Early September 2015 - A Hot Summer for Planting the Fall Garden

It has been a while since I've made a post - after all the rain came in May, our scorching summer began and this year I spent more time in the air conditioning.  Today is September 3rd and I noticed our forecast over the next several days is projected near 100 degrees each day of the Labor Day weekend here in North Texas. 

I saw a giant swallowtail flitting around my lemon and orange trees on my back porch.  I had never noticed how their inner and outer wing patterns were different until I took these pictures.  Their host plants are typically citrus and I'm betting this one was a female laying her eggs.  Their caterpillars look like bird droppings so I'm going to start looking for them in a few weeks.

On to the vegetable garden - my husband had more energy than I and decided to plant a fall garden.  Here are tiny broccoli plants coming up - he's going to have a lot of thinning to do.  The weeds are already coming up too - sigh.  You can see how pretty the marigolds have gotten over the summer - these plants were one tiny plant in a 6 pack this spring.

We have winter squash coming up now as well.  They will also need to be thinned.  The bell peppers survived the hot summer with abundant fruit.

 Broccoli in front and winter squash in the back.

Beans.

Tomatoes from the spring are looking ratty but still producing some fruit.  We decided not to pull them up.  The cats cradle has done very well holding up the large tomatoes.

 More beans coming up in the back raised bed.

Our chickens get let out of the tractor in the late afternoon to roam around and search for bugs.

Another close up of the loaded bell pepper and jalapeno pepper plants.

 More jalapenos.

Papa offering a tomato.   The girls checking it out.

Our persimmon tree is dying but it is giving this last year all it has - we'll be able to harvest its last crop in November before the first frost.

I found a wheel bug on the fig tree.  This bug is beneficial in the garden.  Read more about it here.     http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/galveston/beneficials/beneficial-09_wheel_bug.htm

The jujube tree is is also loaded with fruit.  This fruit is similar in texture to an apple tree although not as juicy.

 Close up of the jujube fruit.

 

 

The pear tree is also loaded with fruit this year.

And finally, we have been having a lot of frogs around here this summer.  They hang out in the shrubbery around the house during the day and jump in the pool at night.  This one is an American Bullfrog and it looks like it came straight out of a fairy tale.

Summer Solstice 2015 - Garden Update

This week's garden post starts on Summer Solstice, the longest day of the year.  My husband found a group of insects clustered together while he was trimming trees and shrubs.

 It was larvae evolving to a bright orange beetle - it is a type of ladybug.  Chilocorus stigma

http://www.learn2grow.com/problemsolvers/insectsanimals/insectsbeneficial/LadybugIdentification.aspx

Next is a vegetable garden status update. Our experimental "cat's cradle" tomato cages made with fence posts and twine is working great even as the tomatoes start to get large and heavy!  I took the tomato plant pictures immediately below a week ago.  I have pictures taken from today Summer Solstice to compare the growth.

This is an excellent year for tomatoes.  Our vines are overflowing!

The peppers are doing well.  We have both bell peppers and jalapenos.

 

The cucumbers are growing up the trellis.  This is a good year for them.

 The squash and zucchini are starting to wind down and the squash bugs are starting to make an appearance, but they are still producing some fruit.

Here is a picture of the herb garden.  The honeybees are constantly buzzing around it, they especially love the catnip and basil flowers.  These same bees keep our vegetable flowers pollinated.  Asparagus continues to grow on the top.  We have rosemary, chives, basil, dill, parsley, oregano, catnip, and bay plant.

These pictures were taken today on Summer Solstice.  You can see that the tomatoes have continued to grow.  My husband added another row of twine today to hold them up.

 Our typical harvest about every other day.

 We harvested the cabbage today.  We didn't plant very many this year.  I plan to chop them up in a food processor.  My goal is to make sauerkraut.   Hopefully I'll get to make the sauerkraut this week.  Otherwise they will get frozen and used in stir-frys.

I harvested garlic several weeks ago.  They have been drying for a couple of weeks.  I cut off the ends - they are now ready for use in cooking.  The jalapeno peppers were harvested today. 

I'll make jalapeno poppers for my husband for Father's Day today - they are now his new favorite snack.  The hardest part is frying up the bacon and cutting up the jalapenos.  

I use the following recipe:  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xkq6NvNDHRY

I made the poppers several weeks before and they turned out excellent.

Around the yard now.  The Vitex is blooming now - it blooms most of the summer.  This small tree is a magnet for bees, hummingbirds, and butterflies.  They come in several colors and grow to approximately 20 feet tall.  They are drought tolerant but they grow lots of branches and require constant pruning. 

We found a dove nest in our Japanese black pine tree.  Unfortunately we think the doves abandoned it.

I found this five lined skink in one of my patio pots this morning.   This is a more unusual visitor to my yard.  In fact, this is the first one I have seen around here.
 http://www.fcps.edu/islandcreekes/ecology/five-lined_skink.htm

A nice morning on the front porch.

We had a beautiful sunrise in my neighborhood this week.  I loved the sunrays.

The echinecea (aka purple coneflower) is blooming now.

I also have another variety of daylily blooming now.  I really like the curly leaf on this one.

We had beautiful clouds this week after getting another 2" of rain.

I'll end the post with a picture of a blackberry cobbler I made this past week using our our harvested blackberries.  We harvested 13 quarts of blackberries this year from about 5 bushes.  I think the huge amount of rainfall in 2015 sharply curtailed our harvest this year.  I tried a new blackberry cobbler recipe I found on Youtube.  It reminds me of a dump cake recipe. It is easy and good and I highly recommend it.   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2dgIUclq0DI