Texas Veggie Gardeners!! Stories, Tips and ADVICE!

[Frost Homestead]

I think the think leaves will just give them something else to scratch at. You can try sticking some plastic or metal 'sticks' around the pot to keep them from being able to get up in the pot if they're actually getting in it to scratch, otherwise I would say you'd have to put them behind a fence or something. my birds tear up any plant they can get their hands on and will dig in any big pot they can find so I keep mine all behind a welded wire fence

 

[galanie]

So far as potted plants, yep, I just have to make sure they can't get to them. Even a mulch of rocks doesn't deter them, they just scrape off the rocks. Luckily I don't have very many plants left in pots, only two, and those two are up on stands. The pots are kinda small for my chickens to want to land on and they're fat things that don't fly much anyway, so my whole two plants are safe. For now.

I have hard good things about that Cherokee purple tomato before. Maybe I'll give it a go. I really don't want a purple, green, yellow, or orange tomato, I want a red one lol. Why is it that all the good heirlooms for our area are all off colors or striped?

That India Spinach beet is a green only, it doesn't make a root you can eat. I've tried to grow spinach many times myself, and it never is good, ever. Best I can get it before the heat hits is pitiful, and fall planted ones don't do any better. But the spinach beet, wow. Love it! I like to use spinach in place of lettuce so there's someone else I've stopped trying to grow, lettuce. You just can't get things to head up well this far south and lettuce attracts every plant eating creature within a hundred miles. Cabbage, too. It won't head up properly either, at least I never got it to. Tried it two years in a row, gave up.

Evergreen seeds ( http://www.evergreenseeds.com ) has the seeds. They specialize in Oriental seeds and have a lot of interesting stuff.

 

[Frost Homestead]

I've never been able to get cabbage or broccoli to grow heads, but the Hill Country Natives place I visited had some huge heads of a wrinkly looking cabbage that seemed to really love the weather we're having.

I tried to grow a bunch of tomatoes, both cherry and beefsteak, I usually have good luck with the cherry varieties but this past summer was just tooo hot. I moved all my pots into a spot under a tree that gets probably 90% shade and they still all died. They were fried. This year I'm not even going to try to grow tomatoes; after last year it felt like such a waste of time and energy only to get nothing but a bunch of burnt up looking plants. I've heard good things about the Cherokee Purple tomatoes though, know someone in Oklahoma that had a lot of success with them last year.

 

[yinepu]

You're probably right about that! Hopefully, the neighbor will be a little more neighborly and keep his critters home! Maybe ask him to fix his fence in exchange for fresh veggies????

He never did fix the fence.. my husband and I had to do it after the 5th cow came visiting...

 

[yinepu]

cool, glad I was able to find this thread. I'm a longtime backyard gardener. I like to use native and medicinal plants to landscape and just went to an awesome place in Leander called Hill Country Natives. They literally have all of the hard to find natives I've been searching for forever. I bought some sorrel, comfrey, and a barbados cherry tree.

In the garden I've got potatoes, white onion sets, and garlic in the ground so far. I plant mostly in containers because it saves about 50% more water than ground planting or raised beds, with this drought I haven't been able to collect any significant amounts of rain water so I'm stuck using the hose. I've got tons (literally hundreds) of empty pots out in the garden waiting to be seeded. This year I'm growing carrots, cucumbers, swiss chard, beets, tomatillo, and about 10 different kinds of chilis and peppers. I think I've got anaheim, red, yellow and orange bell, thai peppers, explosive embers, chinese 5 color, pablano, banana, jalapeno, and some others I can't think of right now

What is everyone else planning on growing this year? Anyone doing completely organic?

I figured out a good way to get the aphids off of my plants, at night I put a extension cord with a light attached out in the middle of the garden. the light attracts brown lacewings which are ferocious predators of garden pests. I had aphids or some similar little bugs eating the tender new growth on my pepper plants and after a few night with the light on there were literally NONE left and the plants remained bug free for the rest of the fall. anyone else tried anything similar?

We're all organic here.. we raise rabbits, chickens, turkeys, ducks, (hopefully emu if the eggs hatch), and have equines.. so plenty of home grown fertilizer!
I'm probably going to go with the usual.. if I can keep the critters out of things.. tomatoes, peppers, chard, cucumbers, melons... and with any luck I will get to replace some of the baby orchard trees that the drought took out last year.

Thanks for the heads up about Hill Country Natives.. I am going to have to pay them a visit later this spring when we head that way again!

 

[galanie]

Don't let this past summer put you off growing anything, it was just a horrible year for gardening all the way around for all of us in that drought area. I did get a few tomatoes off a medium red heirloom variety with an Italian name (nope, not Roma) that I can't think of. I saved a few seeds so I'll try it one more time but it's determinate and I'd rather have indeterminate. The spinach beet did well but then I was out watering it by hand at least some every evening. Had it planted in a 4' x '4 square so it wasn't as much water as it sounds like. I still spent $100 a month on water though trying to be sure my antique roses that my mother planted 30 years ago didn't die (and accidentally left the hose on all night EEP). A few did but they were ones I didn't like. Naturally the one I really hate came through fantastic.

