Jesse Jenkins

I love okra – in gumbo, raw, fried, pickled, and especially grilled. If you planted okra late Spring or early Summer, you’ve probably got a bunch ready to eat right now. Try this super simple okra dish – great as a side for just about anything, or by itself.

Start with a couple big handfuls of fresh okra. No need to trim the tops, just rinse and leave whole.

Make this light marinade; not too wet because we want the okra to get crispy on the grill.

1-2 tablespoons good olive oil
Juice of ½ a lemon
Zest of ½ a lemon
Pinch of smoked flaky sea salt
Pinch of smoked paprika
Pinch of black pepper

Toss the okra in the marinade, then skewer. I like using the 6” bamboo skewers for this recipe because they’re easy to flip on the grill and easy to serve. Let the skewered okra sit for about 30 mins to soak up some flavor.

While you wait, make this magic lemon tahini sauce. Combine the ingredients in a food processor or whisk in a bowl. Add more water as needed to get a light creamy consistency.

2 tablespoons tahini
Juice of 1 lemon
1 clove garlic
1-2 tablespoons water
½ tablespoon good olive oil
½ tablespoon nutritional yeast
Pinch of salt and pepper

Make a nice hot fire and grill the skewers on direct heat for about 2 mins per side until they’re roasted/slightly charred. Then serve the okra immediately with a little of the lemon tahini sauce drizzled on top – save some for dipping too. Best eaten outside!

-Jesse

We’re talking with customers everyday who are concerned that they have a fungus on their plants. My first thought is that it would be rare to have fungus this time of year since its so warm, windy, and dry. It’s much more likely to be a bug. Here’s how to identify and control.

Is it white and cottony on the stems and flower buds? If so, you have Mealybugs! They show up in the Summer on Hibiscus, Jatropha, Purslane, Salvia and many more of our plants. You can treat with organic Spinosad soap or Bee Safe 3-in1 Garden Spray – be sure to spray in the evening due to our high temperatures. We recommend spraying the plant once a week for 3 weeks.

Do your leaves look brown and speckled? Sounds and looks like a fungus, but this time of year, its most likely lace bugs on the underside of leaves. They are notorious for attacking Lantana. We’ve even seen some lace bugs on Zinnias and Persimmon trees this Summer. We recommend you cut your plants back one third to half, fertilize and then spray with organic Spinosad soap.

*Scale and sooty mold on a Eucalyptus tree*

Do your Crape Myrtles look black and sooty? This is a tricky one: black sooty mold is a fungus, but it’s caused by insects. Aphids, scale insects, and whitefly leave behind a sticky residue (called “honeydew”) that black sooty mold grows on. If you kill the bug, then the soot goes away. Each of these can be controlled with organic Spinosad soap or Bee Safe 3-in-1 Garden Spray.

-DeAnna

Right now is a very exciting time for us South Texas Gardeners. It doesn’t feel like it yet, but our Summer season is coming to a close, and our best growing season is right around the corner. That’s means it’s time to decide what you’re growing and get going! Here are our tips for getting started.

Plan Your Garden

It’s veggie time – start by thinking about what you like to eat! You can produce a surprising amount of food for you and food to share in a small backyard (or front yard) garden. If you have limited space, containers or small raised beds are great. Watch James’ guide to container gardening – Grow Food Everywhere! Consider mixing Fall flowers like Marigolds, Lobelia, or Violas with your herbs and veggies.

Start Your Seeds!

If you’re starting from scratch (seed), right now is the time to start cabbage, squash, beans, and lots of others. Here’s our schedule for popular Fall veggie seeds. Also, check out Wyatt’s video demo about starting seeds – it’s not the only way, but it really helps with germination. If you prefer transplanting, we’ll start getting all our Fall veggie plants in the next week or 2. Our Texas growers have been prepping for a big Fall.

Clear out Weeds and Tired Plants

As our Summer veggies and cover crops finish their life cycle, harvest what you can and clean out the rest. When you start prepping your soil for new plants, you’ll be encouraging new growth, including weeds. So, take your time pulling weeds and get as many of the roots as you can.

Prep Your Soil

If you’re planting in the ground, your soil needs a good turning before planting. This is a good time to add some compost as well. By turning about 1 bag of Nature’s Blend compost into every 12 sq. ft. of soil (or a similar amount if you make your own compost), you create a perfect environment for young plant roots to take hold. If you’re prepping raised beds, we love Gardener’s Magic soil. It’s specially formulated for raised beds; just dump the bags in and start planting.

Think Trees Too

Fall is THE best time to plant trees in our area. Cooler temps mean less watering for you and less stress on the young tree. Planting in Fall also gives the tree roots plenty of time to get established before temps warm up again next Spring/Summer. New citrus and fruit trees have arrived this week, and lots of our South Texas favs like Cedar Elm, Live Oak, and Crape Myrtles are here with more en route. Check out Josh’s citrus planting demo – lots of these planting tips are great for all kinds of trees.

We are so happy to welcome Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds back to Gill’s! Baker Creek offers one of the largest selections of 19th century heirloom seeds from Europe and Asia, and their 2021 catalog contains about 1,000 varieties.

Founder Jere Gettle started Baker Creek Heirloom Seed Co. in 1998 as a hobby in Mansfield, Missouri. Today, Baker Creek includes trial gardens, greenhouses, a pioneer village, and a seed store. Their seed packets feature amazing photos of crops grown at their facility! We brought in a cool assortment of varieties that we think will work well in our area, like these Bosque Blue Bumblebee tomatoes and Pippin’s Golden Honey sweet peppers.

