This blog is about advice on Houston vegetable gardening, but I will add a few thoughts on my experiences in trying to get started with some vegetables and herbs at our Montana home in Flathead County. I have some sympathy for people moving to Texas and being lost on how to start a garden. First of all, getting information has been impossible except by word of mouth, a rather slow process. I suppose the population in the Flathead (<100,000) or all of Montana (<1 million) is not enough to justify publishing a book on the subject. In Houston we have several books to choose among.
The growing season is short and the weather switches in June from cool, cold to mild and sunny rather abruptly. Although it is almost always cool at night, it can hit the 90s during the day even in June. As a result, cool weather crops such as spinach and lettuce often bolt. The cold weather makes it hard to plant anything tender until late May. I planted beans in early June but it took them forever to come up because the soil was still cold. Next time I will sprout them indoors. Furthermore, we had a heavy snow on June 12. It hovered at about 33 degrees and did not kill anything. For the warmer crops the length of the growing season is an issue. A small tomato crop can be squeezed. Some people raise corn but no one raises it commercially.
My herbs, many of which I brought from Houston as plants, are doing well. I also planted beans and squash and tomatoes. They are doing ok but the plants are rather puny by Houston standards. Early Girl and Celebrity have a few little tomatoes on them. It will be close to see if they mature before the first frost hits in September. Stay tuned.
One of my contributors from Montana calls herself the maniac gardener and I am beginning to see why.