When is planting season in SE Texas!? New to the area!!

Hi everyone!

My fiance and I are preparing to move to the area around Houston, TX in the next month. I had a very successful garden last year (unfortunately not SFG, so LOTS of weeding!!) in the mountains of NC, so we're used to cooler weather gardens in the middle of summer.

I lived in zone 9 (Savannah GA) for a while, but the soil was too sandy to grow much. My bumper crop of green beans was a total of 3 beans (obviously hadn't heard of SFG yet!).

So my question is, when do most of you plant your gardens? It seems like you have enough sunny weather here to have 2 growing seasons, right?

Since we're moving in the next month or so, I wanted to see if it would be too late to try to have a garden yet. Should I wait til fall?

Thanks so much! Am so excited to try SFG - my sister (in VA) swears by it!!

Kellibug

Kellibug
to our forum. We are so glad to have you here, You will find we have several members throughout Texas so I am sure they will join in and help you get started. In the Coastal Tropical South region, we have members with some experience in your specific climate.

Please use the Forums Button at the top of this page to access old threads. You may find the answers to some of your questions there. If not, please feel free to ask your questions here and someone will try to assist you.

Again, Kellibug.

Welcome to the forum, Kellibug.

One of our daughters lives in Austin, and started her first SFG last fall. Apparently this has been a very unusual year for them weatherwise, with much colder than usual temps.

You might check with neighbors in your area who garden, and talk to people at garden centers about the best time for planting in your area. It also doesn't hurt to check in all the garden departments of local stores - occasionally you'll find someone there who actually knows about gardening.

Keep us posted on how your garden grows.

Kellibug, and let me be one of the first to say to The Great State of Texas. In may I will have been down here in the NE TX area for 27 years, came from Illinois by way of AR, then OK for a year each, then upon graduating from High School we finally made it to TX. It's a very exciting time here in TX, in March TX will celebrate its 175th aniv of it's Independence from Mexico, business' are growing, jobs are on the rise, and we have no state income tax and no tax on food.

Two things you can count on in TX are #1 that the people are friendly and love to chat (and chat and chat and chat) and #2 that you can never count on the weather. However, if you don't like it just wait 15 minutes and it will change. We have 4 seasons here in TX, Almost Summer, Summer, Still Summer, and Christmas. I've seen years with 100 days of 100 degrees, and then a summer that did not hit 100 degrees all year. This year we have had 3 separate snows with 2-8 inches each snowfall, and some had thundersnows, thunder and lightening while snowing. I saw one year where the farmer's got 5 cuttings of hay, yes 5. We had 2 crops of corn that year, just to see if we could. Winters are mild, compared to most of the country, which is good for arthritis, bad for bug control.

As for getting things in the ground when you get here, yes you still have plenty of time for many things, but you may be pushing it for cold weather crops like greens, broccoli, taters, peas etc. You may still have time for carrots and beets and radishes. If you like cowpeas, aka southern peas such as purple hull, zipper cream, etc they love it down here in TX. It should be time to pop them in the ground upon your arrival. They do well in SFG, but this year I am going to put steaks around the box and string for support, they did get a bit tall last year and one good storm would have brought mine down. The dirt here, if you can call it that, is mostly clay, so MM (Mel's Mix) is the best thing to start with. I'll be honest, although I am bringing in dirt, mixing MM is just not in the finances at this time, according to the checkbook holder. So I'll be amending the soil as I can, but what I have sure beats the clay that baked the beets before they could grow last year. I'm serious this stuff is awful, you could go out side scrape a shovelfull off the top of your yard, set it in the sun for 2 days, and put it in your house as tile flooring. I sure hope you have better soil in the Houston area, but just start out with MM and you will not have to ever worry about anything again.

That should be enough to chew on for now, as I said I'm in NE TX-Texarkana area, and hopefully you'll find more locals to talk to in a day or two, but that should give you a heads up on what to expect upon arriving in The Great State of Texas!!! Again, !!!

