Well, it seems like we’ve finally turned a corner on the most oppressive of the summer heat. Maybe? Knock on wood? While the humidity has been out of control, all this extra rain in August (and the subsequent lower temps) has kicked off our fall growing season even earlier than expected.
Our pepper plants continue to be the stars of the show, with a big basket full of serranos (top picture) coming ripe every couple weeks. The habanero has set more fruit as well, and we’ll have a second harvest of those in a couple more weeks too, it seems.
Our surprise performer has been the bush beans (lower left). Bush beans are known to not set particularly well in high heat, but I experimented with planting them in the sidewalk border garden this year, where they only get direct morning sun and are otherwise shaded by our large pecan tree. While the yield isn’t abundant, we’ll have at least a meal’s worth of beans ready to harvest from just three plants in another couple days, and I anticipate they’ll continue to produce for a few more weeks.
Based on this performance, I think we’ll try some root vegetables in the border garden this fall.
Finally, after last year’s basil-palooza, we went with container varieties for both basil and rosemary this year, and both are growing well (though not in the overwhelming qualities we dealt with last year!) The rosemary is so wonderfully fragrant, I’m thinking I’ll try to find a way to use it in this year’s Christmas gift baskets.
The tomato plants are also flowering once again, and our dwarf cherry tree has probably shot up about two feet since our last update. I’m excited to be able to bring in our own food again, and see what the rest of the fall brings!
