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Started planning and seeding for the Fall backyard garden.

Seeded in flats:

Cucumbers: Suyo Long (8), Baby Cucina (4)
Tomatoes: Park's Container Choice (12), 4th of July (12), Hillbilly regular leaf (4), Kellog's Breakfast (4), BHN 640 (4) Husky cherry (4)
Tomatillo: Gigante (4)
Sweet peppers: Bannanarame (4) Big Early (3) Mystery Seed (3)
Eggplant: Masego (Thai 4) Black Shine (Japanese 4), Shoya Long (Japanese 4)
Squash: Hokkori 133 (Japanese 4), Waltham Butternut (4)

None of these varieties are recommended for central Texas. I've had pretty good luck trying new-to-me plants, since I have the time to tend to them. Biggest disappointment was a Japanese tomato, Grande, and an heirloom tomato, Lillian's Yellow. Grande started out great, produced nicely, but shriveled up and died when the heat hit. Lillian's Yellow never produced a blossom, but no big deal since being a cool weather, late season tomato I didn't expect anything until the Fall, but the plants also died. Other heirlooms which did well were Aunt Ruby's German Green, Beefy Boy, and Virginia Sweets, though fruit was overall significantly smaller than I expected.

Still growing in the garden are Biker Billy Jalapeno, Joe Parker New Mexico peppers, Thai hot, Thai Giant, plablano and habanero. For some reason, I've never had much luck growing habanero, whether I put them in ground or in containers. Spring continued my bad luck. But the other hot peppers gave and will give great yields.

Odd story was my Cisneros Tomatillo plants. Had two in containers side by side. Both grew lush foliage. One was loaded with fruit and the other was barren. Gonna try Gigante for the Fall

Going into the ground in mid-August to mid-September will be yet-to-be-selected cabbage transplants (had great luck last year), Georgia Collard transplants (always good results), Blue Lake green beans, Usui Snow Peas, Orient Wonder yard long beans, Mape Green Mung beans for sprouts, garlic and onion sets.

And that ought to fill up all my ground and all my containers. Was hit particularly hard by Tomato blossom end-rot during the Spring. Curious to see what happens with the next crop.

Was hit particularly hard by Tomato blossom end-rot during the Spring. Curious to see what happens with the next crop.

One of my tomato plants was showing signs of blossom end rot on every green fruit. I took some calcium citrate tablets-the ones I take-and poked those into the soil near the stem. After watering, the tablet broke up readily, and I watered that in well. That worked so well that I worked in 2 more tablets. NONE of the baby tomatoes set after doing this are showing signs of end rot, so you may want to try this fix. Making a slurry of 3 tables in a plastic cup should work well, too.