Fall gardening

Kesner · Joined: 14 Aug 2004 Posts: 9

I'm not good at any of this...but would like to be. How do you find out what can be planted in Texas for a fall garden.....and when do you plant it? I know it's a dumb question.....but I'd really like to try a fall garden once in my life!!!! Thanks for the help.
Kesner

dragonfly · Posted: Sat Aug 14, 2004 8:52 pm Post subject:

There's a couple of good sources for planting tables in Texas. One is Howard's vegetable garden book, and the other is Texas Gardener magazine. What, in specific, are you wanting to plant? I will be happy to give you some date guidelines on requested veggies, but the list is too long to type out tonight. I posted the info on this site about ayear ago, and I'll see if I can find that old post and link it for you.

dragonfly · Posted: Sat Aug 14, 2004 9:05 pm Post subject:

Well, it was easier to find than I thought it would be. I posted this last Summer in a similar thread.

http://www.dirtdoctor.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1265&highlight=fall+garden

Kesner · Joined: 14 Aug 2004 Posts: 9

Dragonfly, I am so happy you answered my post. Thank you. I think I'd like to do lettuce, spinach and some turnips--do you think I could do those? If so, tell me when you think I ought to try to plant the seeds.
Thank you very much. (oh, maybe I ought to tell you, I planted a pkg. of spinach seed this spring and it didn't even come up....so maybe your advice should be to someone who might have a black thumb instead of a green one)

dragonfly · Posted: Mon Aug 16, 2004 12:20 pm Post subject:

Spinach can be finicky in germination, imo. I would try soaking the seeds in water overnight before planting. Lettuce and turnips are easy to germinate if you keep the soil moist until the plants get established. When I plant lettuce, I just broadcast seeds and let them come up where they may. Same with turnips. I do sow spinach seeds as recommended and give them plenty of space. If you go ahead and sow these, the spinach will likely stay green through Winter. Some of the turnips will also, and lettuce could possibly survive with a light covering during frosts. The key seems to be consistent moisture for at least the first couple of weeks.

culdeus · Joined: 18 Mar 2004 Posts: 101 Location: Dallas TX

The biggest pest for spinach IMO are possums. They eat the sprouts the second they show up above the earth. Using some sort of row cover material and/or traps works until the spinach grows up.

I was shocked at how many I caught within the first few nights.

dragonfly · Posted: Tue Aug 17, 2004 12:14 pm Post subject:

Culdeus, thanks for the info. I didn't know that possums would eat spinach sprouts. Maybe that's why I've had such trouble getting it to germinate, lol.