HoustonVegetableGarden.com

I planted 5 tomatoes in the garden yesterday.  My neighbor down the street, who I always told that he was planting too early, was laughing.  But, I can cover them with 5 gallon pots and freeze cloth.  I saved some and planted them in 1 gallon puts to have a backup plan.

I also planted some turnip, beet, tendergreen and lettuce seed.  These are somewhat experimental because I usually plant these in the fall and not in the spring.  Bugs and worms seem to a problem on these plants in the spring.  This year I am not planting corn so I have a lot of space for experimentation.  I was tempted to plant green beans, but with a cold forecast for next week, I decided to hold off.

A couple of weeks ago I planted some garlic, just supermarket garlic that had sprouted in the kitchen.  It is up and is nice green garlic now.  A rewarding and easy plant to grow.  There is a “garlic guy” in central Texas that sells all kinds of garlic, but he always seems to be sold out.  The supermarket type may not be the best, but fresh garlic is really good in some dishes.  Worth a little space for sure.

Last week I transplanted the tomatoes to 4-6 inch pots and planted the broccoli plants in the garden.  I planted several of the broccoli plants near the neighbors fence to the west to see if half a day of sun is enough.  The tomatoes will get to soak up some outside sun for the next couple of days; but then coldish weather returns and looks like it will stay for a while.  I want to plant the tomatoes outside under frost cloth as soon as possible, but I would like temperatures to be in the 60s during the day.

Continuing to harvest lettuce, arugula, greens and fennel.  Next week the beets and carrots will finally be ready.  The cold weather really slowed their growth this year.  The sugar snap peas are growing nicely, but are a long way from producing food.