October marks the height of one of our main planting seasons in the low desert. You can plant almost any cool-season crop now, but I tend to stick to the things I like best- broccoli, edible-pod peas, and salad greens. I was in Alabama visiting family the past couple of weeks, and came back to find squash and melon vines on their way out. This year's monsoon planting results were disappointing: we got about four unremarkable honeydew, no squash, and only one rather pathetic-looking bean plant survived. There's lots of okra, but I don't particularly like okra unless it is fried, so I'm letting a lot of the pods dry up and go to seed. I think it's an attractive plant.
I spent some time this weekend clearing out declining plants and attempting to remove as many Bermuda grass roots and stolons as possible from the small bed off our side patio. Then I went in search of petunia and broccoli transplants. I didn't find any regular broccoli, but got an eight-pack of Romanesco broccoli, which is very interesting-looking and tastes more like cauliflower than broccoli.
Here's a look at part of the finished bed:
The salad greens and sugar snap peas I planted in the bed by the lemon tree a couple of weeks ago are coming up thinly. I'll need to replant, but that will probably be helpful in terms of staggering the harvest. This year, I'll also try to be more aggressive about pulling up nasturtiums and hollyhocks which seem to particularly love this area, and self-seed prolifically.
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| Edible-pod peas |
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| Lettuce |
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