On my trip this week to Houston I couldn’t help but notice the corn was higher than my head, with the tassels starting. Where I grew up there were corn farmers (and grass seed farmers, Christmas Tree farmers, cherry and peach and berry farmers…) and those farmers are just sowing their corn for the season now.
Some years I have tomatoes by now, and this year I don’t. Some years the strawberries don’t have a chance to fruit well for the early onslaught of heat, this year they did (and continue to do so.)
Seasons in Texas are measured two ways – in the classic four seasons (which are measured by what the calendar says it should be) and in the Texas weather way (Not Hot, Beautiful, Hot, Thunderstorm Season, Beautiful, repeat.)
Depending on whether the storms come, or the heat is early or late, the plants do as their coding dictates. This keeps us gardeners on our toes! Not for late frosts or lack of sunlight, but for baked seedlings or flooded fruit.
The backyard this year is the usual mixture of expectations met and seasonal surprises. Like finding more strawberries this morning. Or finding that this fern, so lush and happy in March…
…is now gone without a trace.
Or that these plums just setting fruit in March…
…have started to turn.
Then there’s the Monster Chard that has been keeping you in gigantic leaves of green since October was discovered by the hungry hundred caterpillars.
And the Forgotten Beet that made the most delicious “french fries” (thanks to DH’s talents.)
Which reminds me, I need to not forget about the Onion Rope. The instructions on the internet conflicted with those in a book, which weren’t terribly clear. We’ll see how it goes, but it may just be that DH eats them all before they reach a questionable storage age anyway. (Onions being yet another food I enjoy growing but do not enjoy eating.)
plumdirt 
Wow!! You are so right about Texas seasons. I could not have described them better or in better order.
We pulled a couple of beets and ate them for lunch today. Only a couple left now, and they might not last the week with the blazing sun and no rain. The eggplant and squash, however, are going full guns. Leeks and garlic — my first this year — also did well.
Love your photos!
Have you picked your garlic already? This is my first year with it and I’m not sure if I am supposed to wait for brown tops like my dad does in the PNW, or harvest sometime before Hot turns to Hotter.
I pulled too early, before the cloves really had a chance to develop. My curiosity made me do it! I believe the best time to pull is when the foliage begins to yellow, after flowering. Just like any other bulb, I suppose, the energy gets put into the root as the stem and leaves finish up.
Patience is something I don’t have though. LOL
They don’t look anywhere near blooming yet…although the onions I didn’t pick yet have, so perhaps soon? I perhaps have too much patience and not enough remembrance skills (or maybe it’s easy to be patient when you forgot you were waiting! 😉 )
The closes were still good though. Very mellow but garlicky flavor! Just small.
Lovely walk-through…your description of the Texas Seasons is spot-on. Up here, I just set out my tomatoes last week, and my neighbor’s corn is about an inch tall. We’re praying that the strawberries make it before we get the hot weather and soaking rain that will rot them in the fields…
Saw your garlic question above: wait until the leaves brown, just like in the PNW. Did you plant hardneck, or soft? Softnecks don’t bloom…
I knew when I bought them if they were hardneck or soft…now I couldn’t tell you 😉 I’ll have to go check. Thanks for the tip on the browning!