 

[frustratedearthmother]

The only thing I can think of to keep chickens from digging through your pots might be to wrap them with chicken wire - but that really sounds like a pain!

My leaf lettuces did beautifully earlier this spring, and the ones I have growing now are volunteers that came up after the others bolted when the heat got too bad. I guess I was just lucky to have had a good garden this past summer. Thankfully, we have our own well and I watered religiously. Usually it only costs the price of electricity to run the well - however - wouldn't you know it, my pump burned out and I had to replace it to the tune of about $1800 so my water was really expensive, lol!

Frosthazard - that's an awesome tip about the light. I'll try to remember that. I really didn't have a bug problem last year, but after this mild winter we're having now I bet they'll be overwhelming this year. My neighbors are big bird lovers and keep birdseed out all the time, so maybe all the birds kept the bugs away. I saw Eastern Bluebirds about a week ago. Maybe that's not a big deal for some locations, but it's pretty exciting right here!

Galanie, I had some luck with red heirlooms also, but can't for the life of me remember the variety. They were medium sized, came off a potato leafed plant and were definitely indeterminate - all over the place indeterminate! Yinepu - your neighbor should remember that good fences make good neighbors! I really do feel for you though - to have something undo all your hard work is just the pits. Maybe this year you'll have better luck.

We're are all organic also. I'd rather share a little with a bug or two than eat pesticides!

 

[hippiehen]

Sorry for starting this thread then abandoning it!

Here's a question for the group - Do you start your own tomato and pepper plants or buy started plants? If you do start plants - when do you start them for your area?

Compost is indeed a gardeners best friend!

I always start my tomatoes and peppers from seed because I am cheap! lol Like I said in my first post though, I always seem to get a late start on them and by the time comes around for them to produce it's already 100+ outside. So this year I'm starting mine next week to put out sometime mid-March. We usually get an "easter freeze" around here but I'm going to take the risk because by Easter I will be nine months pregnant!

Even mid-march might be pushing it but so far I haven't had any problems staying active. If this La Nina pattern keeps up then the rest of spring should stay relatively mild anyway. How do yall start your seeds? I use old egg cartons. I always have a problem with them going from sprouts to leggy virtually overnight so here's a question:

Do you put your sprouted seeds in sunlight immediately? Indirect or direct?

What is everyone else planning on growing this year? Anyone doing completely organic?

I figured out a good way to get the aphids off of my plants, at night I put a extension cord with a light attached out in the middle of the garden. the light attracts brown lacewings which are ferocious predators of garden pests. I had aphids or some similar little bugs eating the tender new growth on my pepper plants and after a few night with the light on there were literally NONE left and the plants remained bug free for the rest of the fall. anyone else tried anything similar?

I'm always a sucker to try "new" stuff, I think that's part of the reason why I fail lol! So this year I'm sticking with things I've had relative luck with in the past - carrots, cherry tomatoes, jalepenos, tomatillos, yellow and patty pan squash, pickling cucumbers.

That is such an awesome idea for controlling aphids, I'm definitely going to try it out!!! I wonder if it would work on thrips? I have a harder time with them than anything. Anyone have any suggestions for dealing with them?

 

[frustratedearthmother]

Welcome back, Hippie,

Congrats on your pregnancy!!

I broke down and bought a couple of those little min-green houses at Wally World - the kind with the peat pots and the clear lid. I've never used them before, but decided to splurge on them this year. I think egg cartons would work pretty well for starters, but I bet you can't keep the plants in them for very long. That brings up another question. Anyone else have a Keurig coffee maker and wonder what to do with all of those little cups? I really was wondering if they would make good seed starters. I guess the problem would be the small size - kind of like egg cartons. It goes against my re-cycling gene to just throw them away. I've already bought one of those little filters that you can use your own coffee with and not have to use the ready made cups - but I've still got plenty of them just sitting around waiting for a new purpose in life.

I guess I'd better make a decision quickly because I got in an order of Heirloom seeds yesterday and I NEEEEED to plant them!

Galanie - Homestead is a really good flavored red heirloom, but it's determinate.

It's supposed to get stormy tonight and tomorrow around here - ya'll stay safe and dry!

 

[yinepu]

Sounds like I need to see if I have any tomato seeds laying around from last year and get mine started.. I use the trays with the clear covers from walmart (have had a few sitting around for a few years). Mine were left out in the shed last year and my husband was out there rearranging things.. so I hope he didn't throw them out. If they are still there I will go ahead and bleach them to kill off any bugaboos and throw in some seed starting soil (peatmoss, vermiculite mix).. add the seeds and put on the cover

I have shelves set up with grow lamps over them (48" shop lights with grow bulbs) so it's just a matter of setting the timer and hoping that room stays warm enough. I do have some old reptile heat mats I can put under them for bottom heat just in case.

I planted a few Allstar strawberry plants the other day.. had a half used bulb of garlic that was sprouting so I separated the cloves and planted them around the strawberries.. went to fix dinner last night and came across a few sprouted potatoes.. so I cut them up to use as potato sets... figured if the garlic and potatoes don't do much I'm not out anything since they were destined to be composted anyway!