Progress in the 2015 Fall Vegetable Garden - Early October

We had a cool front come through North Texas yesterday, October 2nd.  The low this morning is 54 degrees with a projected high of 81.  I love it.  The fruits of my husband's labors in the garden are starting to show now. 

These are pictures of the vegetable garden in the late afternoon yesterday.  All of the plants, with the exception of the peppers and tomatoes (which were planted in the spring and "over-summered", were planted with seeds in late August. 

http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/archives/parsons/fallgarden/falldirect.html

Winter squash

We thought the seeds were acorn squash but now believe we have butternut squash.

Pickling cucumbers starting to grow up the trellis.

Another patch of cucumbers.

Broccoli coming up from seed.

 Bush beans (blue lake) are coming up.

 View of bell and jalapeno peppers.

The tomatoes are ragged looking (on the left) but they are covered in blossoms.  We are hoping for a fall crop - we have seen some bees, hopefully they are doing their job.  The asparagus in the center raised bed needs another haircut.

 We have lots of jalapeno peppers.  Time to make poppers again.

 The bell pepper plants are lush now.

 Giant cinnamon basil which came up volunteer this year - trailing rosemary on the right.

We have a drip irrigation system which works well, we typically we run it once per day or once every other day depending on the weather for about 15 minutes.  My husband tops the watering off sometimes.  He likes to hand water during dusk.

 

On to the flowering plants around the house - we don't have many in bloom now, but I'll share for the sake of remembering.  This is a perennial blue salvia and attracts hummingbirds.   It dies back each winter and then comes back to bloom most of the summer and into fall.

The marigolds in the vegetable garden are huge this year - this was one tiny plant in a 6 pack.

After all the rain in May, we then had a very dry summer.  We just had the shrubs in the front yard trimmed and are replacing some of the plantings - the 3 red yuccas here were just put in.  We had mulch spread too.  So far we have had 12 cubic yards spread in the front garden beds and it still isn't finished.  We still have to get the mulch put in the back yard beds too.

A large agave we put in.

The red yuccas we planted are blooming now.

Spider Lilies (also known as Naked Ladies because they don't have leaves) are coming up and blooming now.

We found a huge paper wasp nest. 

The Flame Acanthus is blooming now and it attracts hummingbirds.  This particular bush came up volunteer in the garden so I let it stay.  It is a perennial, I just cut it back each winter.

Well, that's all for now.  Enjoy the cool fall weather!