If you read this blog or live in this region you know: gardening in West Texas has some major challenges! Our major challenge this summer has been keeping things watered. We normally don’t get much rain here but that difficulty has been enlarged in the last few weeks with our extremely hot weather. Hot and dry conspire to destroy! Add to that the constant battle with weeds. Gripe, gripe, gripe.
Early Summer Dew on a Young Blackberry
Thankfully, we can supplement our needs with well water…hard as it is. Most of our plantings tolerate it well but the berries hate it. Half of the blackberries that I planted bit the dust…literally. But that means the other half seem to be making it. The strawberries, on the other hand, require daily water and, lately, shade. I believe they will make it…barely. My experimental planting of raspberries failed. Wrong variety, wrong climate. But I’m not finished yet! Next year, God willing, I will try some varieties better suited to our hellish conditions. I hope it works because I’m getting old and I would like to grow and eat some berries before I die.
OK, enough of the complaining! On the more positive side, everything
Baskets of Summer Fruit plus some Herbs
else seems to be thriving in spite of the water and weather. Tomatoes, squash, summer peas, okra…all seem to be doing OK. We have a bumper crop of figs this year…yum! I am blessed with a huge garden area and soil that gets better every year.
