The activity this week consisted mostly of preparation for fall planting, although we did harvest a few things. We picked okra and watermelons from the row garden. Most of them were donated to The Caring Place, but we also gave a couple of watermelons to the new Master Gardener intern class. We picked eggplant and cucumbers from the raised beds.
The caterpillar infestation that hit the pumpkin patch in the row garden was too much for the plants to handle. So we pulled them out this week. We also pulled out the last of the squash, which was no longer producing. After the soil is amended we will plant fall crops in those rows.
For the second week we spent most of our time in the raised beds preparing for fall planting. We pulled out some gourds, cucumbers and tomato plants to make room for the fall veggies. There are still a few things to pull out but most of the spent plants are gone now. We amended the soil in the remaining 8×10 bed and converted the ¼-in drip hose in that bed to ½-in.
Although we still have beds to amend and irrigation line work to do, we all wanted to plant something this week. We put in some transplants of arugula, cabbage and cauliflower and also sowed seeds of radishes, kohlrabi, broccoli raab and a few other fall vegetables.
For the third time in the last month we experienced irrigation system damage. This time it was a hole in one of the hoses that we use for hand-watering. It was difficult to tell whether the cause was four-legged or two-legged varmints. In either case it cost us time and money to make these irrigation repairs.
We realized this week that we need to do some irrigation work in both the culinary and fragrant herb beds. The fragrant herbs are getting too much water because we didn’t rework the irrigation system in that bed when we decided to grow herbs in one-half of a vegetable bed. We need to correct that. In the culinary herb bed we have herbs that need very little water near herbs that need more water. Fortunately, that is an easy problem to fix when you use drip lines. So we will do some rework there to solve our watering problems.
The team has begun working twice a week in order to get all of the fall prep and planting done. In addition, we are stopping by the garden between workdays to water the new plantings. So we have a greater presence in the garden than we did during the summer months.
The demonstration garden is located north of the Williamson County Extension Office driveway at 3151 SE Innerloop Road, Georgetown, Texas. Master gardeners are usually at work in the vegetable garden on Tuesday and Friday mornings from 9:00 to 11:00. Anyone is welcome to stop by to see the garden or to ask questions of the master gardeners.
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