It’s fairly safe to say that not a whole lot has changed around our fair County since the last time we visited. Listening to the weather forecasters and/or meteorologists has certainly not been very entertaining nor contained much variety. One of those guys on the radio last week mentioned that the eleventh of July is the average date of the 1st 100 degree day of the season. Looks like we might have beaten that by a bit this year.

The oppressive heat & dry winds of this summer have been pretty hard on our spring gardens and yard landscapes this year. It seems that just about the time our vegetable gardens get to going pretty well, the hot summer comes along and messes up our well laid plans. One can usually throw

in a few chewing & sucking insects into the mix that don’t really help much, either. Anyhow, this sort of opens the door for one of my favorite subjects regarding vegetable gardening. There are a number of positive points to trying a Fall vegetable garden. However, prior to pointing out all the good points, we need to be reminded of one major obstacle, and that is that we need to try & get the garden established during the same time that the hot summer is wreaking havoc on our spring garden. If you can get the new plants past the heat, the benefits of an autumn garden are many.Soil preparation is just as important to the fall garden as it is to your spring garden. If you have enough space in your garden plot, you can use half for the spring-summer garden, while saving the other half for the fall vegetables. This also allows the gardener to keep the fallow plot tilled and weed free as well as adding compost or fertilizer prior to proper planting or seeding time. Periodic tilling also allows you to take advantage of those hot summer days to solarize your soil. Tilling every 3 to 5 days, or at least weekly, should help rid your soil of those dratted root knot nematodes and other disease pathogens that plague our garden soils. It also helps us control pesky weeds and grasses that invade our gardens. Particular attention may be paid to where you row the Okra,as nematodes & root rot are deadly for our good Southern plant. While you are in the soil preparation phase also gives you some time to figure out what kinds of vegetables are best suited for fall gardening, as well as those you like the most. We’ll see if we can come up with some pointers on that for the next couple of weeks along with a time table for seeding or transplanting various varieties. Hopefully, we’ll get a good rain in the mean time, which will help all our feelings a bunch. One would imagine that it will be a bit more easy to be a glad gardener following a good rain along with some cooler temperature.

Some folks say that there are always some advantages that accompany disadvantages. There is an increase of activity down at the water spigot down at the Mill Pond, as well as people loading up on livestock supplement at the feed stores. Neither feeding during the summer nor hauling water are advisable aspects for profitable production practices. Many of us find ourselves paddling the same boat, however ill advised it might be. That be as it may, there is still a positive point to the hot dry weather. The cattle, deer and a few other critters seem to be having a banquet on the heavy Mesquite Bean crop. Son, Will is on his second batch of canning Mesquite Bean Jelly, which fairly well resembles honey. We’ve also noticed that young re-sprout Mesquite appears easier to control during hot summer months.

Even though a number of our Pecan Producers are reportedly off to the Texas Pecan Grower’s state meeting, someone seems to have stayed at home to tend to the irrigation. Thank goodness we are blessed with strong springs

on the San Saba and the River is still flowing, even though it is at a rather weak web. Maybe the Mayor will bring back a report on the San Saba entries at the State Pecan Show, when he gets back out around——————

Harkeyville.!!!!!!!!!