June 28, 2018

Good morning, to say it has been a challenging year is really an understatement. Everything started out fine but I think the wind was over the top. This has been my nemesis for both of the times I have had set backs. The first time was when it was blowing all day for a couple of days and I neglected to completely cover some beds with a second layer of fabric. This allowed a convection freeze to really to travel through the fabric into the plants and set my early tomato bed way back. Then there was the 60-70 MPH wind storm that preceded profuse pea gravel sized hail storm that proceeded to eviscerate the portion of the garden that the wind had blown off my covers. All the beds that did remain covered were severally bruised. One blessing was that I was able to clean up all the damage before any insect hordes arrived. Then came many consecutive days of triple digits. I was able to keep everything hydrated but I did notice the lower fruiting wood on my indeterminate toms got nailed just like in 2011 thus destroying the first crop. I was thinking since I had a drip this time all would be well. I evaluated the errors of my ways and have added another 2.5 hours of watering time to them. I hope this corrects that problem. As we all know it was a very dry start to the year and this really effected my onion crop as far as how large the bulbs got to be. This in reality was a two phased problem. Last fall was a very warm one and all the harvester ants remained active pretty well into early winter. We did have a brief chill down and I thought yes, they have gone to nest for the winter. This was not to be. I sowed my onion seeds for bulb onion transplants during this chill down only for another heat wave to arrive.  Just as the seed was germinating the ants came in and harvested the majority of my seeds. Normally I bury the edges of my onion seed beds to prevent them from doing this, I was lulled into their temporary absence. I did re-sow the bed but the new plants were so much smaller than the first planting. This may not have been a problem if it had not been also such a dry spring.

I have always known during extremely dry springs that the native thrips population that thrives in the grassland around my garden migrates into the garden because it is the only thing green for them to feed on. I have found that permanently covering onions forces them to mature way to early and therefore except for extreme chill downs they remain uncovered. Likewise, with the garlic. Due to the extremely windy conditions I was unable to effectively start a spray program to squelch them and thus they got a foot hold into the garden. With extreme diligence I have turned the corner on them. They are a formidable adversary.

I must say even with all the challenges the garden is doing quite fine even though there were some real setbacks. As I say if agriculture was easy, everyone would be doing it.

Follows is a list of what I am growing, please email as to availability and prices. Chard, kale, green onions, carrots, lettuce, okra, tomatoes, chilies (several varieties), eggplant, butternut squash, garlic, beets, bulb onions, cucumbers, summer squash, sweet potatoes, and beans. Also, there is volunteer basil and dill.

June 21, 2018

Good morning, last Sunday’s rain was just a little touch of heaven. It also appeared to be a general rain for the area. I was noticing that the native grass on the property was just showing the signs of drying out and sure enough everything got a nice boost of moisture. I was so glad that there was no hard water with this storm.

Looking ahead Saturday is supposed to hit the century mark. Sunday was too but it looks like there may be a reprieve and Sunday may only get to 99. Somehow, not sure why, but saying 100 makes my gray cells want to flow. NOAA hasn’t mentioned yet but Underground is showing rain chances from Monday on. Ah, forecasts are just that, we will cross our fingers and hope their “crystal ball” is based in reality. A moist summer would be nice or even a bi-weekly 1-inch rain storm would be very welcome.

The garden has shown its appreciation for this “mana from heaven” and the growth has been very nice. The heat and moisture are suiting the okra well, more of the okra is maturing each day. With 5 beds I hope to have plenty for the table, enough for Deb to dehydrate and plenty for me to pickle. Finally, the sweet potatoes have filled their beds and give me hope that the harvest will start in August, some of the butternuts are starting to mature. They seem to me to have made the greatest come back from the hail. I did have half a bed give up the ghost and I had to replant. But the rest has filled in nicely. I have been fighting a little iron chlorosis in the new chard/kale bed. This is because there are mature plants mixed in with seedlings that replaced hail thrashed ones. Due to the shallow roots seedlings need to be watered more frequently than the mature plants and thus the iron problem. This will soon pass. Finally, the strawberries are sending out runners. This should fill the bed in nicely. These should give me enough to extend the bed and with any luck start producing strawberries.

The battle with thrips, spider mites, and cucumber beetles continue. It is a little early but I may be winning.

On soooooo many fronts this has been a n extremely challenging year but I am still holding out hopes that the finish will be nothing bur awesome!!! I have been filling some of my canned goods coffers and hope to be offering several veggies soon. Both the onions and garlic have cured and are being cleaned to be put on the table soon.