Down around Houston you'll definitely be waiting on the cool season crops until Fall. They do better then, anyway. I'm down in the Rio Grande Valley, but have friends in Conroe with the most amazing raised beds. In a month you should still be fine to plant summer crops, but I wouldn't dilly-dally around once you get there because you never know what kind of summer it's going to be and best to get them going and strong in case it heats up fast this year. Also, google your county extension office; some of them have great websites with lots of info. Texas A&M has a great website for gardening, even though it assumes in ground rows with just the occasional nod to other methods. Still, it'll probably help guide you as to dates and such. It's called Aggie Horticulture.

They have a Vegetable Variety Selector that you'll probably find useful this first year. It'll give you the standard varieties that do well. These'll be the kinds you can find in the big box stores pretty easily. If you want to look at local nurseries for more "interesting" varieties, or for things that you plant directly, such as beans, I recommend Southern Exposure Seed Exchange because they are focused on what does well in hot and humid weather. Even if you don't order from them, their free catalog is a great resource for finding out how deifferent varieties do in southern climates!

Welcome to Texas!

Wow elliephant, great resources, I plan on looking at them myself. I love the title Aggie Horticulture, it goes well with the winter we had here, "Rednecks on Ice"!!!

Wow!! Thank you all so much for the info and resources! And the nice welcome to these forums (and Texas - we're glad to be moving here!!!)

I'm very excited to get started, and glad to know it won't be too late to get some things growing. It's funny - the garden we had last year did very well, and even though it was a lot of work (again, no SFG), I am absolutely obsessed with having another one this year. And this time the frost and early snow won't be issues. (We'll focus on the positive, right?)

I'm going to check out the websites you recommended right now, especially the Aggie one!

Thanks again, everyone, and be sure you'll be hearing from me again soon! Hopefully I'll have some pictures to post. The photos of other people's gardens are so inspirational!

Kellibug

We have 4 seasons here in TX, Almost Summer, Summer, Still Summer, and Christmas.


FarmerValerie - I love your description of the Texas seasons! Here in NE South Dakota we have 2 seasons: Winter and Road Construction - guess which one is longer!

Goosegirl wrote:We have 4 seasons here in TX, Almost Summer, Summer, Still Summer, and Christmas.


FarmerValerie - I love your description of the Texas seasons! Here in NE South Dakota we have 2 seasons: Winter and Road Construction - guess which one is longer!

Sidebar: I worked in the golf industry years back. I had a guy come in one day literally from Ireland. I asked him if it was as rainy over there as everyone says. He told me, "Nah, it's not that bad. We only get two rain showers a year. One lasts 4 months, the other lasts 8."

BackyardBirdGardner wrote:

Goosegirl wrote:We have 4 seasons here in TX, Almost Summer, Summer, Still Summer, and Christmas.


FarmerValerie - I love your description of the Texas seasons! Here in NE South Dakota we have 2 seasons: Winter and Road Construction - guess which one is longer!

Sidebar: I worked in the golf industry years back. I had a guy come in one day literally from Ireland. I asked him if it was as rainy over there as everyone says. He told me, "Nah, it's not that bad. We only get two rain showers a year. One lasts 4 months, the other lasts 8."

Love it!

I was not sure about this before posting, but after a trip to Lowe's to get some blue taters, could not resist, there is NO TAX on vegetable plants in TX either.

Yay for no taxes on veggie plants!! Wonder if they charge taxes on seed packets.....

I am not sure, but I doubt it. Also, at one time you could use food stamps to buy seeds and plants, at least that's what I was told, not sure if it was or still is true or not.

I live in Houston and we can grow a lot of things all year long. Except your veggies that need cooler climate, you have to wait for the fall. Other than that have fun!!!! You will have an awesome garden,but you do have to be prepared for tropical storms or a hurricane.

Welcome and start planning your garden!
Yes! Everything is bigger in Texas ! Especially our Gardens!!!! (he,he)

Hi everyone! Thanks for the helpful advice!

