Welcome to my little “Garden of Eatin'” ;) and What Gonzales Master Gardeners can do for you!

by Cindy on January 23, 2016

Hey Y’all! So I haven’t blogged for over a year! It’s crazy. I hardly know where to begin! There’s so much to say and so much to share, so let’s just jump right in and pick up where we left off, shall we?

It was a long, hot and dry Summer in 2014 with temps in the 100’s, no rainfall for at least a month and we were running out of our collected rain water. I shared with you some cool Raised Bed Gardens from Hometalk and lessons learned from my first Spring garden. It was a successful garden and I was quite pleased overall.

What I hadn’t shared with you is that I soon would be joining the Gonzales Master Gardeners that September. The classes were awesome, taught by some of the most passionate and knowledgable people from our community and all over Texas! The volunteer work was fun and exciting! These folks are the best of the best! I’ve made many new friends, learned a lot and love the feeling I get from volunteering!

I must send a shout out and huge THANK YOU to a commenter and friend ( cuz I consider you all my friends) Barbara from Missouri whom brought it to my attention about the State Master Gardening program. After reading this post, she felt like sharing this information with me and I am so glad she did!I had never heard of the program and did not realize that most counties offer this program through their county extension services. I checked into it and found they were beginning new classes starting September, 2014. So I applied, sent in my tuition fee and graduated from the class in May of 2015! I am proud to say, I am an Texas Master Gardener! WOOHOO! That being said, I must also say that I am, in No way a “know it all” when it comes to gardening but I have definitely learned so much and will continue to do so. This has changed my life for the better. Missouri Barb I hope you read this post, thanks to you I will struggle a little less and am much more confident in my knowledge of gardening!

So let’s get down to business.

My Spring 2015 garden was my best yet! I’m going to try to keep this post short and sweet so I will only show the results for now, later I will share how I got there and some gardening tips I have learned from my experiences along the way. So let’s check out some of my favorite pic’s from the garden.

my garden of eatin'

This photo was taken in May 2015

Isn’t this an awesome view of the garden!

I love seeing the squash, bell peppers, cucumbers and tomatoes all in one shot!

I felt like I was walking through a jungle!

and another shot

And another shot just because…

Green beans 2015

These are green beans covering the right side of the trellis and cuc’s to the left of the trellis and jalapeno peppers in the lower bed.

cuccumbers 2015

Here are the cucumbers vining down the trellis and taking over an empty bed and another view of the jalapeno peppers!

Oscar Okra

This is Oscar Okra, (looking all majestic like)I wish I had got a photo of the main stem (trunk) to show you . It measured 2 1/2″ in diameter.

This okra grew more like a tree! Notice it towering above the tomatoes on the left side of the garden in the photo below.

2015 garden after MG

This is what the garden looked like in July 2015 (after Master Gardener classes)

The cucumbers and squash were done, and the tomatoes were near the end but still looks much better than the photo below.

Now remember this from my last post. 2014 spring garden

This was taken in June 2014 (before Master Gardener classes) pretty wimpy in comparison huh?

a day's harvest

A mornings harvest!

another harvest

And another day’s harvest!

Every morning I’d gather another load like this, I had so much I even sold some at the Gonzales Farmers Market!

Moon Flowers

These are Moon flowers (bush form) When I planted them I thought they would be vines.

I wanted them to vine on the fence but to my surprise they turned out to be bushes!

I love white flowers and theses are huge! They bloom open at night and close during the day, hence the name, Moon flower.

Roses

My Roses bloomed well all year, they are twice the size now and are still blooming, in January!

Okay, so I said I would try to keep this short, guess I got a little carried away.

Just one more cuz I think this little guy is so darn cute! sshhh! don’t tell him I said that, he’s a gargoyle, he’s supposed to scare off the critters!LOL’s

gargoyle in the garden

Please leave a comment, I ‘d love to hear from you and share your gardening experiences!

Tell me how you found this post, are you a follower? Email?Facebook?Pinterest?Hometalk? another blogger’s link up party? Search Engine?

Thank you so much!

Texas Gardening and 15 Cool Raised Bed Garden Tips!

by Cindy on August 10, 2014

Hey y’all! No, I did not fall off the face of the earth, I’ve just been a little overwhelmed with our Raised Bed Garden! The gardening season is coming to a close as the temperatures are rising here. Whew!!! And I am looking forward to a break! Texas gardening during the summer is just TOO DANG HOT!!! Makes me really miss my Fall Garden. Last week our temps were in the 100’s and we haven’t had rain since May 17th. Our Rain Water Catch System is gettin’ very low, hopefully we’ll get some rain soon and we won’t run out! I’m down to just the peppers and okra now. I’m sharing with you today my successes and what I’ve learned. Also along with Hometalk I am sharing 15 totally cool Raised Bed Garden Tips!

Just click on this photo and check out all 15 post for the details! In case you missed how we built our Raised Bed Garden click here for step by step details!

My #1 LESSON LEARNED

Must have a working watering system in place

(preferably with a solar pump, timer and drip irrigation)

When you have a 24’x24′ garden and only a Rain Water Storage Tank with a hose you will spend three hours every morning just wrestling with that dang hose moving it from one bed to the next! Let me explain, we have a Gravity Fed Irrigation System but our 1550 gallon tank sits only 2 feet off the ground so there is not enough pressure to support a drip irrigation system without the pump.

My #2 LESSON LEARNED

Too Much Too Soon!

(over excited new gardener downfall)

My#3 LESSON LEARNED

What in the heck will you do with all that produce?

(you learn how to store, freeze, can, cook, eat and share it!)

Texas gardening/1015 onions

Texas Gardening/Spring Garden

Texas gardening/pickling cucumbers

The zucchini did well, we ate it as fast as we produced it and I forgot to take pictures of them to share with you but the yellow squash only did so so. I had a ton of squash bugs and cucumber beetles to deal with! I’ve got to find a way to control them without spraying harmful chemicals on them. I’m trying to stay strickly organic here and hand picking to squish them all became a real challenge!

I’m happy with my results though some things didn’t make it.

The Green beans? These are suppose to be easy to grow maybe I got some bad seeds?

Carrots? I got a lot of pretty green tops but they were very thin and bitter (not enough water)

My Blueberries are barely hangin’ on but I don’t think they will make it through this heat (wrong variety)

Eggplant? Very bitter!!! (not enough water)

I’m still workin’ on getting the soil just right and I’ve learned alot about the bugs.

Still for my 1st year of gardening I’m feeling blessed!

I hope we can get the water system set up soon and I’ll be sure to share with you!

Don’t forget to take a look at all those Cool Raised Bed Gardens at Hometalk!

How did your garden do? Please leave comments below. Until next time 😉

Sharing with these fine folks

Kathy@The Chicken Chick