Gardening under wrap

Here is the garden under the tarps.

 

It looks like the tomatoes are hanging in there. 

My broccoli and cabbage are doing just fine.  There is another cold front coming in Tuesday night. This time it is supposed to freeze.

 

Hay Bale gardening

We watched a few videos online about hay bale gardening and thought it would be fun to give it a whirl.  We don't have access to straw but used hay instead.  We moved the hay to the best spot in the yard for sun. We placed a sheet of cardboard underneath the hay. We stacked dirt on top of the hay bales and then put some in the middle.  Then we planted.  We put carrot seeds on one of the hay bales and rescued a pepper plant from another spot in the yard that was not going to be protected from the cold and we watered. 

 

Here is the finished product along with Josh, the gardener.  He claimed this garden.  

Winter has arrived!

It's now cold outside by south Texas terms.  The temperature dropped to the mid 40's last night.  I covered my tomatoes and green beans.  Tonight its dropping into the 30's. I hate to lose the tomatoes on the plants.  They are not full grown yet.  According to the gardening experts, if I can keep them protected through this, we should have until January before the next frost hits, plenty of time to get the tomatoes grown and harvested.  This is important to me because our spring weather was so bad that we had no tomatoes.  Usually we can get the tomatoes in the ground in mid-march and not worry about them.  This year, the cold lasted until the end of April and then it went to extreme heat within a couple of weeks.  They say if you don't like the weather in Texas, just wait 5 minutes, it will change!