We're now official Texas transplants, living just outside of Sealy on a cattle farm (thankfully our landlords tend the cows - I would end up naming them and keeping them til old age!)

I made 2 4x4 gardens in the back yard, and so far they're doing great! My first attempt at corn is going well - they're up at least 4 inches already. I'm also growing: cherry tomatoes, okra, bell peppers, squash, and cucumbers.

Question: How do you all deal with the wind around here? Do you pretty much stake up everything? We figure we'll need to stake the cukes & tomatoes anyway, but the wind may knock the corn down when it gets taller. What's the best way to stake things up?

Thanks!!

Dealing with the wind....

Install a windmill and let the electic company pay you for electicity.

You will deffinately want to stake anything over a foot tall. Cukes I would put on a trellis, I am using old metal wire shelves, it's what I had on hand. For corn I have heard of using bamboo poles for extra security, but that's not always pratical. You can "build up" some dirt around them as the grow, not much just a bit, and if it's windy when they are young, they should adapt and grow stronger for it.

My boxes are 2 feet wide and all along my wooden fence. I did it that way because I like lots of trellis veggies and I wanted to keep most of the yard for the kids, but it has proved to be really helpful with the (constant) wind.

Thanks for the suggestions! I'm not ready to stake them yet, but good info to know.

But now I have yet another question! We're seeing ants in our beds!! I've sprinkled Sevin dust on the soil after watering, and we'll be treating the yard for ants tomorrow. But they seem to come back. I'm not sure at this point if they're actually living in the garden soil or not.

Any suggestions for getting rid of ants?!?

Ants are pretty harmless in the garden. They do herd aphids, but the aphids are the problem, not the ants. Well, unless they are leafcutters!

Kellibug, regarding fire ants, they kill ticks. Believe me, if you have cattle around, you WANT those ants. Especially if you have pets.

Madam Solanum

Put out some long lasting fire ant bait... I usually sprinkle the lawn and around the house and it works for several months. I don't think I would put it in my vegetable beds, but the forager ants will pick it up and carry it back to their mound if the mound happens to be in the bed... usually it kills them all dead pretty well.

For veggie beds use cinnamon, it does work. For the yard Andro. I'm in NE TX and in the country so we get a monthly magazine from the co-ops, they recently had an article on fire ants and I have it somewhere but cannot put my hands on it. The article can be found online here.
http://www.texascooppower.com/texas-stories/life-arts/war

Another short one here.
http://www.texascooppower.com/texas-stories/life-arts/native-or-invader-know-the-enemy

These things destroy machinery, by infestation or just plain tearing up the bushhog when bushhogging your fields. They also kill livestock, so if you have cattle you DO NOT want fire ants. Texas A&M has spent many, many years and money on research due to the infestation we have here in TX. Included in the article on the first link on the right side of the article is a list of what works and what does not, cinnimon is not included in that list, but it's what we use, and have had success. Also for little black ants, we have saved used tea bags, dried them, and then when we see evidence of them in our taters (in the ground) we just open the bags up ad sprinkle them on the top of the mound. Does the tea kill them, probably not, they probably just leave. Now the cinnamon kills the ants it comes in contact with, especially if the sun is out, I've watched them writhe in pain from burning. What it probably does is cause the mound to move, not kill the queen, which is what you want.

If you notice more than 2-3 mounds, first off treat the perimiter of your yard, yes you run the risk of keeping them in, but at least they will not move next door only to come back next year. Then treat each mound you see. We had them so bad the year after we bought this place, we had to carry a small container of stuff with us when we mowed so we could treat as soon as we ran over a pile. Like I said, if you have fire ants in the yard, get a name brand ant killer, such as Andro, then look for preventative measure to keep them out, like treating the perimiter every other year or so if the neighbors do not treat their boundries, trust me, we've been there, done that, and bought the t-shirt too.

I hate freakin' fire ants...