It’s a Tough Time to be a Gardening Columnist

The other day at Dairy Queen, I ran into a couple of fellow gardeners who read this column. They both noticed that I haven’t written about gardening for a few weeks.

That’s because it is a pitiful time of year to be a gardener.

Janessa and I are taking a trip to Big Bend in a few weeks. It might be greener out there than it is in my vegetable garden right now.

A few things are still hanging on – eggplants and peppers, mainly. Grasshoppers have decimated my okra plants. One of the guys at Dairy Queen observed how the grasshoppers munch on okra leaves from the outside. The leaves get smaller and smaller until just a skeleton of veins remain.

I’d like to get some fall vegetables started – cabbage, kale, and other kinds of greens. But it’s just too hot right now. I may start some seeds indoors in a few weeks. But those fall crops will definitely fry if I tried seeding them directly in the garden. I think I’ll wait until nighttime temperatures remain consistently in the low seventies before planting anything like that outside.

In the meantime, I’m just trying to keep the eggplants and peppers watered. I’m also growing some roselle that I hope to harvest this fall. It’s a plant in the hibiscus family that makes a seed pod you can turn into juice and jelly – sort of tart like cranberry. The last time I grew roselle, the harvest came in October, if I remember correctly.

I’m also struggling to keep my fig trees alive. I bought six figs of a few different varieties back in the spring. They were small seedlings in four-inch pots. I planted two of them in the ground. The other four I potted up into large containers over the summer. My plan is to plant the other four in the ground this fall, when conditions are a little more ideal for root development. ‘They all started out great. But now this heat is really stressing them. The ones in the ground lost their leaves at one point, and they’re growing back a few. The potted plants may be doing a smidge better. I’m itching for fall to get here. Hopefully the weather will start cooling off in the next few weeks.