Take a Photo Tour of My June Garden
Welcome to the garden tour, we’re glad you’re here! Most of you may be finishing up your planting and are looking forward to the summer harvest. Here in Central Texas, the garden has been cranked up for a few months and the harvest will come to an end within a month.
That’s Central Texas Zone 8b!
You should know that my garden is a mess!. I’m not going to give you a panoramic view, it’s just too much for one person to do right now. I have all kinds of excuses.
- It has been so wet that I have not been able to keep up on the necessary weeding.
- I work.
- It’s too hot in the evenings.
Ultimately, I’m doing what I can and that’s okay with me. I few weeds don’t bother me and we are still having a terrific harvest.
My Garden Success
Even though they weren’t staked properly. The Juliet cherry tomatoes are producing and we are in salad heaven. I’ve been researching making sauces and other ways to use the abundance of these small, sweet tomatoes.
I received a gift of zinnia and marigold seeds from friends this year. Basically, I threw the seed out in freshly tilled soil and figured if they took off great. They did!
The zucchini was planted by mid-April and then we discovered there was a calcium deficiency in the soil. How do you know? Blossom end rot strikes summer squash too. Adding organic fertilizer specifically for end rot has turned my zucchini from a garden fail to a garden success.
The dill, lemon verbena, and plantain are ready for their first harvest.
I harvested a total of 40 sweet peppers this season, The plants are healthy and are beginning to set flowers again. We had fresh stuffed peppers for dinner and the rest are dehydrating right now.
The Kentucky wonder pole beans are just beginning to produce. I found handfuls of beans ready for picking at the base of each plant. If I had waited any longer they would have been too tough for eating. That’ll teach me to get busy and not pay attention in the garden!
Garden Failures
This is my first year gardening through the complete Central Texas season. Even for a seasoned gardener like me, there is a lot to learn about gardening in the south.
Here are a few things I’ve discovered.
- The bugs are big and they are everywhere. You have to keep up on it or they will win.
- It is important to get your soil tested when you start a garden. A simple soil test would have alerted me to the fact that the soil has a calcium deficiency and I would have had summer squash earlier.
- Fire ants are awful, awful, awful creatures.
- It’s hard to kill grass without herbicides (which I refuse to use), that means plenty of hand weeding is involved (which I have not done).
The weather has been extremely wet for Texas and my new peach tree is waterlogged. I still need to do research to see if it can be saved.
Fire ants are my garden nemesis. All the preparations that get rid of them and can be purchased at the big box stores are too toxic for plants or people. They are certainly not what I want to put in my food garden.
For now, they appear to be winning. This fire ant mound is at the base of a jalapeno plant. What are they thinking?!
Anyone have a good, organic way to kill fire ants?
…and finally, I have a sunflower “problem.” These plants are all volunteers. I’ve pulled them from the walkways and from most of the garden beds, but they are everywhere.
For now, I’m leaving them as a cover crop in the areas of the garden that were not planted with vegetables.
That seed had to come from somewhere, so it remains to be seen if this will prove to be a garden success or failure in the future.
Garden Odds and Ends
The red onions blew over in the last storm but still seem to be growing.
I planted a handful of cantaloupe seed in an out of the way part of the garden- thinking that the seed was old and it would not germinate. Now I have about 20 plants reaching out and I need to figure out a trellis for them.
My fancy 6 foot tall sunflower plants all germinated and then the tops died. Out of 15 plants only 2 have survived. Those are completely bug eaten!
It appears that the Mortgage Lifter Heirloom tomatoes are not going to keep my family in tomato sauce this winter. They have few blooms and even fewer fruit. I think they need another dose of fertilizer, so all is not lost.
Garden success or failure? We shall see!
Homestead Garden Tour
I have a very special treat for you today, which is a virtual garden tour of eleven other gardens! I always love seeing what other people are growing, and how they are growing food, herbs and flowers. Plus, on this tour you will visit gardens in USDA gardening zones 3 through 9a. That means that some of the gardens are just beginning their season, while others (zone 9a!) are wrapping up their harvests. Join the virtual tour by clicking through to the other sites on the list below. Have fun!
Joybilee Farm (British Columbia, Zone 3)
Homespun Seasonal Living (Montana, Zone 4b)
Homestead Honey (NE Missouri, Zone 5b)
Family Food Garden (British Columbia, Zone 5b)
Learning and Yearning (Pennsylvania, Zone 5b)
Reformation Acres (Ohio, Zone 5b)
Homestead Lady (SW Missouri, Zone 6)
Timber Creek Farm (Maryland, Zone 7b)
Grow Forage Cook Ferment (Oregon, Zone 8a)
A Farm Girl in the Making (Washington, Zone 8a)
Schneiderpeeps (Texas, Zone 9a)
Your garden looks beautiful, even with all the ‘failures’! I can’t wait to read the rest of your blog!
Thanks Lacey!
I can’t wait to see the volunteer sunflowers bloom!
I think every season most gardeners that grow food have a challenge of pests and weeds, we’re all in this together. I’ve found readers love it when I show the weeds and real life garden failures 🙂
Best of luck with the rest of the season
Hey Shellie,
I have a fire ant remedy I read about years ago. (I live in San Antonio but don’t garden). This was supposed to work really well. You buy a box of grits, sprinkle them on the fire ant mound before a rain. The ants take the grits to the queen and she eats them. When it rains, the grits swell up and she dies. The article was from the newspaper years ago. I thought it might work and is cheap enough. If you try it, let me know if it works.
Love your garden and your website.
Thank you so much Elaine! I will go buy some grits tomorrow…there’s nothing to lose except those pesky ants!
When I lived in GA we used grits to kill the fire ants too.
