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Welcome to my zone 9a habitat garden near Houston, Texas.

Saturday, June 8, 2013

This week in the garden - #67

Okay. I give up. My spring vegetable garden is almost a complete failure.

The corn that started out so promisingly tasseled but never developed ears. The zucchini produced a few fruits and then collapsed. Usually that means squash vine borers have been at work, but this time it seemed to be a fungal disease.

The tomato vines look rather sickly. They are producing but not in the quantity that I would expect. The green beans, eggplants, and peppers are coming along but just don't seem to be growing the way they would in a normal year. They are not producing yet but I have my fingers crossed.

The only thing that has really been successful so far is the tomatillos which have produced a ton of fruits and are still blooming and producing, but, on the whole, it has been a very disappointing season.

I'm going to blame the weather again here. We had an unusually cool spring and I got a tardy start in the garden and so the plants were all several weeks later than they normally are. Even as they were growing, it was still quite cool sometimes at night - just not the kind of weather that spring vegetable plants expect and love. Perhaps I should have provided more added organic matter to the beds as well. For whatever reason, I'm pretty much writing it off at this point. Maybe I'll try again later.

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The white cat's whiskers are blooming. Behind them is celosia.


The old heirloom buddleia is full of these blooms. They are not as showy as the modern buddleias but butterflies and bees love them.


The red yucca is blooming among the Mexican feather grass in the bottle tree bed.


 Here's a close-up of the red yucca blooms.


More sunflowers bloom every day.


The crocosmia is beginning its long bloom cycle.

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It's very hot and very humid now even though, according to the calendar, summer is still a couple of weeks away. I've spent a lot of time watering plants this week, although we did get half an inch of rain on Thursday. In the next few days, we are expecting to see 100 degree temperatures for the first time in almost a year.

We might as well get used to the idea. It's going to be another scorcher of a summer.


10 comments:

  1. We like and grow many of the same flowers, and I like the name cat's whiskers, that one is new to me.
    Sorry about your veggies this year, maybe things will pick up. You can plant more of many veggies, there's still time.

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    1. I may plant a few hot weather veggies like cucumber and okra, but I think I'll wait for fall to try most of the crops again.

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  2. Sorry your vegetables have not been a big success. Your flowers look great, though! I love that sunflower, and the crocosmia.

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  3. Sorry about your veggies this year Dorothy. We had good luck with our peas earlier, although they are finished now, and our Roma tomato is doing well. Did you get any of the rain that we had this morning? It's nice and steamy now of course, but the garden appreciated the rain.

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    1. We got a little rain this morning, no more than enough to leave a trace in the rain gauge, but it did refresh things and I was happy to get it.

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  4. I'm no disciplined enough to be a vegetable gardener. My husband says it's cheaper to buy at the Farmer's Market...

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    1. I'm not sure it takes any more discipline than other kinds of gardening, although, again like most gardening, it does take a certain amount of luck. That luck seems to have deserted me this year.

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  5. Hi, Dorothy! I've been enjoying your posts and commenting, but my comments aren't showing. This is a test.. . .

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  6. Okay! I don't know what happened, but now I feel better. Don't feel bad about your veggies. Our weather this year has been so weird and, as you know, we still have plenty of time left or planting! I wish you a wonderful trip! I might be caught up reading your blog archives by then! I am so glad to see your blog again!

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