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 reliable selves. If they live past the snow expected tomorrow, I should have some carrots and kohlrabi … although I may not get to harvest them, because I just bought a house across town that’s frankly a bit of a wreck.

In August, I decided I wanted to start looking. By September, I had a real estate agent. I put my first offer in on October 9th, we submitted several contracts, but because it was a real-estate owned property (had been foreclosed, didn’t sell at auction…), we didn’t end up closing until the 30th. I moved in over the past week.

Here’s the house from the street:

… and more importantly for the garden blog, here’s the backyard, which will get several 4×4 raised beds sometime next year…

There are some gorgeous crepe myrtles, but they need to be pruned badly … and a few of them need to come out. (One was growing into the gutters and pulling them down.) There’s two wonderful live oaks in the front yard, and a huge white oak in the backyard.

The house itself has water leaks in several places that need to be resolved, all of the fence posts need to be replaced, the landscaping is a disaster of missteps and misdeeds, and every last bit of plumbing in the entire house leaks like a sieve and needs to be replaced. It’s also filthy inside and out and generally needs TLC.

Around the foundation, because of the risk of termites in the microclimate where the house is located, I’m planning to put at least a foot and a half of river rock and then plant native Texas grasses, succulents (cacti, agave) and arid shrubs with extra wildflower color spots. This should also help the foundation, which is extremely drainage-challenged at the moment and at serious risk of settling and cracking badly if something isn’t done.

I have a *lot* of work ahead of me before I’ll be planting vegetables!

In other news, based on Pam Penick’s visit to Inner Space Caverns outside of Austin, I visited West Cave Preserve today. It’s a gorgeous spring-fed grotto with a small cave. Unfortunately, it was abused for many years before the land was acquired for the preserve in 1976. It’s been well taken care of ever since, and the amazing number of natural species that can be found in the grotto was wonderful to learn about. The guided tour was well worth the money, and the guide was an expert in the natural flora and fauna in the area and could probably have talked for hours about the different types of trees, their ages, and the way they fit into the micro-climate ecosystem. It was a great (and relatively cool — only 85 degrees or so down in the caves — I did say RELATIVELY!) way to spend two hours on a hot Saturday afternoon.

Unfortunately, I didn’t remember to bring my camera, which was left in the spare bedroom with it’s charger. *sigh* I guess that means I’ll have to go back.

I’m getting cucumbers, a few young Luffa (although they’re inadequately shaded — I didn’t realize that these plants don’t seem to grow as densely as needed to survive the intense Texas sun), most of my Romas are ripening on the vine, and the Sweet 100’s are still setting fruit despite the heat.

Sweet 100's - Every Color of Tomato

The nice thing about the cage garden is that I have places overhead to tie things to. It’s easy for me to make a trellis out of some spare string or wire and an eye bolt or two. As a result, I’m training the Krim up the side of wires / string strung from the top of it’s cage up to the ‘roof’ of the garden, sort of like the giant tomato plant at EPCOT.

The strings and wire are tied to the top of the tomato cage.

The Krim’s now about five feet tall. It’s growing almost visibly. And it’s set it’s first fruit! I was having lots of problems with it, but then I realized that it liked a lot more water than everything else seemed to want. After changing the way I watered (multiple short waterings with the soaker hose), I managed to get it, the cucumbers, and the Kentucky Wonder pole beans to grow profusely, even if the peppers and Sweet 100’s are complaining a bit about being overwatered. Next year, I’ll know what to plant where.

First fruit on the Krim

A wise man once advised me not to teach others to fish, but to sell them a method for fishing and charge royalties. In a similar spirit of laziness, I have found a new low. I buried some old dog food and a few other things that had gone bad in the bottom of the compost pile tonight, and when I went out to let Eo and Henry in after their evening potty break, I found that Eowyn had jumped into the compost bin and had turned it completely in search of the good, smelly stuff she KNEW was in there.

Every two weeks now, I guess I just need to arrange for something to go bad!

Until the Cucumber Beetle struck. It struck and it ate my bush zucchini and was all over every other plant in the garden before I knew it. I was squishing them by hand at breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I’d cover every plant, including the entire forest of pole beans and the fiercely indeterminate Roma plant that seems to be obsessed with forming the densest tomato plant ever grown inside it’s cage, but refuses to grow upwards.

