Week Ending 10/30/12

Twas a braw morn last Friday when a few stalwart members of the veggie garden crew braved the cold and wind to tend the demo gardens. It was much more comfortable Tuesday. Despite the variable weather, we got quite a few things done this week.

We replaced the hand-watering hoses in both the row garden and raised bed area as the one in the the raised beds was leaking a good bit and the hose in the row garden literally exploded. Now we won’t get impromptu showers when we hand-water the turnips that we planted in the row garden this week.

We harvested some Sun Gold tomatoes and okra from the row garden, but the amount was too small to donate. The okra had become so unproductive that we pulled it out and began prepping the rows for something else. We were able to harvest a very small amount of eggplant, peppers, okra, radishes, mustard and lettuce from the raised beds and containers this week.

Somehow the drip emitter had been pulled out of the container with the Fairytale eggplant over the weekend and it looked pretty thirsty. We hand-watered it and repaired the irrigation damage. We had to repair some additional damage in one of the other containers as well. In fact, this week was the “Week of Irrigation Work” as we decided to rework the irrigation in the 5×20 bed that is half veggies and half fragrant herbs. This summer the fragrant herbs started dying off and we finally figured out that it was because we had had to increase the watering time in order to keep the veggies happy. That sort of drowned the pineapple sage and a couple of other herbs. So this week we changed the drip irrigation in that multi-use bed to use ½-in lines in the veggie portion and ¼-in lines in the herb part. Hopefully that will make all the plants happy.

The mixed-use bed is where we planted our fall tomatoes. They are doing great, especially the Juliet, which is sort of between a cherry and Roma tomato size and shape. As you can see in this picture, it has nearly outgrown its support.

The cruciferous (cabbagey) crops in both the row garden and raised beds continue to be plagued by cabbage loopers and other caterpillars, so we have been spraying them with BT (bacillus thuringiensis) and zealously inspecting them for the little buggers, especially now that we have removed the row covers from all of the beds and the planting table.

We did some other plant maintenance on the herbs and blackberries as well as the compost bin. Everything is looking pretty good right now. We know we will lose the tomatoes and eggplant at the first frost, but we have lots of winter crop seeds to fill in the space they are occupying when the time comes.

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.