We finally got a picking of okra in the Houston vegetable garden. I planted a combination of ZeeBest and Flower Bed, both locally produced seeds formerly available through Urban Harvest. Both produce nice okra on bush type plants. The seed were planted in April after the broccoli was finished. Germination was poor; probably because the seed were rather old. Next year I will have to decide on another variety.
Otherwise things are rather slow. The heavy rains have caused a lot of weeds to germinate. It was a good spring garden. A real good crop of tomatoes, beans that lasted into June and a lot of onions and leeks. We had a few left over beets that we finally pulled in July. They were still good!
As mentioned in a previous post, my son bought several Earth Boxes for raising vegetables and herbs in Houston. His back yard has too much shade as well as 2 beagles. However he has a sunny driveway with areas not used by cars. He tried a number of vegetables and had good luck with most. Here is how each worked out:
- Corn: The biggest failure. The boxes are probably just too small for a plant as large as corn. Also, it is hard to plant enough to get a reasonable harvest. Pollination is also a problem.
- Tomatoes: Worked well. One plant produced about 25 slicer tomatoes of good quality.
- Beans: Moderate success. Enough was produced to feed 2, but production was light and nothing produced after the first round of blooms.
- Peppers: Very good. Both hot and mild peppers did well.
- Herbs: Very good. A good way for anyone to raise herbs.
- Squash: Nothing. Plants got big but no squash. Might be due to vine borer. I find squash impossible to raise in a small garden.
He is going to try some later season okra now.
Earth boxes (www.earthbox.com) are one of a number of bottom watering systems that seem to be very popular.