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A lot has happened. Jan 12th my dear significant other had a quadruple bypass. This was totally unexpected. Nobody may expect the Spanish inquisition (thank you Monty Python), and we didn’t expect this. So far he is doing well. Surgery went well, he’s been home healing, we were able to get a friend to come help (well worth the money) and he’s even in cardiac rehab. Such a relief. But he’s still healing, still can’t lift over 5 lbs, and sometimes get exhausted easily. But he’s doing better and that’s what matters.

Consequently, the yard has taken a bit of a back seat.

But fear not we have not forsaken the garden. We did get a new walk path put in.

To give you an idea how unexpected SO surgery was we had planned for the walk path to be started the day he landed in surgery. But we had a landscaper do the work and it came out great. I have high praise for Abey and his group (Austin Creative Landscaping). They’ve been working in this yard since we bought the house and have done some great work and put us in touch with other good companies we’ve used.

Since SO is doing so well our friend/helper has been helping we in the garden. We trimmed the fruit trees, trying to root some of the cuttings, planted seeds that are already sprouting, set up a new strawberry bed so we now have two strawberry beds and of course added more strawberry plants, and are getting the garden beds ready for planting. A few plants have been moved around. We have two artichoke plants that now are not so close to each other. This will give them room to grow. We moved the sorrel since it hasn’t died and appears to be a permanent plant. Planted some potatoes, multicolored ones in some pots.

We even are trying to put in a berm to help water flow, if it ever rains.

The weather went from cool, weird to I think its spring/summer now. Its been in the high 60’s up to the low 80’s. That’s probably why everything is growing and sprouting. Even the apple trees are flowering. I don’t know that we had enough cold for the fruit trees to do much, but we’ll see what they do this year. They have definitely grown this year. We even cut back the pomegranate. It didn’t flower last year so no fruit, but cuttings from it are rooting nicely.

And we had new soil delivered to help refill some of the planters, add dirt to the berm, and anything else we can think of.

 So spring is here. At least in our yard.

Okay, it got cold again. As in yesterday it was in the 70’s. Today mid afternoon, after 4 and it’s only 39 degrees. Oh, and we just had rain and hail. At least it was short lived. This morning around 8am we had one of those cold fronts come through, and we got rain. Then again around 11 we got more rain. Between the two we got just over an inch of rain. The wind has been blowing since last night. The strongest wind gust was 29 mph. But we’re not done with the cold yet. We have cold weather for the next week.  He ten day forecast shows nights around, just above and just below freezing.

At least we’re better off than the Dallas area.  They got tornados. About 8 people are dead from those tornados. I guess we’ll just take the rain and cold. Though the east coast has had unseasonably warm weather.  Not much you can do about the weather. And our current weather patterns attest to that.

Funny note.  Christmas Day Las Vegas got a smattering of snow. Wonder what the odds were on that?

Go figure. We’ve had a couple of cool nights, down to 33 last night, but now we are back to warm weather. Warm as in the 10 day forecast says highs in the 70’s, with a possible 80 thrown in for good measure. That means the nights will be in the low 50’s. Maybe rain on Christmas day, but we’ll see.

Getting sorry we picked all the tomatoes. Though some of the plants I left look great. The bok choy never looked better.

Ever wonder what they mean when they talk about a cold front moving in. Well hopefully this will help explain it.

This happened last night. Yes we had temperatures in the 70’s most of the day, actually pretty much all day, then the temperature just dropped. Yes as the temperature dropped we got rain. About two inches of rain. What is interesting it we had a few cold days a couple of weeks ago, but mostly the weather has been nice. So far its been overall a fairly nice autumn. And that’s not always good.
 We did have a previous cold front come thru a couple of weeks ago, but the cold didn’t last. The concern is the almanac said it would be a cold winter. So far it looks like we might have nice weather for Christmas.

After the rain last night the skies have cleared up.

The garden took a beating from our previous cold front. The watermelon and other squash plants are pretty much died and gone. They got pulled out of the ground. Some of the tomato plants have been pulled too. But the broccoli and leaf greens (collards) seem to be doing okay. The pak choy looks great. Its gotten big and green with the weather change. We even took the time and planted more seeds – more collards, swiss chard, and lettuce.

We’ll see how everything goes. And we’ll see how the weather shapes up this winter.

We left Mid October for a trip, gone 3 weeks. We left, and the rain began. The house got rain, enough to fill our almost empty water tanks. It almost kept the temperatures in the mid 60-70’s. The plants loved it. We came back to happy and healthy plants. I don’t think we lost anything.

Then last night, we got our first freeze. Last night we hit a low of 31.8 degrees. We are due for the same tonight. It looks like the weather is changing. We’ll warm up for a few days, then nights will cool down. They aren’t expecting more freezing nights, at least not in the 10 day forecast. Most nights will be in the 50-40’s.

We were lucky enough to have our friend come help cover plants before the freeze. He also picked the produce we had ready or ready-ish to pick. He picked a lot of green tomatoes. I’m thinking of trying to make pickled green tomatoes. I found a recipe online that looks easy enough – greens tomatoes, jalapenos, garlic, and then a brine. I might try it with a small amount of tomatoes and see  how we like it.

