Late Summer - 2017

Summer, Southern Summer, is so long here that it seems to be three seasons, kinda like daffodils coming on early, mid and late. Crickets and cicadas sing their loudest late summer here in the coastal plains of Southeastern NC. It is satisfying bedtime music going on into early morning To cut okra to their accompaniment is quite nice. The okra will be cooked with onions and green peppers for supper tonight.
The past few days have been devoted to cleaning up and clearing out for Fall planting. In went cabbage (Savoy grown from seed), broccoli, lettuce seed, rutabaga, and radish. The beets are up and have been thinned. Carrots are just starting to show. Butternut squashes are starting to harden off. From just one plant we got six nice-enough ones.
Field peas are good this year. Okra carries on no matter the heat or dry weather. It is a generous, easy to care for plant. Roasted it's a great substitute for french fries. Peppers are steady producers this year and after the last hard rain sweet potatoes were exposed. We have a least two.
We planted Contender green beans at home and in the community garden. They are up! It's time to plant turnips, mustard and kale. Whew. That's it for now. Gotta go plant some seeds, right now!

It took about a month for these Contenders to bloom. 

Transitioning to Fall

July was hot and dry. The twin evils of summer gardening. We watered a lot. Tomatoes crashed. Squash succumbed to borers. But, life persists. Peppers chugged along, all of them. Lima beans, taking forever to mature, are finally forming tags. Tags? Farmer term for emerging fruit of beans and peas. Okra is fabulous. About fifteen plants feeds us every other day. The first planting of field peas has started to bear enough to cook a small pot for dinner. Following the bell curve we'll have more than enough next week. The second planting, about three weeks behind, will carry us on into the first frost. I hope.
🍅Tomatoes. The hardest vegetable a Southern grows excepting squash. I pinch off suckers and keep planting in different spots. As Fall approaches we may get one that makes it. Nematodes and wilt diseases are the death of tomatoes.
Savoy cabbages are almost ready to transplant. Broccoli seed didn't germinate well so I'm giving them another go.
Today we will plant root vegetables. Some of each. We are still eating beets, rutabagas and carrots harvested in June.
Have I said it? I enjoy everything about growing our food from seed to plate. Except watering.
So it goes. Down South. There is no end. An unbroken circle of gardening hope.

These babies do not often require watering. 💖