With some warm days ahead it is time to plant beans, corn and other seed that require warmer temperatures for germination. I started 36 bean plants in the “6-pack” plant containers. They are now transplanted. The ones I planted earlier outside still have not come up and will probably give a poor stand when they do.
The lettuce, turnips and beets all germinated well and are up and going.
The tomatoes are all in and well mulched. I can cover the cages if Jack Frost threatens again.
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.
The big freeze is past and hopefully will not repeat. Now it is time to plan for the spring Houston vegetable garden. I planted tomato seed under the grow lamp indoors on January 13. They are coming up now. One new variety this year, Early Girl, and the line up from last year: Marglobe, Floramerica, Merced and Celebrity. All of these are determinate tomatoes, which I believe are best for growing in Houston gardens. I still have 2-3 seed of Merced left–unfortunately this good variety for Houston gardens is no longer available. I saw a seed catalogue that recommended Danson Tomato 435 as a replacement, but I have not tried it. I planted some Sweet Chelsea to give to my brother and I may plant one myself. I am leaving early this year for Montana and Sweet Chelsea just takes over the place.
I also planted some Packman broccoli under the lamp. I normally raise broccoli in the fall but will try in the late winter/spring this year, because I am not going to plant corn since I won’t be here to pick it. I also planted some super sugar snaps under the lamp to supplement the poor stand I got from direct planting. The weather the last half of December was just too cold for good germination.
I was back in Houston last week to check on the weeds in the garden. Mulching with newspapers and putting hay on top worked great. The only weeds were some nut grass that could probably grow through a thick steel plate. The tomatoes were wild, especially Sweet Chelsea, but still had a few tomatoes. I took down the determinate plants but left Sweet Chelsea. It probably will not produce much in the fall but we will see. The netting I put over the tomatoes and blackberries was a real mess to get out because everything had grown through it. Malabar spinach and okra are producing but the rest is dormant. I thought about planting some corn but decided to wait and put in a later fall garden in early October.
I tried a few things in my little Montana garden in addition to the herbs I always plant. The climate is difficult because it goes from cold to warm fast and quickly back to cold. Also the days are very long in the summer. I tried some Houston winter vegetabes and some spring/early fall crops such as beans. The beans did well but were slow to get going. Turnips did the best of all. The mustard greens and cilantro bolted quickly. Arugula also bolted but I got a decent amount. Bok Choi was so-so; produced a little but obviously too warm for it by July. The Red Sails lettuce was very successful. I am not sure to what extent the problem is temperature and to what extent the lenght of days. Some plants are sensitive to day length and seed out when the days reach a certain amount of daylight hours.
In any event, the Montana garden came to an end when the deer knocked down my mesh fence. I will need to strengthen it next year. I did not expect them to go at so agressively. It is the only time they have really been here; I have been discouraging their hanging around the house with a 410 with bird shot! The tomatoes were doing well before the deer got in. It is touch and go to get tomatoes to ripen before the weather gets cold. Most people here use plants from the garden center for just about everything, rather than seed to get a head start.
When we returned home we found that the tomatoes kept producing in spite of the hot weather. I did not expect the small, late tomatoes to turn out but we got about a dozen more of the large tomatoes. The Sweet Chelsea continued to produce as expected. Hunkering down for the 100 degree weather now. Not much action until fall.
This year I ran a test on the best varieties of slicer tomatoes for the Houston vegetable garden. In the past I have had variable success with some recommended varieties, but they were planted in different areas of the garden so direct comparisons were difficult. Conditions such as available sunlight can change considerably over a small area in an urban garden. This year I planted 4 determinate varieties right together: Homestead, Merced, Celebrity and Floramerica. It was the best year I have ever had for tomatoes, probably because of the cool, relatively dry spring. I can’t say I found much to choose from among these varieties. All produced about 15 nice size tomatoes. All ripened all the way through and were delicious. I have trouble in other years with the top part of the tomato being white and pithy.
