Radish Stew

A Central Texas Gardening Journal

Sunday, November 17, 2013

Okra Texas Style

Another summer staple around here is okra. We have been growing this variety, Texas Hill Country Red from Seed Savers for several years now. The plants and the pods are short and fat. They turn red where exposed to sunshine. One of the best qualities of this okra is that they have less of the slimy quality of other okras.

One of the problems of growing okra in this area is that fire ants love them! This year I grew a row of traditional okra next to the Texas Hill Country Red. The fire ants loved the other kind more and mostly left the Texas Okra alone. I actually gave one plant to the ants and they went after those okra pods for weeks, until they turned brown.


Friday, November 8, 2013

Sweet Potatoes

Ready for Sweet Potato Pie? We are. The sweet potatoes have grown all summer. They are so easy to care for; not needy at all. We dig them up at the end of the summer and let them cure for a couple of weeks. We will have sweet potatoes for months. What a great choice to grow during the hot hot summer. Next year, I plan to give each "slip" more room to grow and hopefully dig up more of the big one pictured.

Sunday, November 3, 2013

Back to the Garden





I recently had to repair this rock walkway that leads from the house to the garden and keeps us from getting muddy shoes after a rain. The reason? It finally rained! During the month of October, 2013, we were blessed with rain every week. The rains in our gauge totaled 6.9 inches.

This walkway reminds me of the one at our family's lake cabin when we were kids. It was wider and more like a city sidewalk, but it was rough (and hot) on the bare foot. I still loved that walkway.