Garden Update

This year is the first year I've ever planted a fall garden, and I must say I've been very impressed with it.   My summer gardens have never fared well in this Texas heat, so I figured that planting a fall one might be worth a shot.

So far, it is looking more beautiful than any summer garden of mine ever has!

And yes, you can see my weenie dogs play fighting in the front.

I've already harvested some lettuces and swiss chard to mix in a salad.

The top is a type of leaf lettuce (It's kind of bitter so I won't recommend it), and the bottom is Arugula, looking kind of sparse because I'd trimmed it the day before.

I actually am seeing some beans and peas growing finally!  I've always had issues with my produce growing big enough to harvest.  They seem to stall out so I'm holding my breath on these!

A few green beans, that appear larger in this picture than they actually are.

My first pea, and I've since noticed a few more!

I'm pretty excited about my huge pot of carrots!  I tried them once before in the ground here (do not recommend!) and they got about an inch long.    I have a friend from church who has a very nice container garden, and a husband with a very green thumb, and I saw pictures of her carrots last year, and also a picture on pinterest showing how they grew well in a deep pot, so I tried it, and I have to say, so far so good!

Carrots in front, the old ice chest in the back contains a winter squash.   I'm not going to get too excited about it because borer bugs have gotten to every single squash plant I have ever attempted growing, and I did find a larva wrapped in a dead leaf in there with it last week, so apparently getting them off of the ground doesn't help too much!

Now this one is the biggest and most beautiful plant I've got growing, only I have no idea what it is!   Well, that's not entirely true.   I have 4 ideas what it could be!   You see, I planted broccoli, cauliflower  and green and purple cabbage.    Two sprouted, two did not, and I cannot recall which order I potted them in.  So this is one of those 4, and I have another smaller one in a nearby pot that looks pretty much identical, so I guess I'm playing a waiting game!  Unless one of you has any guesses?

To the left of this one, you can see a rather large tomato plant.   I did not actually plant this tomato plant.  My summer garden contained tomatoes in that pot, and two sprung up from the soil uninvited.  I actually had to transplant my other smaller unknown vegetable when I realized that there where actually two types of plants growing in that pot.   Ii didn't think tomatoes did well in cooler weather, but hey...this is Texas!  We shall see what happens!

So there you have it!  That is the current state of my garden as of a few days ago  (I've been fighting with blogger to allow me to upload pictures for 3 days now, and I was finally able to figure out a way to get around my issue with the advice of some very nice bloggers!  *mwuah*).  As my summer garden this year was very disappointing, I am quite thrilled about the state of things!

I still need to learn about what to do when freezing strikes, because, this being Texas, that comes on without warning sometimes.   Thankfully the coldest its been has been around 36 so far, and nice mild temps are still showing up in the forecast, so I'm really hopeful for good results from this crop!