Merced was the first to turn pink, in early May. All were planted outside from large pots around March 1. Homestead and Celebrity followed about a week later and Floramerica was the latest. I pick when they first turn pink on the bottom and let them ripen inside. Unfortunately, the mockingbirds beat me to several, so I bought some netting at Southwest Fertilizer and solved that problem. For best quality you must let them fully ripen and not get impatient. Never refrigerate tomatoes unless they are becoming over ripe. All of the tomatoes were picked by June 1. As determines, they quit setting fruit in late April. My experience is that later setting tomatoes on indeterminate slicer varieties never turn out very good. Thus, in Houston, as opposed to New Jersey, determinates are the best bet.
I picked my first tomato today, a smallish Merced. As a reader observed, the Sweet Chelsea tomato takes over the garden, but it is loaded with fruit. I have been pruning the ends of some of the wilder stalks. Next year I plan to do some early pruning on it. It would grow best in a tall cage maybe 3′ in diameter with the side branches trimmed to force it to grow up instead of out. I think the determinate varieties have stopped setting fruit. Night time temperatures in the 70s are not conducive to setting fruit.
The first bean crop from my Houston vegetable garden was picked today, about 62 days from when I planted the seed. Beans are advertised to be ready in fewer days than that, but it was quite cool when I planted them on March 1 and germination was slow, but good. The plants for very healthy and loaded with beans. We picked almost 3 pounds from a garden space of 28 square feet; a lot of food from a very small piece of land. Derby beans so outperform all the other varieties I have tried that I no longer experiment. I had beets planted in the location is the winter garden.
The earlier corn is tasseling and silking. I have been doing some hand pollination. One disadvantage of area planting (which I use for everything) is that leaves of the corn can shield the silks.
Onions have all been harvested and are on shelves in the garage. I had good luck keeping them for some time last year. I continue to pick leeks and still have quite a few left. Also, a lot of collards, but everyone is tired of greens. The fennel that I cut off at ground line has put out nice new shoots and will be ready in a couple of weeks.
The tomatoes are busy setting fruit in my Houston vegetable garden. This year I planted all the tomatoes together so I could do a good test on varieties of slicer tomatoes. Previously, I have followed the general recommendation of scattering them around the garden. While good for disease control it limits comparison because of the variability of sunlight and some differences in the soil. I planted Homestead, Merced, Floramerica and Celebrity as well as the cherry/plum tomato Sweet Chelsea (far left in the picture).
Sweet Chelsea is indeterminate to put it mildly and quickly takes over half the garden. The others are determinate, which I generally think are best for growing tomatoes in Houston. Homestead is a heirloom variety that we used to raise commercially when I was a kid growing up in Lavaca County. So far all are doing well, but I think Homestead is moving to the front in terms of production and Celebrity is lagging behind. Merced was the first to set fruit and has the largest tomatoes. I plant to measure production of each variety and do a taste test.
In the background you can see the corn I started indoors in now tasseling. On the left you can the parsley going to seed. I am letting practically everything (arugula, cilantro, bok choi, mustard and lettuce) go to seed. The flowers are good to have to attract beneficial insects and I plan to save the seeds. I planted a couple of the Osaka Purple Mustard seed and they seem to have come up true. Of course, hybrid seed will no come true and is hard to know what will and will not. The butterfly iris in the foreground has been beautiful this spring.
I pulled out the sugar snaps today. It was a record crop, but mildew had about finished the plants. They were about finished anyhow and were putting too much shade on the corn. I have not found an acceptable way to control mildew on sugar snaps.
We have a threat of frost tonight, but I think we will be ok in the central area. The temperature is still in the 50s at 10 pm and the wind is blowing. I watered well but did not put the frost cloth back on–what a year of weather.
Quite a few little tomatoes. Merced set fruit first but the others are not far behind. Plants look really good. Corn is also doing well. Cilantro, arugula and parsley are all blooming and bringing in beneficial insects. Tomorrow I will mulch the blackberries with newspapers and some hay I brought back from the ranch. Beans did germinate well in spite of the cold spell when I planted them
The wonderful Contessa onions and the leeks are now ready. We had a salad tonight of the onions with avocados and cherry tomatoes–wonderful. The avocado from Costco are great, but they need a few days to ripen.
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.