I’ve heard that one recently Jillian and I’m going to give it a try. Thanks for stopping by!
A couple other proven Texas Fire Ant tricks I’ve used or known others to use..
Pour boiling water into the top of the mound.. This is make the ants it doesnt kill move somewhere else.. but at least they wont be where they were before. My dad used to pour gasoline or kerosene in them & light them on fire but thats not very earth friendly.
Another remedy that works pretty well but takes time to start working is to spread Diatomaceous Earth (DE) in and around areas you want to rid of fire ants. It really works well if you keep a continual application especially after rains. You can find small bags in big box stores, but find a farm & ranch store that can order it by 50# bags.. its much cheaper that way.
Thanks for the ideas Kim! I have heard of the boiling water trick but since the ants are growing right in the middle of the garden beds, I’m afraid that it will kill my plants. This is certainly something to do once the season ends. I have some DE, but not enough to put all over my 30×40 foot garden. I will ask at ranch supply and see if they can get me a bag. At this point, I’m willing to do pretty much anything! I can;t even go into the garden without my muck boots.
I’m so glad y’all are getting together to post these gardening by zone posts. I’m at the border of zone 8b and 9a. I’ve struggled so much because the rest of the countries growing seasons are so limited. When I follow their advice I end up having baby plants scorched by our hot summer sun. Anyways, I’m so thrilled to find these posts – they’re already helping me get a grasp on our seasons. Keep them coming!
YES! The fire ants and the all ants in general are such terrible pests. Northern gardeners like to tell me “oh ants don’t bite, just leave them there.” NO, my dears ants do bite and not only that, they devoured my tomato plants. Or at least destroyed their root systems. They’ve also invaded every attempt to compost, and I think they discourage the beneficial bugs I need… I’m desperate for a solution. A bug guy told me recently that cayenne pepper will discourage them. I’ll try that next. I did have some success with pouring melted (loose and liquid) organic coconut oil in the mound and then spraying it with a dash of cold water to reharden it. However the ants are MANY and PERSISTANT. I’m desperate for a solution!
Also, the sunflower seeds will make good treats for any farm animals you have, and from what I’ve heard that aren’t too difficult to harvest. My sunflowers didn’t make it this year – I planted them too late, of course.
Thank you again for your knowledge and help!
Hi Shirley, I’m a 2-year transplant from the Pacific Northwest and still learning to successfully grow things here in Texas. One thing I have figured out is crop rotation for cool weather crops. All the lettuce, broccoli, potatoes, and peas are planted in September down here in the South and the timing is completely different from the north. I’ve found this handout from Texas A&M very helpful http://www.bartonspringsnursery.net/files/documents/Vegetable-planting-calendar-2012-1.pdf
I use DE in my garden (I’m in FL and yes, they are horrible creatures) and it does seem to get rid of the fire ants. There are so many around our property that I can’t tell you for certain whether it kills them or just makes them move. Either way, as long as they’re not where I’m putting my hands, I’m ok with it. We’re going to start moving our hens around too–a local friend of ours says his free-range chickens took care of his fire ant problem.
I think you’re right Helena, treating them doesn’t really get it to go away – they just move to the next hill!
Fire ant … Orange oil and molasses was recommended to me. The nice man said it really works. Only had small ant one bed, and ashamed to say I poisoned them…
My Central Texas zucchini, cantaloupe and one mini watermelon ( from Home Depot) late in the season are JUST starting to grow after all the rain we have had. I’m still picking blossoms off to encourage root growth. AGH!!
Can I visit your garden some time? Mine failed the last 2 years, and I’m going to start from scratch next.
Just north of Temple.
Thanks…Mary
Hi Mary Jane, that rain has really been tough on my garden too. I will try the orange oil and molasses and let you know if it works!
Possible fire ant solution: Sometimes this works, sometimes it doesn’t… Your mileage may vary…
For this to have any chance of success, you need to have two or more fire ant mounds. Remove a shovel full of soil from the center of each mound & dump it on the other mound(s).
What you are doing is creating an artificial ant invasion. When they detect the foreign ants in their mound, they go into combat mode. They will fight to the death, weakening the colony. If you combine this method with one or more of the other methods you might just have some success.
I’m located in south central Texas. It was so rainy this year I didn’t even bother to start my garden. I might plant a fall garden. =/
I’m going to try this JL, I certainly have more than one mound!
Thank you so much for the garden tours..I love it. It does help to see posts from gardens in my neck of the woods or very close by in Texas. I planted 75 sunflowers for the first time. Unfortunately, about 30 were mowed down by my neighbor who was not aware that I had planted them as a border between lots. The remaining plants are tall and beautiful and then the head, either fully grown out or about the size of a 50 cent piece started falling off . I don’t know what happened..I can’t see any obvious bugs but there is a lot of dark stuff around the break…reminds me of mildew..
I had a problem with my sunflowers this year too Linda. I planted a long row of 6 footers and they all came up nicely. Only two have survived. The tops just flopped over and died, while the rest of the plant seems to be fine. No flowers on them, for sure. I think it’s all the rain, but I have no solid proof!
For fire ants: when I peel oranges, I filet the pith off, put the peeled peel (LOL) in a jar and cover with water. I keep adding to it (start with a large jar) and shake it now and then. When it’s full, I “decant” into a large pump sprayer diluting 1:1 with water. I thoroughly drench the mounds after I’ve aggregated them with a stick. I don’t know if they die or move but they disappear from the yard for months. Do all mounds at once.
Thanks for the tip PB, I accidently stumbled upon a hill last week and was “attacked”. I really do hate those buggers!
Great work. I really appreciate the insight here in this post and confident it’s going to be helpful to me and many others. Thanks for sharing all the information and tips.