Perusing the forums I frequent, I saw an article about making your garden an inviting place for a toad to live. Toad? Why toads? Well, toads eat three times their weight in bugs, grubs, ants and worms a day. I have a giant population of bugs, grubs, ants, and worms. There’s also a giant population of toads in my neighborhood, which has a wonderful wooded creek running through it. It seems that I practically squish a dozen any time Henry and I go jogging.

Yesterday, I grabbed the broken pot that I was about to pitch and put it in the garden. I also sunk a tupperware container into the mulch/compost so that some of the water would stay in there on days that I didn’t water.

a Toad Home -- complete with water feature and damp compost to burrow in!

Then I went toad hunting! It wasn’t hard. All I had to do was coax the toad into a tupperware with a cracked screw-on lid. He tried his best to escape, but I quickly ran him through the house (the dogs, of course, were fascinated) and let him loose in the back of the garden.

I noticed an immediate reduction (if not outright elimination) of the Cucumber Beetle in particular. I haven’t had to squish one of the nasty buggers ever since I let the little guy out of the toad catcher.

And frankly, I haven’t seen the toad since, but as long as the bug population stays low, I know he’s doing his job!

“I quickly began filling notebooks with the tales of our often ludicrous attempts to embrace farm life, and yet still maintain some semblance of a refined lifestyle in a place where squirrel is considered food and newly acquainted dinner hosts once remarked that they were “thrilled to be able to serve you pork ribs, since no one else we know has enough teeth to eat them.”

My first suspicion was a squash vine borer. I had several bush zucchini plants grow like mad for a week or two, and then suddenly wilt and die.

Damage to the squash plants, which wilted from the base up.

I did find a spotted cucumber beetle in the yard, which might be the culprit. Sorry about the blurriness of this picture, it’s a little bug and I had a wide angle lens on when I managed to capture him.

Spotted Cucumber Beetle

I killed all the ones that I found, and despite some slug-like trails on the peas and eggplant, I haven’t seen any other bugs that would be the culprit. (The bugs *and* all the tender parts of the kohlrabi…) A necropsy on the dead squash revealed no signs of squash vine borers, larvae, or other varmints… the plantS just up and died. Worse: The luffa seedlings are now showing the same signs of wilt. There’s this article on Bacterial Wilt, which seems to match. So, it looks like I’m not going to have luffa this year … damn…

Now, on the surviving Bush Champion cucumber, I’m getting similar slug trails — up the stem, even. And then I found a cucumber beetle inside the first flower earlier today. (He got squished.) A careful going-over of the plant revealed no more — I checked the other plants just to be sure.

Cuke Damage -- Note the scarring in the bottom right.

The problem is that the damage to the leaves doesn’t match what the cucumber beetle seems to do… although it might be for the pupae. However, I’m going to hit up the co-op tomorrow and see if they have any Rotenone, which is an approved organic pesticide to control these beetles.

By far, I’m the most excited about the Sweet 100’s cherry tomatoes. I grew these last year (and even have a few volunteers on the side of the house that I keep meaning to transplant) and they’re awesome for snacking.

Sweet 100's Cherry Tomato

It’s worth noting that I’m letting the Sweet 100 get a bit indeterminate, because I’ve noticed that it tends to flower mainly on the suckers. I’m trying to train most of the plants I have into more of an upright habit, but it’s going to be a race and a struggle to keep them pruned appropriately. I just spent at least an hour in the garden just pruning suckers off tomatoes. The nice part is that my hands smell like tomato. The bad part is that I feel like I cut off half the plant in order to discourage growth patterns that would crowd something else or weaken the plant.

Next up is some members of the squash family. I’ve had a hell of a time getting any of them to grow, but this Bush Champion cucumber finally decided that it was time to get down and boogie. Probably helps that I direct-seeded it. The plant itself is about a foot tall now and this flower is close to the base.

Cuke flower, complete with helpful pollenating ant!

And the eggplant is not to be outdone! Not having grown eggplant before, I didn’t realize that the flowers themselves are a delicate lavender color.

Eggplant Flower

Right behind the eggplant is a Sweetpea that compliments it nicely. I started these over the winter and absolutely adore how delicate and soft the blooms are.

Hello, Sweetpea!