden. This was just a small garden but was very productive for its size.

These first gardens were not organic and Mom had no qualms about the use of pesticides. It really was not until I went off to college that I was exposed to an alternative way to grow veggies and it was then that I became an Organic Gardener and have remained so since.

At one time, I was an owner of a landscape company and planted all the “horticulture delights”. It was when I installed a 24,000square foot lawn that I began to change my thoughts on landscaping and the wise use of water. Yes, pretty is nice but with a growing shortage of water, pretty does not put food in one’s stomach.

So, with my experiences in life, I feel that being able to grow veggies even if it is not very many is something that all should be proud of. It is a noble endeavor. And the more I can expose folks to veggie gardening, especially young children, is nothing but a real good thing. With any luck, maybe a few will catch the bug!!

May 4, 2017

Good morning, what a wild ride last weekend’s cold front was. Let us hope it is the last. I do remember one late season freeze that was on the 2^nd of May. It was a doozy with a low in the mid-twenties. I do recall that I did not lose anything in the garden but there was a lot of tip burn where plants were touching the fabric.

After market, last Saturday with all the wind I covered all my cucurbits. Because they need access to bees these and the alliums are the only things that are uncovered at this point. My okra is under one foot tall, so it is easily covered.

I have two different thermometer locations that I watch. One at traditional height (4.5 feet) and the other at ground level on 2 inches of Styrofoam. At four AM 4.5 feet was reading 38 and ground level was 34 and then I watched both fall and at 5:30, 4.5 was at 32 and ground level was 27. With two layers of 19 on most everything plus good soil warmth all should be well but for me it was a long wait for sunrise and for the mercury to rise with the sun. Even with being willing to lose everything, it would be a huge bummer if I did.

I always get anxious with these events. The night of their occurrence is a restless one. By sunrise I “patiently” wait like a dog waits for his dinner so that I can look under the covers. I am always sure all is well but it is a pleasant surprise to see how well things did. Fabric is an amazing invention.

Sunday was a windy day with a rather cool start although temperatures did recover quite well. I spot checked around the garden (positive observations) but not ready to fight fabric in the wind.  I felt confident that I could wait until Monday when I could harvest and check the plants out too.

It was interesting to note that when I got up on Monday there was a big difference between my two thermometers. The 4.5 was reading 52 and the lower one was reading 39. About an hour later the lower one was reading in the forties. Wind must have shifted to the south. During this event, none of the thermometers under the fabric got below 40. This gave me confidence that the only freeze damage would be leaves touching the fabric. It was somewhat difficult covering my first toms, summer squash and butternuts because of their mature size. This caused the foliage to be up tight against the fabric, very conducive to freezer burn of leaves. These leaves do protect the growing tips from being burnt, that is in most cases. Monday’s observations will determine this.

I spent Monday harvesting and cleaning up frozen foliage. The only veggie I am somewhat worried about are the beans. Even though they were well covered they seemed to have the most damage. I plan to sow another bed of beans before my planned succession. Sometime hits like what clobbered the beans can stunt their growth. If the survive then we should be awash in beans.

This week I harvested chard, kale, lettuce, green onions, carrots, beets, cucumbers, snow peas, and squash. Please email as to availability.

Like I said at the beginning, I sure hope this is the last freeze. Time will tell. And you can bank on the fabric staying put for a while.

May 1, 2017

Bees have always been hit or miss on my property especially early in the season. Most years they show up briefly when my peach trees are blooming and then disappear for several months. They usually are absent when my apples bloom and when my squash begin to bloom.

It has been several years and has become protocol but for the first few weeks of my summer squash and butternut squash I hand pollinate. This lasts until the bees arrive.

 Until it dawned on me that the reason all the first squash would abort was because there were no bees. When this light turned on this changed everything. It is funny though, I find that hand pollinating is much more productive than what the bees do. I am more than glad to let the bees do this and they seem to do it tirelessly. Every year Deb would joke with me about putting on my bee suit. I would hand pollinate until the squash bed was a buzz with bees and then I would relinquish this duty to them.

This changed everything as far as early squash harvests. It became a dream to have a hive.

We did purchase a hive and for several years have missed the August deadline for ordering bees to arrive in April. Just never could get my act together.

Recently a fellow I met a couple of years back has gotten into bee removal from unwanted locations and he asked me if I would like a hive. This was a no brainer and Scott Wasserman of The Bee
Wranch brought by a swarm to re-home in my hive. I told him he is more than welcome to any honey they produce and that I was only interested in the fine services that the bees could provide me.

I have known folks that have “re-homed” bees to not have them stay and just move on. I so very much hope that these guys like their new digs. I am very curious to see how this changes production in the garden.

So if you need to remove some bees or are in need of give Scott a call at 432-294-9380 or go to TheBeeWranch@gmail.com  I am sure he would be glad to help you.