While we were gone, my other half got sick during the trip. Actually a lot of people got sick on the trip – not norovirus. I think the weather was cooler and wetter than most people expected. I know some people complained about one excursion in particular. A “boat cruise” turned out to be more a speed boat ride with just thin plastic covers, in wet and cold weather. Apparently many of the guests got sick after this excursion. They developed a lot of coughs, cold type of symptoms. Hubby has had this for over 3 weeks now – he caught it on the cruise. I came down with it the evening after we got home. I’ve seen the doctor, and am on antibiotics and steroids. What does this have to do with anything, you ask? We have Thanksgiving coming up in a few days. I’m supposed to cook turkey dinner.

Our turkey day menu includes turkey, gravy, twice baked potatoes, carrots, broccoli, rolls, Mexican pecan pie. I figure onion dip with veggies and potato chips to start. I’ve already made the onion dip from scratch. I’m planning to working on the potatoes and pie tomorrow. The turkey is a breast only, no legs or wings. I’m not sure about making dressing. I’ve found a lot of the recipes online. I’m trying to figure out if there is anything I can made that will use any of the garden veggies.

So what came out of the yard? The garden haul includes – lemons, tomatoes ripe and unripe, jalapenos, bell peppers, other peppers, zucchini. We’ve covered the lemons plants, basil, berry plants, melon plants, and some plants didn’t need to be covered. Hey, at least the plants I needed covered got covered.

It is still hot over here. But this week we are due for some cooling weather – down to the 80’s. And possible rain. But the real way you know the weather is changing – the tomato plants are coming back to life. I pull out the dead corn, cleared out the cucumbers, and cut back the marigolds. I need to cut back of the the melons, but it was just too hot. But this weekend I did some weeding and feeding in the garden. Which is good because it looks like its growing season again. It seems too hot, but I’m found a lot of new growth on lots of the plants.

Since I cleaned out dead stuff I went ahead and planted more seeds. I put in bok choy, beets, beans, acorn squash, fennel, carrots, and some broccoli. According to Mother Earth News app this is the time to start planting these guys. I also got some seed for cabbage, swiss chard, and onions. I’ll put those in the ground tomorrow. I may put in some other things that should grow this time of year too. Some spinach would be nice. I’m also doing some additional hand watering that is probably helping things grow.

The zucchini plant has lots of small zucchinis, the tomato plants are covered in green tomatoes just starting to ripen, and the jalapeno pepper plant is still producing peppers. So the garden is not done yet. Don’t give up hope on your garden. Here there really are two growing seasons. And the second season is starting now.

Yes, I know. Its been a while. We made it home from our trip. The trip was great – wonderful cool weather, good food, good company, and fabulous new places.

What we came home to wasn’t quite so fabulous. Apparently it was hot while we were gone. Triple digit hot. So since we were not around to give plants the extra water they needed, we lost stuff. The cucumbers are toast (yup that’s what they looked like) as were some of the squash plants. Apparently one of the connectors came undone, so out of about 8 squash plants only 2-3 sort of survived. One is doing okay, but I’m not sure the other two will survive. And the corn is entirely dead. Oh well.  Did not lose a single tomato plant, but they were a bit worse for the wear. And some of the strawberry plants didn’t make it – not enough water.

Now that we’re back I am watering some of the plants to see how well they’ll survive. Also we’ve cooled down to the low 90’s (that’s Texas for you, low 90’s is cool) and with the extra water some plants are coming back. For instance, with the extra water some of the squash plants are putting out new squashes. Some of the tomatoes are starting to ripen. Even the strawberry plants are perking up with extra water.

But since its been a while and we’re coming into our second growing season, I think it may be time to feed. I’ll try to do that this week or next weekend. Oh, and didn’t lose a single pepper plant. But the red on the vine peppers are edible, hot but not as hot as they were green.

Yes, the comfortable temperatures we had are gone. Austin area has hit the mid to high 90’s already. Yesterday’s high hit 93, with a heat index of 100. Our low – 74. Its warm out there. Plants are not growing well. Though some tomatoes are getting red, many are just sitting there green on the plant. Last year we left them on the plants, and when the weather began to cool they all started ripening. We do have some yellow tomatoes that are ripe, but again, most of the plants are just trying to hold their own.

On the other hand we are having a wasp problem. We have found many more wasp nests than we normally do. And some have been big nests. They are high up under the eaves and difficult to spray. But hopefully the spraying will work and they won’t come back. It does help that Bill knocked some of the nests down. I’m just hoping the wasps don’t come back and build new nests.

I’ve also noticed a lot more young fawns still. And quite a few twins this year. Some of the bucks are already beginning to get velvet on their antlers. I feel for the does. They still have fawns nursing and its not that long until the rut will start all over for them. At least there is still a lot of greenery around for them to feed on. And I don’t mind if they eat, as long as they stay out of my back yard. 

I actually gave these away to a friend. Though we did keep a few of the carrots for dinner.  They were good. The carrots had been growing in a big barrel. So after harvesting I planted more seeds.