sb country news-its different

SB COUNTRY NEWS-ITS DIFFERENT
thats what i told my wife she yesterday
when i stepped outside at mid afternoon
when i went to water and check on my garden here
well
i almost felt guilty being here
knowing that if i was back at the country n
i would probably be melting
with temps over 100 and high humidity
well
i fought yesterday hard to get my garden cared for in this
low humidity mid 70s sunny weather

i sometimes garden in the midday here
its nice
at 74 degrees and sunny
its like gardening in texas at 600am without the humidity
i also have noted that at that time
mid day
i seem to have the whole garden to myself
since its too hot for some locals to garden here in midday

my garden is a 20 ft x 10 ft plot
in case you are bad at math
thats 200 square feet

at the country n
one of my beds was 3 ft x 12 ft
so this plot is about 4 or so of those beds
since its is 10 ft wide i have to allow somewhere
to walk down the middle

its one of about 20+ plots in the garden

this soil here is sort of a sandy soil clay soil mixture
devoid somewhat of nitrogen
i immediately added after talking to other locals
compost lots of it
nitrogen
mulch
then i the first day i got here
prepped this bed
then
planted all my veggies that i could grow here
tomatoes peppers sunflowers squash more peppers
basil swiss chard kale eggplant
things we will eat

luckily here
you can easily grow things all year round

the principles of gardening are the same
its the timing of planting thats different

its also drier here
we get half of the average rain that central texas gets
this year before the winter rains came
this area was in a severe drought
they almost ran out of water in their reservoir

but
its back to dry now

making it susceptible to fires
which are just a few miles away
soot falls down regularly every day on the garden
i guess the soot is good for the soil

no dont worry
we arent threatened in any way by the fires

so this last week i did my first official harvest
from the garden for supper the other night
i picked
squash swiss chard kale bell pepper banana pepper purslane
amaryth to go in our salad and in our pasta
no my wife she was not allowed to pick my green tomatoes

here above is a picture of my garden at 4 weeks

here below are surrounding gardening plots
the middle of the garden area is reserved for school education
and for raising food to donate to food banks
each plot renter has to do so many community hours a year

if you look you can see the mountains and clouds
in the distance

also
the farmers markets here
well if i am by myself i can spend an hour or two walking
around and talking to all the gardeners and farmers

my favorite are the fresh picked avocados
no not from mexico
from some place nearby here

so
im guilty
feeling that is
until i bite into the avocados and citrus here
taking a slow deep breath
thinking
when was the last time i sweated

the organicgreen doctor