01 Aug August Planting – Abundance During the Drought

Happy August! 

While it is almost too dry and hot to even think about trying to garden, many central Texans are breaking out their trowels to squeeze the most out of the summer season. With the start of August brings the time to plant snap and lima beans, Irish potatoes, any corn, cucumber, warm season greens, and summer squash that you have left over from the earlier summer months, and tomato, pepper and eggplant (transplants). Texas A&M AgriLife Extension has a great planting guide for Central Texas if you want to plan ahead in your garden. 

If you are a fan of native plantings you don't have to forgo edibles! Honey mesquite, Drummond's wild onion, Chile pequín, mustang grape, sweet mountain grape,  winter grape, agarita and Texas barberry, Mexican and river plums, Texas persimmon, southern dewberry, red mulberry, sugar and netleaf hackberry, sugarberry or anacua trees, turkscap (the fruit), Texas prickly ash, Plains prickly pear and cactus apple prickly pear, autumn sage, scarlet sage, cedar sage, and big red sage, and yaupon are all native plants that are edible or have parts that are edible/ can be made into a tea (Thanks to Mr. Smarty Plants, LBJ wildflower center). These plants not only help to sustain the native habitat for local wildlife but they are also more drought tolerant than many other edible species. 

Lately there have been a bunch of classes on gardening in this drought, including a workshop from Design~Build~Live on how to landscape for soil and water conservation. Building swales and berms around your yard might not be the first thing you think of for how to have an abundant and beautiful yard but it is the most efficient and passive way to get growing. With passive rainwater catchment methods like these you can let nature do the work for you, once it actually starts to rain again. Brad Lancaster is one of my teachers, personal heroes and the author of Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond. His moto for this kind of landscape planning is to "Slow, Spread, and Sink" the water that falls on your property to make the most of this limited resource instead of trying to get rid of it as fast as possible, then pumping in water from a centralized plant or well to water the lawn later which uses energy. 

What can I say, water has been on my mind (and probably most gardeners') lately due to the drought. Any method that we can use to conserve this shared resource is a good one. Being able to have a beautiful, productive lawn despite the drought and still conserve water is just smart.