Houston Vegetable Garden – Growing vegetables gardens in Houston

 Here are some pictures of Houston winter garden vegetables in my backyard garden.

The picture below is a lettuce bed with varieties noted.  Dark Lollo is good as a color accent for salads but is a slow grower and not so productive.  All others are very good.  See more on Mache below.

Mache is a nutty flavored French green.  It is an excellent complement to a mixed salad or good on it own.  I especially like it with pears and gorgonzola.

Fennel is widely used in Italian cooking.  (See previous post).  It grows much of the year here but is best in the cooler months.  I usually start the see indoors (see page)

The Contessa onions sets I ordered from Dixondale Farms ( see links) arrived yesterday and planted in garden today.  The date recommended by Dixondale for planting onions in Houston vegetable gardening is about a week earlier than this, but I was a little late in ordering.  Should be fine though.  A bunch of 60 plants cost about $10 including shipping.  Incremental bunches are much cheaper.  See a previous post of these great, sweet onions.  Give them plenty of fertilizer ideally below the root line.  They should mature in April-May.

Sugar Snap Peas are a great for the Houston winter vegetable garden.  I planted mine yesterday.  The normal guideline is to plant between Christmas and New Years, but Bob and Gary at Urban Harvest now recommend planting them earlier.  They planted them last week at the Old Sixth Ward Garden.  In the inner Houston area the earlier planting should be ok unless we have a hard freeze after they bloom.  The plants are moderately cold hardy and work perfectly for the mild winters we have had in recent years.  However, temperatures in the low 20s can damage the plants severely.  A strong fence of 6 feet or so is needed.  I previously planted them on the lattice at the back of my garden, but they did not get enough sun.  This year I put up a fence in a sunnier area.

The first of the winter vegetables are coming in.  Today will be the second batch of mustard greens.  I planted Florida Broadleaf, a variety with huge flat leaves and Southern Giant, a variety with curly leaves.  I much prefer the FB.  It produces better and has a milder mustard flavor.  The Southern Giant is a bit strong for my taste without being mixed with other greens such as collards (which I find a little bland on their own).

Chioggia beets and Packman broccoli will be picked this week.  Some of the beets matured much more quickly than others.  Some of the laggards are ones I transplanted, but not all are.  The greens on the beets look wonderful.

Lettuce of various vintages are ready.  The Winter Density I started indoors in September is fully mature, although cut worms and grub worms got a lot of it.  The other varieties are large enough for leaf picking or basal clipping.  The mizuna mustard matured quickly and is ready to add a little zest to the salads.  Arugula is also ready.

I picked a mess of turnips but found they were infested with sucking bugs, mealy bugs or something of that kind.  I sprayed them with insecticidal soap and killed the bugs, but a lot of damage was done because I did not notice them soon enough.

Lettuce is easy to grow provided you stay away from hot weather.  Seed germinate poorly if the temperature is much above the 60s and small plants have a high mortality if the temperature reaches the mid-80s.  Wait until mid October to plant outside.  I started some indoors in September using a system I described previously.  Lettuce transplants very well.  This year I am planting a number of varieties to add color and texture.  My favorite varieties are black seeded simpson and Craquerelle di Midi, which evidently is the French name for Winter Density, a variety highly recommended by Bob Randall.  Winter Density is somewhat between a romaine and a leaf lettuce.  It does well, is tasty and has a good texture.  Black Seeded Simpson makes a large leaf, is very productive over a long period and is a beautiful chartreuse green.  This year I am adding some red varieties; Red Sails, Dark Lollo and Red Romaine.  Also planted some green romaine, Jericho.

I usually raise lettuce as individual “specimen” plants and harvest the lower leaves.  In a good talk given today by Ray Sher at the Urban Harvest fall harvest celebration for community gardeners, he said he likes to broadcast the seed and let the plants grow in a high density.  He snips off the leaves about an inch above the ground when they are bite size.  Ray says almost any variety will do well here except the iceberg varieties, but who would want to grow them anyhow.

Some seed sources say lettuce needs light to germinate, some say to cover lightly.  I have tried both methods with success.  Temperature and maintaining moisture seem to me to be the critical factors.  A commercial seed producer has a good web site on lettuce germination. (Link).  They recommend using seeds they “prime”, but when 300 seed cost only a dollar at Urban Harvest, you really don’t need 100% germination.

Lettuce makes a nice winter landscape plant also.  By planting red, light green, dark green and speckled varieties like Red Sails you can make a bed as pretty as flowers you buy at the garden center.

Planted mustard, collards, broccoli, fennel and lettuce in a seed flat in Montana.  They came up well but the weather was too cold for part of the time; however they made the trip back to Texas ok and are now under my plant light here.

The beans that my daughter planted did not come up very well; probably did not get watered enough.  Getting bean seed started in 90+ degree conditins is challenging even when you can watch them closely.  Just for the heck of it I planted some more beans.  We will see if global warming will bail me out. 

Today I planted carrots (mokum and touchon) and beets (golden and chioggia).  For carrots I lightly till the surface and sprinkle the seeds on, then press them down and very lightly sprinkle some potting soil or sifted compost on them.  Likewise for the beets I plant in little holes and cover with compost.  Because I add a lot of mulch the top layer of the soil has chunky undecomposed material.  By covering with something that holds water well, germination is greatly improved.  I soaked the beet seed overnight.  The golden beet seed did not sink to the bottom as they are supposed to; we will see.  They are relatively harder to germinate.

Most historical information on fall gardening concerns beating the cold weather.  In recent years the issue has been more about dealing with the heat of September and October.  For the backyard gardeners, I think it is best to gamble on the cold weather than to take on the rather certain hot weather.  In the inner city area we have not had a hard freeze in a number of years.  When we have had cold weather the timing has been unpredictable.  Last year the coldest days (no freeze) was in December.  In other recent years it has been in mid to late March.

Green beans and corn are the only real tender vegetables that I raise in the fall.  The corn has to be planted in August, but the beans can be postponed.  Older guides say September 1 is the latest for planting.  I plan to plant the Derby beans over Labor Day.  Actually my daughter and grandkids will do the planting because I am still in Montana (high in mid 80s, humidity of 23%).  They should be producing in mid to late October.

 For most everything else I will wait until October or later.  The everything else includes carrots, lettuce, turnips, greens of various sorts, fennel, broccoli and beets.  In addition, I will plant parsley, chervil, cilantro and arugula.  Hopefully, the parsley and cilantro will re-seed from last year.  I will get chervil from Buchanan’s if it does not re-seed.  Turnips and greens can be planted outside in September if the soil is kept constantly moist.  These seeds germinate so fast, it is not much trouble.  I like to plant broccoli and lettuce under my plant light indoors (or start in flats in the MT coolness) and transplant when the weather moderates a bit.

 Spinach planting should wait until late October; sugar snap peas in late December. 

This week I have been picking the last of the contessa onions.  I got a some left-over sets from the Old 6th Warden Garden last November.  Bob Randall had ordered them and some other varieties in bulk from Dixondale Farms in Carrizo Springs (www.dixondalefarms.com).  Contessa is an excellent onion.  I ate white bermudas growing up and have always had a bias towards white, rather than yellow onions.