Karl's Garden Blog

Where have I been? Why the quiet?
Well, not much happened this fall in the garden. I got some tomatoes and the Burpee Big Boy turned out to be a prolific fall producer of very sweet slicers. The Black Krim cranked out a few small fruits for fall, and the Sweet 100’s were their usual [...]

The garden’s mostly dry — even with frequent watering, I can’t seem to keep it alive right now. Half of it caught spider mites, the other half caught some sort of fungal blight, and even the Marigolds ended up attracting a host of bugs and wilting to death. Well, except for the Luffa. They seem [...]

The heat of summer has already hit here in south Texas, and it’s been over 100 for several days in a row with highs hitting 103-106. If it’s this hot this early, I’m in abject fear of what August is going to be like. We might get a ‘break’ on Tuesday along with a cold [...]

With the cage garden’s shape and growing space being limited the way it is, I need to train as many of the tomato plants as possible into vertical columns. That’s way more complicated than it sounds, especially with a giant plant like the Black Krim.
The nice thing about the cage garden is that I [...]

I hate to admit it, but I’m really lazy about turning the compost pile. Considering the weeds that are in there (curled dock and others), that’s really not a good thing.
A wise man once advised me not to teach others to fish, but to sell them a method for fishing and charge royalties. In [...]

The first blush of red on my Roma plant.

Out of all the things I thought I might someday put in a garden, a toad was definitely not on that list. In fact, I’d probably in the past have gone out of my way to get a toad OUT of the garden if I’d ever noticed it in the first place.
Until the Cucumber [...]

I’d like to introduce you to one of my new favorite bloggers. If you haven’t found her already, her current blog is at

Even after weeks of searching, the purchase of a magnifying glass, and stalking my garden at all hours, I’m still left wondering what in the ever loving heck is eating my Cucurbits, cabbage species, carrot tops, bean leaves, and (!!) marigolds. Whatever it is, it’s removing all the green foliage it can get it’s hands [...]

It was rainy for most of this weekend, which kept me indoors (and a bit grumpy, headachey, and out of sorts — I’d say swine flu, but I think I just needed a few days off). The cold front caused problems (unseasonably late frosts and thunderstorms with hail) for some of my northern neighbors, but [...]