Zone 8 Second growing season

This morning before my run I went to let the Dogs out and realized I was not being choked by thick Georgia humidity. It was such a relief to breath crisp air with an actual cool breeze in my face. Sometimes we tend to take these things for granted when we have them everyday. I guess its human nature. Nevertheless, this weather has sparked my interest into prepping my garden for the second growing season of zone 8.

Last year I learned alot about planting cool weather plants for the second part of the growing season in zone 8. Although I had great success with the variety of plants and reaped a good yield; my plants were the target of many ailments that had to be monitored. I suspect this was from a few reasons. First, the bugs were gorging themselves on all my leafy cool weather greens; Second, the heavy rains smothered alot of my young plants and caused some others to be water logged causing many of the plants to have ailments associated with over watering.

Farming is tough and I give credit to all the farmers who have to do this day in and out to survive. Throw in organic and its a whole nother animal. Weather, bugs, and a little bit of negligence your crop is wiped out. This year we are planting just a little bit earlier while the ground is still relatively warm. I think with all my amateur experience that warmth during the germination stage kicks start the genetic code of the plants and will give them their real bang for the buck. This will translate into a plant that has a healthier root system and I'm assuming this will enable to the plants to ward of disease opposed to them being planted in cooler weather where they tend to be a bit lethargic and not able to defend themselves as well. This is all based on my experience and a bit of experimentation. During this second season, I have planted:

Butter Nut squash
Tomatoes
Egg plant (Still Producing from first season)
Watermelon
Cantaloupe
Sweet Peppers
Brussel Sprouts
Swiss Chard
Kamatsona
Spring Onions
Leeks
Radish
Corn
Lima Beans
Pole beans
Bush beans
Alacante Beans
Sun flowers

Looking forward to this second season. Some plants like spinach just can not be planted in this heat however there are some Japanese spinach varieties that do very well in heat. Unfortunately the seed packet got wet and the seeds prematurely germinated and all died. Dammit!!

Growing Japanese Cucumbers

After several attempts this year to grow Japanese Cucumbers we finally got a few seeds to grow and set flowers. It seems like this variety really does well in cooler weather. The whole plant has several Flowers with both male and females strutting there stuff. My wife and I are hand pollinating them all and so far so good. This past summer we were up to our ears in Cucumbers and although my wife was not a big cucumber person she really started to like them. They just add a really fresh crisp to our food and I started adding them fresh, to all my meals. Even though its cooler these days I really hope this Japanese variety really hangs in there. It's kind of tough for our pollinators at this time of the year, they are all hunkering down getting ready to embrace the cold.