Black Gumbo

Its been getting hot. Since the semi-weekly updates the garden has been a great source of joy for me. We're in the midst of quite a spell of drought and have been for some time now. Watering the garden daily has been a mandatory lifeline of the potted plants. But the heat has finally become too much for the tomatoes to bear now and they are not producing new fruit. The last picking revealed tomatoes that were inconsistent in their sweetness and some were actually rather woody due to repeated dry spells then waterings. The moderate warmth of spring was good to them but the heat of a dry summer has been a challenge. Had I covered them with a shade and run a drip system to keep the soils evenly moist, I believe I could still be producing, but I am not that devoted to the tomatoes to warrant such cost. Instead, I will be moving into summer heat mode.

I dug up the turnips as they had stopped putting on bulk and were themselves succumbing to the heat. Likewise, the carrots were having trouble with the heat. Though touted as summer tolerant, I think the summer is just too much for them. I managed to get a few and they were tasty carrots. The bell peppers are producing so many fruits that the plants lean, and the Jalapeno plants are still producing though not quite as profusely as they did at fist. They have a lot of new buds on them now so I may be looking at another good harvest, we'll see.

The varieties of cowpeas are producing, but I have discovered that I will need a larger plot of these summer hardy legumes if I plan to enjoy them frequently. My Sugar Cream cowpeas produced first, these are small creamy colored peas that have smaller pods than what I had expected. They produce well, its just they size of the pea will require more harvesting for a decent meal. The Kentucky Black Crowders are large peas, dark brownish black when dried, a lavender/maroon when not dry. The pods are large and long and they produce well. However, I only planted 4 square feet of each, and had only 75% of the seeds germinate due to heavy rains at planting time. Since pulling out the turnips and mustard green, I planted two more patches of cowpeas, some purple hulls and some Ozark Razorbacks. The Razorbacks are not sending out long tendrils and climbing like the other varieties, they may be more bushlike or may simply be too young. The Sugar Creams climb profusely but are not dense, while the Kentucky Black Crowders are both climbers and dense. I love these plants, they remind me of a lush rain forest and when I water them I love to hear the sound of the rain-like downpour on the broad green leaves.

I'll be retiring the tomato plants and converting them to compost soon, and through the summer will be bringing up cowpeas. I will be planning my fall garden, now's the time to be thinking about it.

My son Caleb and I have begin dismantling the play-fort/swing set thing that hurricane Ike damaged. We hope to put in a larger garden there. I am not sure if I want to try traditional, in-ground gardening or if I will do raised beds. I think I will first plant legumes to help the soil and then go from there, gradually improving the soil.

Here's a photo from a couple of weeks ago. The Kentucky Black Crowders are in the center and the Sugar Creams are to the right. Note the bird netting. Cardinals and Mockingbirds began to destroy most of my tomatoes and between the drought and the birds, I enjoyed fewer and fewer!