June 14, 2018

Good morning,  as it stands NOAA is saying by this weekend we should  be enjoying the remnants of a hurricane that has hit the west coast of Mexico.  with the best chances being Saturday night and Sunday. Remnants give us some of our best rainstorms. They are calm storms that hang with us but leave behind  lots of moisture. Lets hope that this is the case. I have been fortunate to have received moisture but there are so many places in West Texas that haven't. This could possibly end our fire season. We can only hope.

The garden is doing well. I think I may have thwarted the spider mite and thrips infestation. They quite frequently migrate into the garden from the surrounding range land. What with the heat of late their populations can very easily explode. I hope to have dodged this bullet. I haven not experienced the Harlequin bug infestation  that a lot of other folks have although I noticed an increase of cucumber beetles along with a few squash bugs. Spraying for thrips and spider mites should bring these guys into check also. Even with the winter chill we received there seems to be plenty of bugs to go around.

June 7, 2018

Good morning, two weeks on from the hail event and the garden is mostly back to where we were before the event. There are exceptions such as my new chard bed and the second bed of okra. These two beds were hailed back to the stone age and needed to be sown once again. All things considered, I really dodged a bullet. The event set me back but didn’t take me out. Gotta love fabric.

I am starting to get cherry tomatoes; some okra and it looks like some green chilies are maturing. It is time to harvest some serrano peppers. First eggplants will be harvested next week. My second planting of beans are 6 plus inches tall. Some beans in the portion that got hailed look to be making a comeback while the rest of the bed is doing fine. I was planning to pickle some beans but will have to wait until the new bed is being harvested.

The onions and garlic are hanging and should be ready for sale soon what with the hot weather.

May 32, 2018

Good morning, well the rain spell may be ending but BOY HOWDY was last Thursday night’s storm a doozy.  It had that color to it where you think “yup this is going to be a real hail event”. We have been most fortunate to have missed most of the severe hail events. Every dog has its day and Thursday night was our time. I will also say if I was not a huge fan of row covers before this storm I surely am now. With out it I would have bought the farm and would be back to ground zero.

The vast majority of the storm was horizontal. I do not have a wind gauge but the airport recorded 35 mph winds with gusts up to 55. Fortunately for at least half the garden there were enough rocks in place. Not so good for the other half. These beds were all but bush hogged into the ground.

Going into this storm I was prepared as well as I could be. The only thing I would change is maybe have new fabric on all the beds.

It was as intense of a storm as I have ever experienced. I do not think there is anything else I could have done to prepare for it.  Because of the pounding horizontal wind and the driving hail. No bed went unscathed. Those beds that were uncovered by the wind were chewed up by degrees as to what time during the storm they became uncovered. The covered beds instead of chewed up vegetation were bruised by the wind and the hail. I thank my lucky stars that half the garden remained fully covered. It is truly amazing that it did.

After the storm that evening I drudgingly took a tour of the garden. It wasn’t pretty but I had to wait until after deliveries on Friday to do the cleanup.  I remember when I was still working for an employer and was unable to start the cleanup until the weekend, all of that shredded vegetation was a calling card for bugs. I vowed never to do that again.  This time I got everything cleaned up and at least out of the beds so that I could recover the beds. This was as much to protect against bugs but also from the intense sun that was expected to come.  To not have covered would have allowed the scalding sun to sun burn the denuded and healing plants.

The only bed that I see with the most mortality was my new Card/Kale bed. I was hoping that most of the plants would do a “phoenix” thingy, but there is a point that where there can be no recovery. Luckily there are some more chard and kale transplants that can fill in the holes. The old chard bed, that I was a thinking of taking out of commission, was cleaned up and will take up some slack until the new bed heals.

This year has thrown me some real screw balls that have set me back. All of these events if it were not for my complete and total embracement of row covers, I would have been destroyed and left to start over completely from scratch. What an amazing tool and invention. In the past I have thought I could garden with out it, and that it really helps level the playing field. As the weather in far West Texas gets more flippant I am not sure that I could garden without it.

Please place your orders and I will fill them as best I can. I expect to have this event with Ut most haste become only a small image in my rear-view mirror!!

May 24, 2018

Good morning, how wonderful to get .91 of an inch of rain last week and then this past 

Tuesday night get another .41. Then again on Wednesday night another .82. I am beginning to see some greening on the property and especially on the right of ways. It always seems every spring that it will never be green again. Looks like chances for rain continue for a couple more days, then the heat returns with a vengeance. Weather underground has triple digits for most of next week. Not looking for that but it is approaching June and it is notoriously HOT! This too will pass. With any luck the heat will pull in rain from the gulf or Mexico. Everyone limit time outside and drink lots of water!!

