While Texas swelters in the unending heat, I have headed out to Las Vegas in order make some seed money for next years garden. The temperature here is a cool 105 and a little muggy. Hopefully, my departure will allow Texas to finally get some rain. Bad weather tends to follow me, so by next week it will be 130 here and 75 with a few days of rain in East Texas. Sadly many farmers have been hit hard by the lack of rain and the price of corn for animal feed has nearly doubled. Every where around us is a brown as could be and I would guess that at time when ranchers will need supplemental feed the price of that will be going through the roof as well. The hot, sunny weather has mostly been good for my gardening. Other than having to use a good deal of water, most of the garden grew has grown well this year.
When I left a few days ago I had bell peppers, cherry and Roma tomatoes, and egg plants growing. The sorano and pablano peppers were just about to produce, new cucumber and zucchini sprouts coming up. Unfortunately the six cantaloupes where torn to pieces by raccoons. This year I made a earthen dam around each plant in order to hold the water right where it was needed and let it soak down to the roots and watered each plant with watering can. This both fed the plants better and keep the garden from having many weeds.
Next spring I want to get even more planted and hopefully I can use my time in Vegas to plan for the 2012 planting. This has to be a big one since I have to prepare for December because according to the History Chanel the Mayans predicted the fall of civilization that day. Since the History Chanel is never wrong I better get prepared.
