Fall or winter planting

[AshyLlama12]

I’m in southern Texas, and at lost on what to plant. It’s too hot still for “winter” crops but the season is now too short for hotter climate crops. Is there an in between? Or do I just have to wait out the weather? I doubt it’ll be in the 80s anytime soon. I probably have another solid two months before I’m able to do winter crops.

 

[Chuck]

I’m in southern Texas, and at lost on what to plant. It’s too hot still for “winter” crops but the season is now too short for hotter climate crops. Is there an in between? Or do I just have to wait out the weather? I doubt it’ll be in the 80s anytime soon. I probably have another solid two months before I’m able to do winter crops.

We are going to start cooling down about the middle of next week or so my weather man says but now is the time to be planting cole crops such as brocolli, cauliflower and brussel sprouts seeds. Beet seeds should be sown now. Soil temps are still much too hot for for carrots. You can plant chard now but not spinach. It is also the time to plant leaf and bibb lettuce. Normally it doesn't get cold enough here to damage the above vegs before late Dec - Feb. Two years ago we had that freak freeze down to 5F at my house but I just put NSulate over every thing and nothing was damaged at all so be sure to get some for just in case. When planting any type of fall/winter seeds while it is still this warm, you MUST remember to not let the seeds go dry, KEEP the soil surface moist even if it means you have to water lightly 2 or 3 times per day

 

[Meadowlark]

I’m in southern Texas, and at lost on what to plant. It’s too hot still for “winter” crops but the season is now too short for hotter climate crops. Is there an in between? Or do I just have to wait out the weather? I doubt it’ll be in the 80s anytime soon. I probably have another solid two months before I’m able to do winter crops.

I'm just north of Livingston and here is what I have currently growing in containers along with their starting dates. In addition, in the ground in garden rows I have 1) Pinkeye Top pick 2) Blue Lake pole beans. 3) cucumbers 4) tomatoes, 5) bell peppers, 6) jalapeno peppers, and each of the veggies shown below are also in the ground in rows.

1a	Malabar spinach 8-8
1b	Sugar snap peas 8-8
1c	collards 9-2
1d	Toad pumpkin 8-21
2a	Swiss Chard 8-20
2b	Turnips 8-21
3a	Pinkeye Top pick 8-8
3b	Pak Choy 8-20
4a	ButterCrunch lettuce 8-21
4b	Sylyestra lettuce 8-21
4c6b7b	Radish 8-22
5a	Carrot 8-21
5b	Green ice lettuce 8-22
6a	Cabbage 8-20
7a	Broccoli 8-20
8a	Cauliflower 8-26
9a	Brussels Sprouts 8-26
9b	white potato 9-13
10a	Little gem lettuce 8-22
10b	Romain lettuce 8-22
11a	Sweet potatoes 8- 16
12a	garlic
12b	leeks beets 9-14
13a	sunchokes 9-13

As you can see, it is a mixture of plants that like hot weather but will die out first frost and plants that will survive light frosts and thrive in cooler weather, and plants that will go through the winter.

The Malabar spinach is highly productive right now.... excellent eating. Each of the lettuce varieties are producing very well. The brassicas are doing fine but I'm sure looking forward to cooler weather, LOL. Carrots are a bit hard to get started but once started they are doing fine. Radishes are great!

It is important especially during these hot temps to keep all the plants well-watered, especially the container ones. If you do that, you can grow most anything you like.

I can post pictures of any/all of them that you might like to see...just let me know.

 

[AshyLlama12]

Are your snap peas holding up well? You seem to be having the same daytimes highs as San Antonio, my local nursery has some beautiful seedlings but I figured the heat would kill the growth. I’ve got lettuce and radishes going, but everything else seems stunted by the heat. My lettuce seems to be very slow moving. I think it’s a soil problem I having but I’m working on fixing that. I wasn’t sure if it was worth me trying to plant some seeds or if I should just fix the soil until winter is here and I can get some cold crops going

 

[AshyLlama12]

We are going to start cooling down about the middle of next week or so my weather man says but now is the time to be planting cole crops such as brocolli, cauliflower and brussel sprouts seeds. Beet seeds should be sown now. Soil temps are still much too hot for for carrots. You can plant chard now but not spinach. It is also the time to plant leaf and bibb lettuce. Normally it doesn't get cold enough here to damage the above vegs before late Dec - Feb. Two years ago we had that freak freeze down to 5F at my house but I just put NSulate over every thing and nothing was damaged at all so be sure to get some for just in case. When planting any type of fall/winter seeds while it is still this warm, you MUST remember to not let the seeds go dry, KEEP the soil surface moist even if it means you have to water lightly 2 or 3 times per day

I’ve got a container of beets, but the sprouts seem to moving slowly, maybe I’m just comparing them to the fast growing radish’s though haha

 

[Meadowlark]

Are your snap peas holding up well? You seem to be having the same daytimes highs as San Antonio, my local nursery has some beautiful seedlings but I figured the heat would kill the growth. I’ve got lettuce and radishes going, but everything else seems stunted by the heat. My lettuce seems to be very slow moving. I think it’s a soil problem I having but I’m working on fixing that. I wasn’t sure if it was worth me trying to plant some seeds or if I should just fix the soil until winter is here and I can get some cold crops going

The snap peas are kind of hanging on waiting for cooler weather. The Pink Eye peas are flourishing. The beets are just getting started.

Several kinds of lettuce are doing surprisingly well in containers, and we have had several meals from them and bunches of radishes...see below for radishes, buttercrunch and green ice lettuce and a few carrots

 

[AshyLlama12]

The lettuce looks great!