East Texas Gardening

[45lk9p459gm-w]

Bad start to the 2021 season but we are starting to warm back up here in east Texas. Had the first good look at my little garden today and it wasn’t good. Two days of single digit temps. followed by nearly a week of snow and ice has taken its toll on my cabbage, mustard, and broccoli. The cabbage that has started to head (baseball size) might make it but everything else is all broken down and mashed flat from the weight of the ice and snow. Time will tell.

Guess I will get my peppers started today since I’m already a week late on that……

 

[CHlCKEN]

Sorry about that! Good luck!

 

[45lk9p459gm-w]

Sorry about that! Good luck!

Thanks ... Mother Nature is a hard mistress sometimes. Could have been worse I guess. At least the mustard greens and the cabbage that hadn't started to head will make it. This cold snap will probably set them back some so hopefully they will make before the temps get too high this spring.

The peppers are started and the carrot plot is ready to plant so unless we have a volcanic eruption or a meter strike maybe we can get some nice veggies pretty soon.

 

[45lk9p459gm-w]

Cold, for us, and rainy today but it’s supposed to get back into the mid 60’s with lots of sunshine tomorrow and the rest of the week. That’s perfect weather for now since the few cabbage and mustard greens that survived the mini ice age we had don’t need any hot temps before Easter.

Still getting the beds ready for the spring planting when the weather allows us to work the soil. It has been pretty wet so we haven’t had a chance to do much. The peppers I started are all up and doing fine. They had almost 100% germination rate too which was a surprise. This new Dome seed starting thing and grow light I bought seem to be worth the money. Sure makes getting the seeds started easy and the grow-light is fantastic. It’s keeping them nice and green with no legginess.

With the price of groceries going up The garden will come in handy this coming year. Small, green, bell peppers are 89 cents each and the red and yellow ones are $1.58 each here now. Might be time to see if we can sell or trade some of ours this summer to folks that are disgusted with low quality and high prices in the stores.

Always something to do around here … If I can’t play in the dirt there is always the chicken coop to work on. I have two months to finish it and the run before the birds get here.

 

[henless]

Planting season starts next week. I am SO ready!

 

[Artichoke Lover]

Cold, for us, and rainy today but it’s supposed to get back into the mid 60’s with lots of sunshine tomorrow and the rest of the week. That’s perfect weather for now since the few cabbage and mustard greens that survived the mini ice age we had don’t need any hot temps before Easter.

Still getting the beds ready for the spring planting when the weather allows us to work the soil. It has been pretty wet so we haven’t had a chance to do much. The peppers I started are all up and doing fine. They had almost 100% germination rate too which was a surprise. This new Dome seed starting thing and grow light I bought seem to be worth the money. Sure makes getting the seeds started easy and the grow-light is fantastic. It’s keeping them nice and green with no legginess.

With the price of groceries going up The garden will come in handy this coming year. Small, green, bell peppers are 89 cents each and the red and yellow ones are $1.58 each here now. Might be time to see if we can sell or trade some of ours this summer to folks that are disgusted with low quality and high prices in the stores.

Always something to do around here … If I can’t play in the dirt there is always the chicken coop to work on. I have two months to finish it and the run before the birds get here.

Prices are going up all over the place. Our bell peppers are at 70¢ and $1.38 respectively. Not nearly as high as some places but I can remember when they were 50¢ each last year. And honestly supply is concern here too. We are a small town so we are low on the supply list for places like Walmart and the only local grocery burned down in December. Walmart didn’t get a shipment in for over 3 weeks around Christmas. They were completely out of dairy, paper towels, toilet paper and baking supplies for about 3 weeks after Christmas. And there isn’t another grocery store for close to 40 miles.

Sorry for the rant But this is one of our reasons for having a big garden too. I’ve got around 50 pepper plant out in the greenhouse right now.

 

[45lk9p459gm-w]

Sorry for the rant But this is one of our reasons for having a big garden too. I’ve got around 50 pepper plant out in the greenhouse right now.

We are about 30 miles away from everything too and live in the county. I have started ordering most all the dry goods from Sam’s and have them delivered. Fresh stuff I order from them online and go pick it up. Easier that way and so far it has been working out really well.

We are looking for things to get short around here too. Haven’t had a large garden for years but I decided I needed to put my Farmer Brown hat back on and get one of the old gardens back up and running again.

 

[henless]

It was pretty cool this morning, mid 30's, but warmed up to mid 60's by this afternoon. I raked the leaf mulch back on a couple of beds to let the sun warm up the dirt a bit. Hoping to plant tomatoes this next week.

 

[45lk9p459gm-w]

I usually wait till about Easter before I do much planting. Usually don't get any surprise frost after then. I will probably be starting a few tomatoes in a day or two and direct seed everything else. With this crazy weather you never know what to expect.

 

[henless]

March 15 is the average last frost for my area. I usually cover mine with milk jugs to protect them from any chill we might get. So far it's worked well for us.