February

Gardening in Central Texas should be in full swing now. Be sure and get your spinach, lettuce, carrots, beets, Swiss Chard, and potatoes in the ground right away! Our cool spring does not last very long. I planted my potatoes last Friday, Feb 10th. I planted Kennebec and De Soto. I think they are the best varieties for us. Get your ground ready for spring planting of warm season vegetables whenever it is dry enough to work in the soil. Vegetables need rich soil with plenty of nutrients.
Be sure and check my monthly articles in Waco Today. These will have more information for what needs to be done and when.

December 2011

It's been awhile since I have added to my blog. This is a busy time of the year for all of us. At last we have had some rain! We really needed it. Perhaps this will help us a little with watering restrictions next summer. Everyone says that we will have another year like last year, with high temperatures and drought in the summer. One way that we can continue to garden under these conditions is to take advantage of our spring and fall seasons. There are many vegetables and some flowers that will grow even during cold weather. We need to take advantage of this.

Start seeds indoors in January. Now is a good time to order seed catalogs and pick out some vegetables from their selection. There are many varieties of lettuce, spinach, kale, and other greens that we can grow here in the spring and in the fall. Lettuce, for example, comes in purple, red, lime, and spotted varieties. Order some of these and have a pretty vegetable garden--a great activity for the kids. See my January and February articles in Waco Today when they come out for more suggestions about seed starting and early vegetable gardening.

We have choices in flowers that will take the cold. Everyone knows about pansies. They love cool weather, will live through freezes, but hate hot weather. Grow them in the spring and fall. Dianthus and alyssum are also great choices for early spring gardens. Many people like to combine these with ornamental kale and cabbage also. If you do, plan on having to spray the kale as snails will just love you for providing them with some winter food.

Be prepared to start your tomatoes indoors at the end of January. When they have two sets of true leaves, put them outside on nice days so they can get used to cooler weather. They will need to toughen up after their birth and early days under your grow lights. You will need to transfer them to larger and larger pots as they grow. The whole point is to get them producing before it gets so hot that everything shuts down.

If Texans can learn to take advantage of the fall and spring planting seasons (and winter season for lettuces and greens), then we can still enjoy gardening even if we have another awful drought next summer.

October 11, 2011

Boy, how the time has flown by.  Right now, you should be planting your cool season flowers and vegetables.  Wait another week or two before planting pansies.  You can plant:

• Broccoli and cauliflower
• beets
• lettuces, spinach, and all greens
• carrots
• mums
• snapdragons
• alysum
• marigolds

Be sure and provide a floating row cover over your broccoli and cauliflower.  You can also plant shrubs and perennials now.

August Things to Do Right Now in the Garden

Please don't try to go out in the heat of the day to do anything. Work in the early morning if at all possible.

1. Water deeply. Do not just sprinkle your plants. Everything needs to receive enough water to reach the majority of the roots. Then don't water again until the soil dries out.
2. With potted plants, even while following rule number one, you will probably have to water every day, since the pot is exposed to the heat from the sides.
3. Treat for weeds in the garden and pathways.  You can choose from traditional products such as Roundup, or go completely organic with sprays that contain vinegar and other natural products to kill weeds.  Corn gluten meal is a natural weed killer, but only works as such as a pre-emergent.
4. Look through seed catalogs for seeds to order for fall plantings.  You can plant seeds of lettuces and other greens under grow lights indoors to be planted outside when the weather cools off.  You will need to start them four to six weeks before you want to set them out in the garden, so estimate when that will be.  I personally plan to set things out around the first of October, unless we get some rain that cools things off before that.
5. Dead-head spent flowers on your blooming plants such as zinnias.  This will cause the plants to produce more flowers.  On many plants, if you let the seeds develop, the plant thinks it is finished and it is time to shut down or even die.
6. If you have mums that made it through the summer, keep all buds trimmed off until the first of September.  Then let them grow.
7. Keep the lawn mowed so that you don't cut off more than a third of the blades at any one mowing.  It stresses the grass, and right now, it has enough problems just trying to stay alive in this heat.

Starting My Blog

I have never tried blogging before, so this is new to me.  I hope to make this an easy way for my website followers to post comments and share gardening and other opinions, ideas, complaints, etc. with me and the rest of the world.  I am a Central Texas Master Gardener.  I love gardening.  I love writing articles on gardening and have just become the garden writer for Waco Today.  I have been writing the garden column for the Lorena Leader for years, and have contributed to several other local newspapers now and then. Below are some photos from my gardens: