Fall Garden
I have the fall garden pretty much all planted. Its still too hot for lettuce and radishes so those go in next month. Texas has two growing seasons. The summer is so hot that the window to get a good crop smaller than you think. Your fighting between the heat and the impending frost.
This is my first real fall garden. Usually I have a good start in the spring with a focus on tomatoes, peppers and basil. Come around mid July, its just too hot for anything to grow. I generally leave it alone and if Im lucky, anything that survived yields a little bit in the fall. Mostly its weeds and bermuda though.
JD had a good run last year using the square foot method. Unfortunately, the only real good piece of yard that gets full sun is unsuitable to put even a raised bed on. Ive tried containers (15 gal totes) but they crack after one season in Texas.
I figured that planters were the way to go. I figured the best way to do this was to just
build one and see how it turned out. From there, I could adapt the plans to boxes that
I found more suitable. The first one I built was this.
Seemed simple enough. Just 2×4s and some 2×2. After getting started I realized it was going to be heavy. Each square is 16.5 inches and its 6 layers deep. Thats 33 feet of 2×4. Its easily 40 to 50 lbs without the dirt!
But it does look nice.
Next I built a much bigger 3×3 foot planter. I still used 2×4s but only for the framing.
The siding is old fence wood and the bottom was some scrap I found.
I built one more for good measure. The one in the back is the nice one (heavy). The one in the front was put together a bit more…um…hastily. They should last several years. I did cut a few corners on the growing medium as far as square foot gardening is concerned. I have TONS of compost. That was free. Instead of spending $12 for 2CU of potting soil, I cut it down with cedar and pine mulch. it might be too acid..we will see. The beauty of mulch is that its $3 for 2cu. Il see if that was a good idea. The vermiculite seemed like a waste.
So the fall crops will be between the new containers…some old pots and the usual beds.
Fall will be
- Green Beans (Contender and pole)
- Tomatoes (natch)
- Beets! Gonna try it.
- Chard
- Lettuce
- Squash(Patty Pan, Hubbard, Cream of the Crop)
- Cantaloupe (watch out for cantalopracabras!)
- Cucumbers.
This is my first year for squash and cukes. I did plant one in the spring but it never grew until July. Kinda a runt! After I ripped out the radishes and weeds, the poor guy took off!! It actually has a small fruit growing now. I had to perform a little veggie husbandry with a q-tip to get it started.
I hope its a little more productive this time around.
Here are some pics from the Spring.
They look better than they were. Avoid the white ones….too bitter.
Sunflowers were a bit crazy
Kinda surprised the city didn’t call me up on this growth.
The fun suprise was a potato that I just put in a pot. It had sprouted in the kitchen and it
was obvious that it wanted to grow up more than I wanted to eat it. I just put it in a pot
and in july I had a bunch of baby potatoes Yum.
Best pic of the spring
