This picture shows the third picking of beans from my Houston vegetable garden. They weigh about 1 .5 pounds. This quantity came from about 25 square feet of garden space. It shows how much food one can raise in a small space. The first two picking were about the same size and about 4-5 days apart. One nice feature of Derby beans is that will likely have a full second blooming and crop.
I picked the first mess of Derby and Maxibel green beans today–right on schedule about 50 days after planting the seed. Derby is producing more heavily as expected. First tomatoes were picked–Sweet Chelsea and Sun Gold. The slicers still have a way to go. Also, the Contessa white onions are ready. Onions are ready when the stem collapses and falls over. These are great, sweet onions and are easy to grow. Just order the plants from Dixondale (see links) in November. I picked up some shallots at Walbash’s while there for something else. Probably not the best time to plant them, but we will see.
Also picked 2 quarts of wild dewberries last Thursday–dewberry cobbler for dessert today–yum! You do not have to go far to find dewberries. Watch for the plants blooming around March 1 and make a note of where they are. I found these on the esplanade of a busy street a few blocks from the medical center. The only hard part was crossing to the median without getting run over. Normally, you have to be careful of copperheads when picking berries, but I doubt any copperhead could have made it there without being run over. Nevertheless, my old instincts kept me on the lookout. Roadside ditches typically are full of dewberries. Most people these days are too lazy to pick them so competition is light. My Kiowa blackberries are blooming and have some green berries. It will be a few weeks before they produce.
I always mention varieties in my posts because the proper vegetable variety for our Houston climate is important. Of course, good soil, proper drainage, and sufficient sunlight and water are still the most important success factors. A lot of varieties will do at least reasonably well. Choices seem to almost unlimited; Reimer Seed lists 350 varieties of tomatoes for which they stock seed. A number of these are novelty types that I don’t waste my time with, but still! Unfortunately, some of the proven varieties of vegetables for the Houston vegetable garden are being discontinued. Why? Our local seeds sources such as Porter & Son have gone out of business. We now must rely on a diminishing number of national suppliers. These companies sell varieties that work well in most of the country but may not do so well here. They do not bother with the more specialized needs. A good example is Merced tomatoes, the best hybrid tomato that I have ever raised. I used the last of my seed this year and have not been able to find a seed source.
I recently saw an article in the San Antonio Express by the local extension agent about the dilemma of seed not been available any more for recommended varieties of vegetables for Texas gardens. It is an interesting read.
How to choose varieties? Of course, first read my posts! Bob Randall’s book gives his considerable experience. TAMU Extension Service gives their recommendations and the Chronicle gives recommendation for some more common vegetables. These sources are a good starting point, but around the Houston area we have surprisingly large climate and soil variations. Individual gardens will also vary. The best gardening advice is to experiment and find works best for you.
I pulled the last of the winter vegetables this week; sugar snap peas, beets and carrots. The sugar snaps gave a great yield and are one of the most rewarding vegetables to grow here, especially given the price and quality of supermarket offerings. We really enjoy the Kinbi carrots. They are yellow, rather than orange and are really beautiful when cooked. They are also very sweet.
The spring vegetables are coming along fast with the recent warmer weather. The beans are blooming. Corn is about a knee high and ready for a side dressing of cottonseed meal. The Sweet G-90 plants are more hardy than the Butterfruit bi-color; but that is to be expected because G-90 makes a much larger plant. All the tomatoes have small tomatoes on them. The Champion plant is rather anemic; I probably planted it in a bad place, a mistake on my part because I wanted to give Champion one last try. It is rated as good by others for the Houston vegetable garden, but I have had poor results.
Cilantro and parsley are blooming and the cilantro especially is very pretty. I have let it go to seed in the blackberry bed. It and the parsley will reseed next fall. It is best to grow each is a small bed with a lot of plants rather than as specimen plants (not practical of course if you are paying dollars per plant at the nursery). Harvest by cutting off 6″ or so sprigs at the ground. It will keep coming back until it bolts to seed.
It is time to plant the warmer summer vegetables; okra, cowpeas, eggplant and melons. I won’t be planting any because I will be in Montana when they produce. No other family member is dedicated enough to come and pick them.
Back from New Zealand. Everything did fine while I was gone. The tomatoes are growing like weeds behind the frost cloth. I will leave it on for another couple of weeks. Broccoli did not get picked and seeded out. I needed to pull it anyhow to plant beans. I ran out of Derby seed and finished with Maxibel. I planned to pull the mustard greens but cut them back to the stalk instead and planted Butterfruit Bi-Color corn around them. I can probably get one more picking before the corn is up. Also planted some Sweet G-90 corn in another area. I used to grow it exclusively, but have experimented with some other varieties recently. I have not had very good luck with the supersweet varieties and I really like to more corny types better anyhow. Also planted 2 gator pepper plant which I started from seed at the same time as the tomatoes.
New Zealanders are avid gardeners and we found a strong emphasis on fresh, locally grown produce. In fact, we saw hardly any imported produce, except bananas and the like. I was surprised to see fields of what turned out to be what they called turnips (actually rutabagas or swedes as they are called in the UK) and Swiss chard (which they call silver beets). They use these crops for winter grazing. The sheep eat the tops and the cattle are then turned in to eat the turnip roots. Sweet potatoes (called kumara) are on every menu.