Tips for Starting Seeds:

I tried Wyatt’s kickstart method for starting seeds this week and it worked great:

Fold seeds in a damp paper towel.
Seal the damp paper towel inside a zip-loc bag overnight.
Remove the seeds from the bag/towel and plant in peat pots using seed and cutting soil.
Once the plants are ready, transplant the peat pots directly into the ground or other container.

Of course, you could start the seeds directly in soil, but this extra step speeds up germination. I actually left my seeds in the bags for 2 days (because I forgot, oops). By the time I got around to opening the bags, most of the seeds had already sprouted. One day later, they’re already pushing up out of the soil.

Right now is the time to start lots of veggies like squashes, cabbage, and beans from seed – here’s our schedule for Fall veggies.

One more tip – seed and cutting soil is blended to allow tiny young roots and sprouts to break through. It’s very light and fluffy, so the soil and seeds tend to float up out of the container when you add water. So, water the soil first, let it settle, then push your seeds into the saturated soil. The back end of a pair of tweezers works well.

–Jesse

Tomatoes are one of the easiest vegetables to grow, but you need to get the timing right. Typically, you’d want to get them in the ground in August, but since it’s been so warm, it’s ok to wait until early to mid-September. But don’t wait longer than that! Here are a few tips for getting the best (and the most) tomatoes this Fall.

Start with a quart size or even a 1 gallon because you can wait a little longer to plant and it is easier to keep them watered in the heat. Add some organic Bio-tone starter fertilizer when you plant, add a tomato cage, water well, and watch them grow! On the first of the month, fertilize with Espoma Plant tone and on the 15^th use Hasta Gro liquid. Vegetables are heavy feeders and will reward you with a bountiful harvest if fed regularly.

Celebrity and Tycoon are 2 of the most popular larger tomatoes. Red Snapper, Red Deuce, Ruby Crush and Better Boy are also very good tried and true varieties. Most of these take about 70+ days from fruit to harvest.

If you’re looking for big flavor in a bite size, cherry or grape tomatoes are the ticket! Some of the tops, are Large, Red Cherry, Sweet 100, Juliet, Yellow Pear and my favorite… Sweet Cherry Surprise 968 aka BHN 968. Great for growing in a container, a raised bed, or in the ground. It is 4 times sweeter than any other cherry tomato on the market – almost like eating candy. Cherry tomatoes produce an abundance of fruit in a short period of time. One plant is plenty to keep several people supplied in tomatoes.

–DeAnna

We’re starting to see Ruby-throated hummingbirds make their way through for the Fall migration! These tiny birds are BIG eaters. They stop here in the Coastal Bend to fuel up before their non-stop flight across the Gulf of Mexico. Here’s how to host them in your backyard.

Right now is a great time to plant all kinds of blooming plants that hummingbirds love. Hummingbirds find plants using their excellent vision and are attracted to bright colored blooms, which indicate a high-sugar food source. Some of our favs for South Texas are Flame Acanthus (aka hummingbird bush), Salvias (like native Salvia greggii and Salvia leucantha), Cape Honeysuckle, native Turk’s Cap, Firecracker plant, Coral bean – the list goes on! Plant a few of these and hummingbirds will find them.

The right plants plus a few feeders will attract and feed lots more hummingbirds. We’re excited to try Hummingbird Momma organic nectar. It’s designed to approximate the consistency and nutrients found in flowers without any red dye or preservatives. If you make your own nectar, all you need is 1 part sugar to 4 parts water.

If you want to learn more about hummingbirds, visit the Rockport Fulton Hummerbird Celebration this weekend, September 16-19! The weekend includes a tour of “hummer homes” aka local homes and businesses that plant and maintain their yards year round to attract hummingbirds.

Last week, local Skidmore farmer Allen Hudson brought in a batch of his very special onion sets. Those who have been around awhile haven’t seen a true multiplying onion here at Gill’s in years! It’s a tasty onion that you can plant year round, with a cool story that we wanted to share.

Allen named these heirloom onions ‘Grandpa Brown’s Multiplying Onions’ after his grandpa. As a kid, they would buy these onion sets at Zimmer’s Nursery in Beeville, plant them together, and watch them multiply.

After going off to college and returning to the area, Allen wondered if he could still find these onions to try and grow them commercially. He ended up tracking them down to a farmer in Toledo, TX and was able to get just 14 onions. He planted all 14, but the cows tore up 7, so he was really only able to start with 7 onions. Now he’s got that number up to about 50,000 at his farm! Rescued from the brink of extinction!

We’re so happy to have some available for you here at Gill’s! Most onion sets are not available until mid-November, but Grandpa Brown’s are ready to plant right now. Allen says plant them “up to the hips”, meaning leave some of the white bulb showing above the soil. They can be planted in clay or sandy soil, they’re heat tolerant, and cold hardy. Allen has tested lots of different fertilizers on the farm and found that the onions love organic Medina Growin’ Green – one of our favs.

They multiply by division, so you can plant a few and have a steady supply of green onions for years to come.

-Jesse

October is Breast Cancer Awareness month and a great time to plant roses! We partnered with FIRST FRIDAY, a local nonprofit organization dedicated to breast cancer awareness. From now until October 14^th, when you buy any pink rose at Gill’s, 25% of your purchase is donated to FIRST FRIDAY.

FIRST FRIDAY was formed by a group of Corpus Christi women in 1994 to increase awareness of the importance of early detection and to provide free screening mammograms for those who cannot otherwise afford the care. Such a great cause!

We have all our favorite pink rose varieties available including:

Double Pink Knockout
Single Pink Knockout
Drift Pink
Drift Sweet Pink
Peggy Martin Climbing

Plant a pink rose and feel extra good about it!