Zoo Talk: Catching up on my homestead gardens

Our weather lately has switched from viciously hot to quite pleasant but very rainy. We've had thunderstorms almost daily the past week. I'm not complaining. We desperately needed the rain and I'm very happy to see it come.

My gardens were practically fried from the heat and drought conditions. Even with frequent watering, there just wasn't any way to get away from the 100+ degree daily temperature highs, and lows in the upper 80s to mid 90s at night. It does look like I'll still have beans of several varieties and purple hull peas, though. The few sweet potatoes I planted seem to be thriving, so maybe we'll get a few meals from those. It'll be late summer or early fall before they are ready. I might even get a few ears of corn, though it is pretty stunted from the heat.

My poor tomatoes bit the dust early on in the heat, though. Next year, I'll be planning on some kind of shade for them. Squash and cucumbers were invaded by beetles that destroyed them. I don't like to use insecticides on foods we plan to eat, so I'll be shopping for diatomaceous earth (a natural, organic, and completely safe insect killer) for next year. It can also be fed to animals to get rid of worms or put on them to kill fleas, ticks, and mites.

It's about time to plant turnips, so I'll put them out where I had the potatoes planted. I'll work the dirt up a little and just broadcast them out there along with radishes and probably mustard for a mixed greens plot. Because I don't want them to be too crowded, I'll mix the seeds in with some sand and dirt, then toss that around.

I'll also clear a couple of the garden beds and put out fall radishes and lettuce. I have a lot of buttercrunch lettuce seeds and some black seeded simpson seeds, so I'll create three small salad beds. It's been our experience that we can pick lettuce, radishes, turnips, and carrots well into the winter months.