The tomato plants were planted in the garden early this year because we are going to New Zealand for 2 1/2 weeks. Normally I would wait another week or so, but I think chances are good. 
I plant them inside of cages with row cover wrapped around the cage as shown in the photo. Clothespins are good for securing the covers to the cages. The clothespins and cloth on top are the covers. I put them on when the temperature drops to the upper 30s or lower. In case of a harder freeze, putting a water container inside will help keep the temperature up. I don’t know how low of a temperature this method will sustain, but I think it would get through a mild freeze of several hours.
The picture shows the status of the tomato plants that I planted on January 5. They will be ready to transplant to 4″ pots next week. Then in a couple of weeks before I leave for a trip to New Zealand they will be transplanted to 1 gallon containers. I may go ahead and plant some directly with a frost cloth wrapping. Wrapping works well for tomatoes and peppers for Houston vegetable gardening.
The Packman broccoli planted around October 1 is now being harvested. Fennel planted at the same time is also ready. Mustard greens continue to produce faster than we can eat them. They have lasted longer this year by picking the leaves when they are still relatively small. I have much better luck with Florida Broadleaf Mustard than with the curly varieties. In addition to the traditional southern way of cooking (and over cooking) them, I use them is soups with lentils and also by lightly stir frying with onion and then steaming for a few minutes. They are more bitter with the shorter cooking.
This weekend (January 6) I planted tomatoes under the grow light (see description). Tomatoes need to be started early for Houston gardens. Today on January 9 they are already coming up. This year I planted Sweet Chelsea, Sungold, Champion, Merced and Celebrity. Sweet Chelsea is a great plum or large cherry tomato that does exceptionally well here. It is red on the outside but greenish on the inside. Sungold is a yellow or orange cherry tomato, although I may be insulting the cherry community as it is quite small. It is very good for adding a little color to a salad and is very flavorful and very productive. I tried Champion last year with rather poor results but decided to give it another try because it is recommended for the area. Merced and Celebrity are hybrid slicers that do well but the flavor is not outstanding. I planned to plant Carnival instead of one of them but could not find the seed locally and I procrastinated too long to mail order. Now that Urban Harvest is dropping its seed selling function, I will get organized and order all my seed next year.
Bob Randall characterizes tomatoes as difficult even though we raised them commercially about 100 miles west of here when I was a kid. The soil in Lavaca County is more suitable than Houston gumbo however. See a previous post on how we raised tomatoes then. I do a lot differently now. For example, I do not spray them with arsenic!
A rather slow time in the Houston vegetable garden. I am picking lettuce, mustard greens and bok choi. Carrots and beets are coming along but it will be a while. The broccoli is starting to form heads–I should have started it a little earlier, but it should be ok if we don’t have a real hard freeze. The mite problem seems to have gone away. They spread from the turnips to the greens but I was able to control them with insecticidal soap. I tried just washing them off. It was easy to get them off, but they came right back up. On large plants such as roses washing works well because they can’t get back up to the foliage. Next week it will be time to start tomatoes under my grow light. (see post for how to)
I replanted lettuce where something had eaten the first batch and put some fine mesh wire over it, but the varmint got under it and ate all the Simpson lettuce, but left the Red Sails alone! I am not sure what it is; I think an animal of some kind. Snails or cut worms would get one plant at a time rather than all at once. Also nothing was left of the tops so whatever it was ate everything. Strangely in this one spot next to the trellis I have had this problem (last time it was peas), but nothing is bothered in the rest of the garden in this manner. Any clues?
I will be working at the Urban Harvest fruit tree sale again (Jan 19), probably as a grapefruit salesman. I got one grapefruit on my tree the first year. The orange tree (2 years old) also had one orange, but the squirrels got it. I guess they got all the persimmons also. When we I got back from Montana they were all gone.
The late planting of Derby and Maxibel green beans has been much more successful this year. The week after Thanksgiving, about 50 days after planting, I began picking a lot of high quality beans and have had successive picking every few days of about the same amount. I think the main difference from last year when the crop was rather weak is that I made sure it was in a sunny spot. Compared to spring planting which mature in late April and May the amount of sun is much less per day in the fall. Also the low angle of the sun makes more location subject to shadows. Beans and other seed crops require a lot of sun. Root crops can get by on less and leafy crops need the least. However, more sun is better for everything. In the fall Houston vegetable garden do a sun survey before planting.
Maxibel were a bit disappointing the last time I planted them, but this time they are produced right up there with Derby. Maxibel is long (7″), slender bean that has good “plate appeal”. I cannot tell the difference in taste between them and Derby.
Turnips have been disappointing. First the usual green worms had a feast and then some sucking mites took over. I will not get much of a crop, but I can always replant later. The mustard greens are producing well and have not been bothered by the pests even though they are planted right next to the turnips. Bok Choi is about ready for harvest.
I planted sugar snap peas yesterday. It is a bit earlier than normal. The old guide was about Christmas and then it was moved up to December 15. I think it a good idea to get them started before the main possibility of really cold weather hits. My brother already has some producing. He may be a bit lucky because October was relatively cool. They don’t like hot weather.