I did purchase a shade cloth to erect over one of my Tomato beds. Instead of just laying it over the bed, I plan to suspend it on “T” posts and wire. My thoughts are with shade and an area for air movement, the temperature can be kept bellow 100.  Temperatures above 95 force the toms into dormancy. Temperatures much above 100 can even cause flowers to abort and in worst cases fruit to abort too. This is what I experienced in 2011 with my Arkansas Traveler (indeterminate) tomatoes. I was strictly watering by hand, a thing of the past since I now have a drip system. The last couple of summers the tomatoes have completely stopped due to excess heat, it will be interesting to see how the shade cloth performs. I do plan to have a thermometer under the shade cloth and one not, so I can compare the difference. If June is true to form there will be high heat and low humidity so there should be a noticeable difference between the two.

Speaking of drip systems, they can be very useful to re hydrate wilted squash. With excess heat the evaporation/transpiration rate is too great for the squash even if the soil is moist. I like to turn it on for them so that they do not wilt so badly. I have experienced sun burn on the plants where the leaves have completely wilted. In worst case scenarios I will place some fabric over them. This appears to help boost humidity and leaf turgidity.

The garlic is harvested and curing, I have some volunteer garlic that will be in bags, bulb onion tops are falling over so this harvest will be starting very soon. Not so pleased with the bulb sizes, they are smaller than last year. This reflects how dry it has been, even with them being mulched and dripped on a regular basis. There are a lot of okra blooms so this harvest will begin soon. Chilies didn’t get clobbered with aphids like they did last year and there is an abundance of Big Jim’s sizing up. Tomatoes are covered in fruit. Most likely the cherries will ripen the quickest.  Sweet potatoes are sending out runners. Lots of butternut squash sizing up, hope for the first harvest in June. Pleased with my spring parsnips, they seem to be happy. I am really curious as to how big they will be come December. Might need a backhoe to harvest them. I planted the second bed of beans so soon there should be plenty of beans for market and to pickle too. Peas pretty much have stopped blooming and the last peas will be harvested within the next week or so. The cucumber harvest has begun and the summer squash are cruising right along.

It is amazing what a little bit of rain can do. Life is good.

may 17, 2018

Good morning, it always seems that when the chance for rain, especially this time of year, is high it usually is  pie in the sky. Although the last time we had  high percentages and we got some, but a lot of other folks didn’t. This seems to be true even during decent rain events, we may or may not get a lot and places less than a mile away may be growing gills or just knocked down the dust. There has been many a time where town is being hammered and the closer we get to the house there is nothing. Thunder clouds are very interesting.

As always in these events during the spring, my guard is always up due to the ever-present chance of hard water. Not many weather events in West Texas make me cringe,  but hail makes me feel so vulnerable.

I make a point of covering everything. This time of year, the okra still short, is not beyond covering.

Hail size doesn’t matter, it is all about volume and duration. With covering, my fingers are crossed for low volume and short duration. The fabric doesn’t stop all the hail, but it is my hope that it slows the decent and the plants are bruised as opposed to eviscerated.

As I was watching the path of Mondays storm I paid very close attention as to the direction it was coming from. It was coming from the SW. This is the direction when there is hail, if we get rain it WILL have hail too.

It was a few years back and there was a storm raging from the SW. Because I could see its approach I was able to cover all the garden. This storm was accompanied with some very strong wind. It felt like the storm was riding the surface of the ground. I felt I had enough rocks on all the fabric, but it became apparent that I was lacking with my summer squash bed. The wind was strong enough to lift the fabric and nearly through it out of the garden with several rocks tangled in the fabric. My squash bed had two rows of squash that ran east and west. After the wind the hail was not far behind. Due to the angle of the wind, the south row of squash was decimated. Fortunately, the detritus covered the northern row and was minimally harmed from the hail.

There have been other storms from the SW, but this was the worst. For some reason, knock on wood, storms from the NW tend to, regarding hail, miss us and only give us rain. Many of a NW storm has left the town in a pile of confetti, broken windows and damaged roofs.

We are half way through May, it looks like there is another month and a half of hail season. The rain is good, but I feel so helpless in the middle of a hail storm. My fingers are crossed that the Alpine area misses the devastating hail of the recent past. Ah yes, this too will pass.

I keep expecting to see cucumbers begin to ripen, but to no avail. Although with the high heat of last week, I am glad that there was none to harvest. Heat will make them bitter, but this is easy to remedy when preparing them to eat. I will hold off on these details until there is another bittering spell. I expect okra by the first of June. The eggplants should be blooming within the week. Jalapenos, chilies and poblanos have set. The garlic harvest has started and finally getting tomatoes to set. My little test plot of parsnips appears to be doing fine. It was nice to see more than 75% emergence. Now it will be interesting to see how big these puppies get before harvesting next December/January. My strawberry bed seems to be happy. It is with hopes that they put out runners so that I can expand the bed. Maybe I might have enough for sale in the future.

All is doing well as long as the hard water stays away.