Lil's Garden

  The 100 degree plus weather has relegated our gardening time to only an hour or so right around dusk. I think we have one more week of this really hot weather before we can get serious about the fall garden. Meanwhile...  We have just broken ground on our new barndorminium. The structure is situated smack in the middle of the prairie with two huge old pecan trees framing the front. It will house a garage, a breezeway, and three small rooms. We hope to use it for education about the prairie, gardening, sustainability, spiritual practice, creation care, and whatever else comes up. For a couple of weeks before the Bobcat moved in, we rescued some of the grasses that would be destroyed by the construction.    We filled up all the pots that we had with grasses, and then just planted the grasses in the little greenhouse that we have out back. I've been watering them every day, and they seem to love the respite from the heat that the shade cloth provides. They are flourishing.  When the

I ran across this saying when I was looking on the internet for a descriptive phrase for the heat that didn't contain any cuss words. The operative words are "blister" and  "pepper." That's pretty hot. However, as it turns out, we did have an infestation of blister bugs on our eggplants last week. This heat has stressed all the plants and made them susceptible to infestations by insects. Overnight the blister beetles consumed all the leaves on four plants. An application of diatomaceous earth seemed to take care of those little critters. And the eggplants are making a bit of a comeback.  We have seen an influx of critters looking for a fresh bite of anything the last few weeks. The garden has fed us all summer and now it's feeding the critters.  The deer have been disregarding our magic fishing line fence and having nourishing nibbles of the jalapenos and the peanuts.   So we are trying one more fix. We've put up another short fence of colorful twine

  If anyone in the Floresville area needs basil, don't go to HEB. Come to H-E-Me. Feel free to come and pick what you need.    I have a whole row, and basil loves being picked on.   We are also beginning to get a few blackeyed peas. As some of you know, we grew a wild watermelon this summer that we didn't plant. I think it came up from the compost. The vine produced about ten watermelons. One weighed 45 pounds. We just finished the last one last week. Well....They're back!

I haven't posted for quite a while. Last week we ate the last of the fresh homegrown tomatoes and cooked the last squash for a while. The weather has been hovering around 100 degrees for a month or so. But that hasn't stopped the two little gardeners. We just get all our work done before 10am. The ritual for the last few days has been: finish the garden work, sit in the swings hanging in the pecan tree, and eat half of an ice-cold homegrown watermelon. Sadly we're also running out of watermelons. Here's what happening in the end-of-summer, getting-ready-for-fall garden. We've planted the slips that have been growing on the sweet potatoes sitting in the kitchen window. They are coming along nicely. The deer (who have finally figured out a way past our fishing line deer fence) seem to really enjoy sweet potato leaves. They nipped off a few one night. But a net over the two rows has prevented any further damage. It's also good for catching grasshoppers. I have a wo