Dodgeball Hurricane…
This past week the Houston area briefly flirted with two unusually closely spaced hurricanes. An odd part of living along the Gulf Coast is our tacit love/hate relationship with tropical storms and hurricanes. We eye them out in the Gulf with all the wariness of a gaggle of nerdy kids in a dodgeball game. Someone’s getting hit, we just don’t know who, and we hope it isn’t us.
On the “hate” side of the relationship, even the weakest hurricane brings damaging winds, tornadoes, storm surge, flooding rains, and the potential for injuries and even death. All followed by uncomfortable days of power outages, spotty phone service and limited TV/internet as crews rebuild the damaged infrastructure and restore disrupted lives.
On the somewhat ambivalent “love” side of the relationship are tropical storms. These are loosely organized systems, either an embryonic hurricane or the remains of a developed storm that has fallen apart. Fickle creatures, they can bring severe thunderstorms with copious volumes of rain, flooding, and the potential for tornadoes, or in a more gentle mode they can bring much needed drought-breaking tropical rains. Of course, we’d prefer not to have any storms at all, but we try to make the best of the unpleasant circumstances.
At Overleaf I put all garden work on hold, waiting and alternately hoping the two storms in the Gulf of Mexico would miss us entirely, or be good rain producers and nothing more. They were neither. Marco preemptively fell apart in the eastern Gulf, and Laura skirted to our immediate east as a geographically small but powerful Category Four storm. We received a single rain lasting approximately 25 minutes, and rolling blackouts over the next two days as the power grid to our east was repaired. Our love/hate relationship yielding only a tease.
Plotting and Planning
I spent the hurricane down time planning some future Overleaf projects, both in the garden and in the house. I haven’t done much work on the house, something I intend to change in the upcoming months. Since I’m – unfortunately – what you might call “free form” in my personal scheduling, I’m developing a goal-based system to make better use of my time. It’s an ongoing process.
In the garden I’m looking forward to the Autumn season for the cooler weather, but more so for the Autumn leaves it brings. The more I research about what makes healthy soil, the more I’m convinced that for my location in east Texas, the yearly gift of fallen leaves is key to creating a healthy fertile garden soil. That will be the topic of some upcoming posts. Meanwhile, I still have okra plants producing a slow but steady output. My tomatoes are dwindling to almost nothing, and for a while my Chinese long beans looked like they were finished, but just in the last several days they have put on another set of blooms, so this round may not be over just yet. I still have several basil plants that survived the worst of the heat, and I’m hoping will last into the winter. Otherwise I’m pulling out the spent plants and consigning them to the compost bins, and getting the beds ready for Autumn and Winter.
For the Autumn and Winter garden I’m trying for a second crop of Okra. It’s a heat tolerant plant, but mine survived last year well into January. If I had protected it from a single frosty night I think it might have survived the entire winter. I’ll start some Collard Green seeds I’d like to have for a cool season harvest. They do well in the cool but not overly cold southeast Texas seasonal climate. I’m also trying out some Buttercrunch loose headed Lettuce. Along with the lettuce I’m experimenting with Broccoli and Brussels Sprouts. Research shows they are hit or miss in this area, so I’m giving it a shot. These will be my leafy greens and cruciferous vegetable selection.
This Spring I didn’t have much luck with my Acorn Squash and Patty Pan Summer Squash. The squash bugs got to them before they could set any flowers. I’m trying again and hoping that starting them in early September might put them beyond the breeding and egg laying season of those pests. I hope it works, because I’m trying out some small Sugar Pumpkins as well. Those are my gourd and melon selections.
I didn’t find any bunching onion sets (the way I’m used to seeing them planted), but I did find Bunching Onion seeds, so I’ll try my hand at them as well. I have about half a package of Carrot seeds I saved from spring, and some Turnip seeds as well. These all do well in cooler temperatures, and round out my root vegetable selection.
Finally, from the Spring planting I reserved a packet of the Chinese Yard Long Asparagus Beans, some Kentucky Wonder Green Beans, and a half packet of Green Peas that should do well in the cooler weather. We shall see…
Next Week: More garden cleanup and planting.