What's Going on In My Late Summer Desert Garden

Hey guys, welcome back to High Desert Gardening. I just wanted to share with you guys a couple of things that are going on. We finally had a really nice big rain last night and everything is looking green and glistening and it's super exciting. We haven't had rain for a long time so everything is really appreciating that. The temperature this year has been kind of low due to the drought and the heat wave and all the harsh conditions but we do have some stuff still growing. We've got a cucumber here. My peppers are doing pretty good. Here's a white bitter melon. When cooked right, these are incredibly tasty and really good for you and this white variety is pretty prolific for me. So it's just starting, there's more female flowers coming and I expect to get even more bitter melon as we go along and finish up the season. It looks like my snake gourd was finally pollinated. Look at that massive thing you guys. It's called a snake gourd obviously as you can see it looks like a snake hanging down from the trellis. And I saw a couple other flowers so I expect we'll be getting some more as long as the pollinators are helping me out here. I pollinated this bottle gourd just the other day and hopefully that will be giving me some bottle gourd as well. I've already harvested a couple from these plants and still have female flowers coming so that's always a good sign. I went ahead and picked the purple cauliflower that was growing here. Lots of pest issues this year so I'm just getting this bed ready and I've got to find a better solution to manage all the pests that are continuing to bother the plants. But right now there's a few cabbages still in there and a broccoli right over there so I think we should still be able to get some nice broccoli before the season ends. And these are cool season crops so even when it gets a little colder I'm not worried about them. The taro is looking pretty good. I'm going to have to harvest some of this soon and have some taro spinach. Taro really likes the partial shade. It, in my experience, prefers the shade and it likes to be wet so we pour tons of water into it and it seems to do just fine. The okra bed and I've already picked some of the okra so there's not much to show on there right now. Looks like my dahlia is coming back a bit after it rained. Random pepper growing here with okra. I'm not really sure what it is. It's a volunteer plant. It came up on its own. I'm going to have to blast these leaves with some water. It looks like it's getting some aphids. The rose I planted here in the ground is doing so good and it's really happy with the rain that we just had. I recently fertilized this with some rose tone again and it just seems to be loving it here. The peppers are doing fantastic and I'm super happy about that. All these plants have gotten really good peppers on them and they're keeping on producing. Potatoes are really doing well. I filled up the fabric pot all the way with composted manure and they're just taking off. I'm so excited to see what I get at the end of the season in this grow bag. The gourds are looking beautiful. I love being under this trellis and it's so beautiful when it fills in like this. I've got two gourds growing on each side so it's so beautiful when it fills in from each side on the trellis. Some of these I've been hand pollinating but thankfully I have bees around due to the flowers and the sunflowers that I've planted so they know that this area is a good place to find flowers and pollen and they helped me out with all of this. Luffa gourd is usually late producing. Last year I got fruit in September. It's usually right before the frost. Tomatoes are doing pretty good. Honestly, they could be better but the conditions haven't really been ideal for them. But I'm still pretty happy with what's coming out. These are black crim. I'm planning on doing a lot more tomatoes next year with different varieties just to kind of get a different selection and more production. I've got an eggplant right here. This is the black beauty variety. A couple other eggplants setting. I planted everything a little late this year so we'll have to see what our actual harvest looks like. Aren't these marigold leaves so cool you guys? They remind me of little palm trees. Over here this little pepper plant is loaded with peppers. Can't wait to try these out and see how they are. These tomatoes are doing pretty good and I am tying them up as they go along. Sprinkled some basil seed in this container the other day and looking like we're getting some good basil. I planted some ginger in here about six weeks ago and it looks like it's just not sprouting so that's pretty exciting to see. My banana tree is really happy with the weather we had last night. And then the last thing is I wanted to show you guys these high synth beans which are doing really nice. These are a late season crop for us and they like the cooler, shadier temperatures. My seedlings got drenched from the rain last night which is a really good thing and you can already see they've responded really well to it. I just kind of have them in full sun at this point. They've been hard enough to be able to handle this and they're just kind of sunning out right now and looking really good. Of course they're covered with a net also. I want to make sure they're protected as much as they can be until they're a lot stronger and actually out in my beds. Oh and one more thing, I planted out the radish seedlings that I did several weeks ago and I have them covered in this black netting fabric to protect them from the pests. And I really like this black netting fabric because it's almost transparent and you can still see your garden. But I think I'm going to have to do something similar for all my other seedlings because we're still having a lot of pest issues and a squirrel that's still coming through and getting everything in my garden. So anyways guys, thanks for staying with me during this little garden update and make sure you subscribe and we'll see you on the next one.