Tomorrow is February 1 and time to start thinking of the spring Houston vegetable garden. I transplanted my tomatoes to large pots today and will set them in the garden later in February with frost cloth around them.
Every lettuce seed I planted in the flat seems to have come up twice. I have set out about 15 plants and reluctantly tossed the rest.
Sugar snaps are growing well. The beets and carrots are being picked. I may be pushed to find spots to plant the beans, corn and tomatoes. Speaking of corn I ordered some triple sweet varieties to plant. Two varieties–Honey Select and Serendipity–are now recommended by the Extension Service. Park Seed offers a 3-fer package of those two plus Revelation, a very early maturing variety. So I will try their three-fer deal. I have not any extra sugar types before but other gardeners have told me that they are difficult here, but I thought I would find out for myself.
Seems rather a cold day to be thinking of tomatoes for the Houston spring vegetable garden, but it is time to start the seed indoors. In posts from last year I described the method so I won’t repeat. This year I planted 2 of my remaining Merced seed. Merced is (or was) a great tomato for here but no one sells the seed any more. I also planted Sweet Chelsea, Floramerica, Celebrity and Homestead. I have not tried Floramerica before but it is recommended for the area. I gave up on Champion after last year. It is recommended here by various experts but I have never had good luck with it. Homestead is an old variety that we raised commercially when I was a kid so it has been around for a while. I have not planted it in many years–will be interesting. I normally plant Sun Gold, but found that I had run out of seed.
The seed will probably come up in 3 or 4 days and be ready to transplant to 4″ pots in a couple of weeks. I will then put them in gallon pots before ultimately planting them in the garden in mid February. In the old days on the farm we started the seed in “hot beds” and transplanted to “cold frames” before finally planting them in the field. We raised about an acre. It was hard manual labor but at least the work was in a pleasant time of the year. The market collapsed in the early 1950s when mechanized planting in the Rio Grande Valley started.
I also threw is a few lettuce seed to get a late crop. The lettuce planted in October is now in full production. The mustard greens are about finished, but it has been a great crop. I really like the Osaka purple; beautiful plant and a nice milder flavor. I will let it flower out and save the seed, but I am not sure if the seeds will come back true or not. The collards planted later are now producing well–may be sick of greens by the time the winter is over. Parsley and cilantro are everywhere from reseeding. Next year I will try to find some chervil seed. Chervil is from the same family and has a mild licorice flavor.
I planted my remained turnip seed to get a second crop. The Royal Crown turnip seems to be an improvement over the regular purple top. The turnips stayed sweet even when they got quite large.