Vegetable Demonstration Garden
Tuesday’s harvest includes*
Tomatoes— 0.6 pound
Okra—8.69 pounds
Hot peppers— 0.38 pounds
Eggplant—10.17 pounds
Crowder peas—0.61 pound
Zephyr squash—3.77 pounds
Yard long beans—1.09 pounds
Mexican sour gherkins—3.84 pounds
Sweet potato leaves—3.6 pounds
*Friday’s harvest numbers will be included in next week’s blog.
A total of 32.75 pounds of produce was harvested on Tuesday. Tuesday and Friday harvests were donated to the Caring Place. To date, Williamson county master gardeners have donated a total of 3,098.695 pounds of demonstration garden produce to local charities.
Weekly rainfall: 0.1 inches of rainfall were measured the week ending 09/04/2016
Summary of garden activities
Another new raised bed was set and leveled on Tuesday. The new raised beds were filled with a mixture of half garden soil and half compost. Expanded shale was mixed in on Friday. Irrigation trenches were filled in. The irrigation system was then tested in the new beds, trial bed, and row garden areas. Repairs were made in trial bed B, row 5 and in the trellis row. General clean up of the keyhole garden, tomato plants in rows 8 and 9, and the wheelchair garden was accomplished. Additional soil and compost were added to the keyhole and wheelchair gardens. Row 4 was cleared of existing tomato plants, weeded then broad forked. Rat and mouse traps were cleared of their trappings and reset in row 5, where the critters have been dining on our delicious melons!! On Friday the compost pile temperature measured 110 degrees F. More plant material was chopped into the pile.
Colorful hot peppers are harvested in the left pic. And, very TALL okra plants are harvested in the right pic!
A cluster of leaf footed bug nymphs crawling on southern pea plants–YIKES!
How it all begins….
All of our nutritious vegetables are started from seed. Our fall vegetables were started from seed on August 11. A total of 12 flats (240 plants) were sown. On August 25, the seedlings were potted up, fertilized and placed in filtered sunlight. Our veggies include rutabaga, turnips, 2 varieties of beets, 3 varieties of cabbage, 2 varieties of brussels sprouts, and radicchio.
There is still time to start veggie seedlings for fall planting in your home garden!
September Gardening in Central Texas
The Texas A&M Agrilife Extension vegetable garden planting guide suggests the following vegetables for late summer planting:
Warm season greens
Beans–snap and lima
Beets
Broccoli (transplants)
Brussels sprouts (transplants)
Cabbage (transplants)
Collards (seeds or transplants)
Carrots
Cauliflower (transplants)
Swiss Chard (seeds or transplants)
Kohlrabi (seeds or transplants)
Kale
Onions (bunching/multiplying)
Mustard (seeds or transplants)
Summer squash
Peas (English, snap, snow)
Radish
Turnip
Come and visit us!
Our demonstration garden is located beside the Williamson County Extension Office driveway at 3151 SE Inner Loop Road, Georgetown, Texas. Master gardeners are usually at work in the vegetable garden on Tuesday and Friday mornings from 8:30 AM to noon, weather permitting. Anyone is welcome to stop by to see the garden or to ask questions of the master gardeners!