The Square Foot Garden: Post Summer Drought
by Ellen in Life and Learning / 09.18.08
The Lonely End of Summer Pepper
This is follow up to my Square Foot Garden post. Living in Austin, TX brings a lot of unusual weather behavior during the summer months. We never know what we are going to get- from massive amounts of rain, no rain, extreme heat, mild heat etc. This summer was one of the hottest, including the most extreme heat days that we have seen in 83 years.
This heat literally stifled out my square foot garden and my garden yielded only basil and a few green beans, a small amount of mint and lemon balm. The basil has been wonderful and I am very thankful for it; however picking two to three green beans every few days is not helpful. I can imagine myself proudly serving my husband two green beans on his dinner plate. If I would have made myself a small mojito, it would have easily wiped out my entire mint crop- no fun. I have been really missing the cucumbers, tomatoes and peppers that were absent.
About half way through, I started to panic because my plants required even more care than usual, due to the heat. They were clearly taking a stand and absolutely not giving up the goods. I did a bit of research and found out that if you provide extra loving care for these sensitive vegetable plants, they might produce when the weather cools off.
After months of serving, watering, pruning, shooing bugs away and even releasing lady bugs to eat up any pests, my pepper plant decided to give me a little gift. The lone pepper. I am nursing this pepper along, making sure it is picked right at the exact moment when it has peaked out, but not so much that it would attract pests. I hope that my tomato plants and green beans will follow in the foot steps of the pepper plant. Maybe peer pressure works in this square foot garden environment.
Have you had any similar experiences with vegetable plants producing at the end of the summer?
You can learn more about Square Foot Gardening in our MindBite. Have something to teach about gardening? Make your own how-to video!
The Hill Country Gardeners want to see some sq. foot gardens in and around Austin. We hope to tour them for our April 7th meeting. Could you put us in contact with about 4 persons who would like to show us their gardens? Thanks, Ann Jones tele. 288-2729