Just starting veg garden. Live in Tx. What is the best 2 grow 4 spring.

Look on the blue area on the left of the screen.
Select 'Goodies'
Plug your zip code into the space provided and a list of planting dates will show up for your area.

Then plant what you like to eat.

Hi Debbie! welcome to ATP!

1. My theory is a little backwards: first and foremost, grow what you like to eat!

Just bear in mind that FRESH veggies chosen for quality, will be MUCH better than supermarket anythings. If you were never fond of snap peas, snow peas, spinach, lettuce or cherry tomatoes, the ones you pick and eat within a few minutes might rapidly become your NEW favorite vegetable.

2.
I also don't bother growing what I can buy cheaply, like carrots or potatoes. But some people do, so maybe fresh tiny carrots have virtues I don't know about.

3.
Whatever you plant your first year, your biggest harvest will be new gardening expertise. I was getting disappointed after a year or two when I kept killing plants, until someone straightened me out: if some gardener isn't killing at least SOME plants, they aren't stretching themselves enough. Learning only occurs when you're a little too ambitious and find out what does NOT work in certain circumstances. Then you can go to forums like this and ANSWER questions instead of ask them!

So try things you like, and FIND OUT how easy they are for you to grow. Some things that everyone else thinks are fussy, impossible plants will turn out to love your methods and grow like Jack's beanpole for you.

Be sure to pick at least 2-3 things that "everyone says" are incredibly easy to grow and 100% foolproof. If you're like every other gardener ever born, half of those will spite you by dying in droves - just to mess with your head!

I see this especially when starting seeds indoors. The seeds that I expect to germinate 90%+, I sow thinly. They typically get fussy and only a few come up. The seeds that I expect to be difficult and have low germination rates seem to put up 150% or 200% as many seedlings as I had seeds ... playful little beggars!


4. Maybe the conventional wisdom is to grow things that like your climate and soil. It makes sense, anyway.

In Texas, I guess that means that they can grow in sandy soil and take intense heat and little rain without burning up, for a summer crop. Hopefully some Texans here can suggest what those are. Beans? Eggplant? Okra? Chinese long beans?


Just beware: people in cooler climates will tell you that "tomatoes and peppers love heat". Well, that's only true up to a point. In at least some parts of Texas, their "spring tomatoes" are stomped on by the summer heat like Bambi being stomped by Godzilla. They have to start more tomato plants for the fall crop.


OR else plant things grow fast enough that you can have a Spring crop and a Fall crop. For example:
lettuce
spinach
chard
snow peas, snap peas, other peas
Bok Choy (and Chinese cabbage in the fall)
radishes

You could plant some garlic cloves now for spring harvest.

Texas is BIG! The state varies from desert, to tropical to snow. What part of TX are you in? I live in the Houston Area. MUCH different than El Paso, Amarillo, or even Austin.

Yup, Rick's last point about the tomatoes is what I was going to start with. We really need to know what part of TX you live in, Debbie. The climate is vastly different there, from the Gulf Coast all the way up to the panhandle.

Here in FL I am just planting all my veggies to grow over the winter. I'll have tomatoes to eat and share starting maybe as soon as late next month, but for sure in January and February. But my tomato plants will definitely be dead as doornails by June.

Lots of the cool season things like salad greens and cabbage relatives will grow straight through our coldest winter weather here. So if you're in somewhere like Corpus Christi or Houston, you could start right away.

Oh and by the way, the title of your thread 'best sun for veg garden' - is that a question? If so, the answer is "full sun, all day" if you've got a place like that. Veg's work pretty hard to produce good stuff for you to eat, and they need all the solar energy you can find for them.

Yep, Texas is a big and varied place. What if the OP has caliche soil? YIkes!
http://texasalmanac.com/topics...

RickCorey said:
In Texas, I guess that means that they can grow in sandy soil and take intense heat and little rain without burning up, for a summer crop.

Sandy soil? What's that?

No sand here. It took many years to break down this clay! I buy sand.

Thanks for the corrections!

I know as much about Texas soil as my cat knows about differential equations. At least now I know to ask: "Oh, Texas? Which county?"

ATP Garden calendar:
http://garden.org/apps/calenda... - for all of Texas. Scroll down to "Spring"
This advice will be better if you enter your ZIP code into the Garden Calendar.


I forgot to suggest browsing agricultural extension or "co-op" and university online resources. LOCAL advice is the best source for specific, concrete suggestions. A county ag agent might even have lists of varieties that do well in that county, and planting dates that are more localized than the ones online, such as here at ATP:

http://nifa.usda.gov/partners-... - finder page

http://www.pvamu.edu/cahs/coop... - Prairie View

http://agrilifeextension.tamu.... - Texas A&M

RickCorey said:Thanks for the corrections!

At least now I know to ask: "Oh, Texas? Which county?"

Actually, it's, "Oh, Texas? THAT COUNTRY"

I see your Texas microbadge!

I'd "raise you a PNW evergreen tree", but we are such deferential wimps up here that I wouldn't even try.


Texans:
"TEXAS!! TEXAS!!! TEXAS!!!!"

PNW:
"Umm, excuse me ... ahh, say, ummm y'know ... I don't mean to disagree ... but ...
it's kind of nice here too ...
SORRY! No offense intended! I'm sure Texas is MUCH better! What was I THINKING??!!??
... oh dear oh dear oh dear ..."

@RickCorey My husband is from Seattle, born and raised. But has been in Texas for a long time. He still thinks Washington State is the best and I hear about ALL the things done first in Seattle....Costco, Starbucks, Magnolia. He goes on and on. I wasn't born in Texas but I got here as soon as I could, as they say.

ShadyGreenThumb said: I wasn't born in Texas but I got here as soon as I could, as they say.

That would perfectly describe me and the UP !

(good thing we don't all want to live in the same place, isn't it!)

I'm glad he still loves Seattle, Cheryl. I do too. For me , it's the weather, the beer, the coffee ... and right where I live, there are a series of "bikini baristas" selling espresso-based drinks while modelling bikinis.

It's as if someone read my mind and created Heaven on Earth.

@RickCorey The Expresso drive in barista my Son-In Law stopped at just outside of Olympia barely had a bikini on unless you count tassels as a bikini!! He was looking for the Energy Drink, maybe you've heard of it, Morning Wood? We found out they only make it like two times a year . He wanted to bring a case back to his Navy shipmates back in San Diego. When I asked if he got more than he asked for, his face turned all red and he had a BIG smile on his face. hahahahahaa

Gosh, we are SO sheltered here in the UP...

well, maybe or maybe not; I don't frequent drive-through coffee shops, so how would I know?? (more like the drive-through Diet Coke place for me, otherwise known as McDonalds )

ShadyGreenThumb said: ... The Expresso drive in barista my Son-In Law stopped at just outside of Olympia ... When I asked if he got more than he asked for, his face turned all red and he had a BIG smile on his face. hahahahahaa

Cheryl,

Exactly!

I've learned to avoid the ones that are TOO explicit; I'm too easily embarrassed.

I read a newspaper article by some local sheriff who did MUCH too much research on this "problem" to be wholly innocent. Apparently there were "code words" that meant certain things, and were supposed to be accompanied by ten and twenty dollar bills.

That salacious article by the sheriff finally explained to me what was going on the time I stopped for an Americano and some relatively innocent ogling.

She kept suggesting that I would really enjoy getting caramel with that. "You like caramel, don't you?"

But I still don't know what caramel was!

Some things really are better NOT to know!

Agreed. I took a friend from Massachusetts to one of the rowdier bikini barista huts and learned that I don't want to go back there without a chaperon.

Maybe after I grow up.