Sunday, July 15, 2012

More Rain and Today's Harvest

It has been about seven straight days of rain here in Central Texas, and the garden is loving it - not to mention all the wildlife around here that is enjoying the wet weather and break from the Texas heat.  It has rained so much that there is now a pond in the park behind our house!  It is actually a retention pond for instances such as this, but most of the year it is completely dry.



The wet weather has really been making the garden grow.  Today I harvested a large bunch of basil that I have growing next to my tomatoes.  I cut the basil back, but left enough of the stems so that it will grow back and I can harvest it again in a couple of weeks.  Now is time to make a little pesto to put in pastas and on chicken sandwiches. 

I also pulled one radish from the garden today.  It looked picture perfect, but wasn't the best tasting in my opinion.  It was definitely fresh enough, just too-radishy.  I think I had them in the garden a little too long, so they got overwhelmingly flavorful.  I also planted radish during the Texas summer, which is not the suggested season for them.  They prefer the cooler spring and fall months.  I think the heat made them extra potent and a bit too much for me.  I'll be planting radishes only in the spring and fall now.




I was able to plant some seeds indoors on my new grow shelves as well.  Yesterday I planted:

  • Fruit/Veggies
    • Eggplant - Early Long Purple (Martha Stuart Organic)
    • Eggplant - Black Beauty (Ferry-Morse)
    • Watermelon - Tasty Sweet (Burpee)
    • Pablano Pepper (Ferry-Morse)
    • Pepper - California Wonder 300 TMR (Ferry-Morse)
    • Tomato - Supersweet 100 VF Hybrid (Ferry-Morse)
    • Swiss Chard - Fordhook Giant (Burpee)
    • Swiss Chard - Ruby Red (Burpee)
  • Herbs
    • Sweet Basil (Burpee)
    • Spanish Cilantro (Burpee)
  • Flowers
    • Marigold - Best Mix (Burpee)
    • Morning Glory - Tall Mix (Burpee)
    • Lupine - Russell's Hybrid Mixed Colors (Ferry-Morse)
    • Painted Daisy - Giant Mixed Colors (Burpee)
Note - I soaked the morning glory and lupine seeds for about 18 hours before planting to soften the hard seed shells to hasten germination.

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