Summer Garden In Texas 2022

The year 2022 has not given us much of a summer garden in Texas, at least not in South Central Texas this year. We are in the middle of an extreme drought and it has been 100° Fahrenheit plus almost every single day. We have been watering our plants almost every day but that did not keep a lot of them from drying up. There is nothing like God's good rain to revive thirsty plants. We are grateful that we have a  well to keep things alive but that water is just not the same as when it comes in the form of rain.

The photo above shows our watermelon patch that has spread all over the walkways. The watermelons are doing very well. They do love the sandy soil. When I say sandy soil, I mean our soil is just sand here. Most of the watermelons have been so flavorful as well as some of our other melons. Despite the heat and lack of rain, we have not had melon problems in our summer garden in Texas this year.

We planted things in our spring garden in March and by May, with the temperatures reaching 100° or more every day, we lost a lot of things quickly. We did not get many good tomatoes. Mostly, they did not taste good and had rough and cracking skin because of the extreme heat. Most of our tomato plants and pepper plants, rhubarb, leafy green vegetable amaranth, lettuces, cabbages, and so much more got pulled up because they either bolted or just wouldn't produce.

The one thing that produced a lot and looked beautiful was our bush beans. We were very excited until we harvested some. The texture was woody and the taste was nasty because it was just too hot so we had to pull up hundreds of bush bean plants. It was so sad.

The asparagus stopped putting out months ago again because it is just too hot.

We are still getting summer squashes, patty pan squashes, and zucchinis as well as watermelons, okra, and eggplant. Some of the watermelons have been so sweet and juicy. A lot of the cantaloupes we have planted have not been very flavorful.

We had to pull our corn up early as the ears were small. They tasted good but stopped growing because of the extreme heat.

We had a good harvest of carrots back in June but that is because they had grown well in early spring. We pickled and canned a lot of carrots. We also canned a lot of summer squash, patty pan squash, and zucchini.

We had a small harvest of cucumbers early on so we were able to make some bread and butter and dill pickles.

Above are some of the garden produce we were able to can and pickle this year. These jars are available for purchase in our farm store.

We know that we will have an amazing fall garden when it begins to rain and when the temperature cools down. We will be planting our fall garden at the end of August. We will be planting all of our cool weather favorites. Broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, beets, onions, Swiss Chard, bush beans, cabbage, some lettuces, kale, collards, greens, even some corn.

We have put together some wonderful Fall Texas Garden Seed Sets for purchase that include 34 varieties of vegetables that do well in Texas. We have sold hundreds of these as people prepare for a successful fall garden so be sure to check them out. We are excited about the possibilities of our fall garden and we are anxious for the heat to dissipate and for the rains to come and heal our land of this awful drought.