Some advice on transplanting to Houston vegetable gardeners: I sow a lot of extras seed to make sure I get a good stand of whatever I am planting. Seed are cheap on the scale of a backyard garden; so it make sense to err on the side of getting a well spaced stand. Most of the time I have a lot of extra plants and can use them to plant elsewhere. I prefer area plantings but it is easier to plant seed in rows and then use transplants to fill in between the rows.
It has been a tough fall for transplanting in the Houston vegetable garden; hot weather and little cloud cover. As a result transplanting directly would not be very sucessful–the plants would die the first day no matter how much you watered them. My best technique is to transplant to small pots or a flat and move the plants indoors under the plant light. After a few days they can be taken outside starting with a few hours only of sunlight. I get almost 100% success with this method. If you don’t have a plant light, use the same technique but move them to full shade for a couple of days and then gradually reintroduce sunlight. Some plants such as beans are difficult to transplant but others such as lettuce and greens are easy.
The first and second waves of fall plantings are complete. Beans were planted Labor Day weekend and are now about ready to produce. Lettuce, carrots, fennel, beets, turnips, Swiss chard. broccoli,bok choi and greens were planted the last week of September. The weather was mild and I got good stands. However, the hot weather of the past week has been tough on the plants. They don’t like 90 degree weather.
Something has been seriously snacking on the plants in one part of the garden. I am not sure what it is, but I suspect a rabbit. Too much seems to be eaten at one time for it to be snails. Anyhow, the possums have been taking good care of the snails. It has wiped out all the lettuce and bok choi and is now onto the turnips. Perhaps a net over the plants would help. My dog has not been of much help; prefers to sleep in the air conditioning.
I also bought some cauliflower and brussels sprouts to try. I have not had much luck with them but though an early start might help. The hot weather has been hard on them. I have lost several of the plants. I think it was just the hot weather but a cut worm might have gotten one of them.
I planted some chervil and dill and they came up very well. No sign of the cilantro and parsley reseeding yet.