Falling in Love with Fall

Oh I fall in love with Fall every year. The temperature in Houston is cooler today. I can actually walk outside and look at my garden without getting drenched in sweat. Everyone that lives in the South knows what I mean. I loved being able to use up my homemade compost. I used up all three bins and I will need to supplement. That means I need to invest in some more plastic boxes with lids for additional compost. Hard to believe I had bins and bins of kitchen scraps that I would have just thrown out. I love that I kept that out of a landfill and reused it in our garden to feed our plants that will now feed us. What a beautiful cycle!

Baby French "Rolande" beans sprouted

We planted our string beans. They are the  "haricot vert" thin delicious ones that are so expensive at the grocery store. I purchased them from Renee's Garden Seeds here . They are called Bush, French, "Rolande". They did very well this spring. The only problem was that I just couldn't get enough of them! I also am trying the pole "haricot vert" variety from this same site called Filet, "Emerite". Here are the bush ones pushing up from the earth. I'll soon trim the weaker of the two seeds that sprouted. There are nine plants and I planted three squares of the bush plants. I planted eight plants of the pole beans in two squares. That should give me a fair amount of beans. I had to laugh that at the beginning of the Spring season I panicked that I wouldn't be able to fill the 128 squares in my eight gardens. Now I am eyeing things to pull up so I can put in more cabbage!! I am waiting a bit to plant carrots but they are coming soon. 

In the meantime, I have planted three kinds of tomatoes including my favorite sweet millions cherry tomatoes. I have also planted lots of broccoli, cucumber, cauliflower and a few greens and cabbages. All are doing well in the fertile soil provided by the compost. The peppers are getting their second wind and taking off. The habanero peppers are beautiful! 

cabbage

Broccoli

Cauliflower

Greens

Habanero Peppers - someone help me eat these!

We also have lots and lots of friendly lizards to keep the bug population down. 

Look at this cute little guy!