Late September Vegetable Update

The tomatoes are setting fruit.  It must be the pep talk I've been giving them.  No really, it's the cooler nights.  I fertilized today with a extended release granular fertilizer just before a good soaking rain.  The tomatoes should love this.  I noticed the jalapeno peppers and the bell peppers are getting buds.  The seeds I planted last week are all up:  radish, carrots, wax beans and bush beans.  I thinned the radishes to 1" apart.  I saved the sprouts I trimmed out for salad greens.  Yummy.  They taste like radish but with less of a bite.

We had hot days with temps up to the mid nineties and night time lows in the mid-seventies.  Yuk.  I tried to keep the cool weather plants well hydrated.  They look healthy despite the heavy wilting in late afternoon with the intense sunlight.  I purchased beet and greens/lettuce seed mixture to plant after this last rain.

Other activities this week included watering of my freshly transplanted Mexican petunias, Pride of Barbados, asparagus fern and vinca vine.  I also cut out the brown, dead leaves out of the cast iron plants.  They get sun burnt when they get too much direct sunlight.  I'm also trying to keep ahead of vines and my rapidly growing perennials by trimming regularly.  The ideal growing conditions are also causing the oak roots to sprout so that will be a ongoing project to keep them trimmed back.

HEB has had fantastic sales on Miracle Grow fertilizers.  I went crazy and stocked up.  I think they are trying to move out gardening products to make room for Christmas trees...  Can you believe it???  I also used this opportunity to fertilize potted plants and flowers with the liquid fertilizer.  They love me for this.

Texas Superstars are Super in Fall

My lantana and Mexican Petunias are blooming profusely thanks to rain and cooler weather.  I've been trying to faithfully fertilize with a water soluble fertilizer every two weeks and spray the lantana with systemic for lace wings the opposite week.  It's been working.  It's raining again today which is wonderful

View from Kitchen Window--Late September

Here is the view from my kitchen window in  late September.  Note the height of the Turk's cap along the back edge.  It's almost like a privacy fence with the added benefit that it attracts hummingbirds!  The front vegetable bed are seeded with fall plantings.  There's not as many hours of sunlight either on the vegetable beds--luck to get 6 hours.  But it's intense afternoon sun so I don't know if that counts as extra!

Seeds are Sprouting

The vegetable seeds are sprouting already!  The radishes were up in two days, the carrots in five days and the beans are starting up in six days.  With the nice warm sun it doesn't take much time.  We had a beautiful one inch rain on Friday (four days ago) which really helped.  The night time temperatures are now in the 60s. There is a hot spell predicted for the next couple days with two-three nights back in the 70s and day time highs near the mid 90s.  Then back to more seasonable 80s in the day and 60s at night.....perfect for veggies.
Still no fruit setting on the tomatoes and the bell peppers have not even blossomed.  I'm getting impatient and lecturing to these guys everyday to get with the program.  The cool weather crops suffer during these 90 degree days but I'm hoping they make it with a little more TLC and supplemental water.

Fall Veggies

It's time to plant fall vegetables.  Yesterday I transplanted flat leaf parsley, cilantro, dill, choi, romaine lettuce, and Swiss chard.  From seed, I planted radish, carrots, bush green beans and wax beans.  And then it rained about .3 inches.  Perfect.  Rain is predicted the next few days with day time temps in the 80s and nightime temps in the 60s.  Again perfect for veggies.  Just hope the seed don't wash away.... but I can't complain about rain!

RAIN

We got 1.25 inches of rain yesterday!  This is the first significant rain since the end of June.  Everything is perking up.  The temperatures are fall too.  The highs have been in the upper 80s with the lows in the mid 70s.  What I'm really waiting for is the temperatures to drop below 70 at night.  When that happens, it's time to transplant perennials.

Look what a $170 dollar water bill gets you in San Antonio

August was a brutal month for heat with no rain.  We have not had a significant rain now for two months.  In August I did a lot of supplemental watering due to the high heat.  The shrubs were suffering so I did some deep water with a slow drip on the hose.  I know the water bill is way to high, but this is my hobby.  With the shorter days in September and the slightly cooler temperatures, I've reduced the amount of time on the drip system to 45 minutes per section.  I'll use the soaker hose every three days rather than every other day.

The eggplant is loaded with fruit.  Yeah.  Still no green peppers and the plants are now taller than me.  The tomatoes are growing nicely with some blossoms.  They are waiting for night time temperatures to get down closer to 70 degrees.  I'm holding off on any other veggies until we have the first night time temperature below 70!  Before we left for DC on August 26, I spread a granulated veggie fertilizer on the two last raised beds and turned on the drip to these beds so the soil can get re-hydrated.