So is the climate different there? Our vegetable garden very often suffers because of inclement weather.
It is also worth considering if you will prepare your soil well enough, and decide if you will choose to go along the ''organic path'' something that may be well worth considering now - before you really get started.
Veggie gardening is not something I bothered with until about 5 years ago when Zigs joined me here in Kent, and so the ground was unprepared. A vegetable plot needs to be improved all the time - each year, and if this is followed in an organic way, the results can be amazingly good.
I'm not sure what the weather is like in east Texas, honestly. I've been through there occasionally but never been there for any extended periods of time, and don't have any family living there. I wouldn't expect it to be vastly different, though. The soil, on the other hand, is probably completely different. We have extremely sandy soil here. I don't think that's the case in east Texas.
I'm not going to have a traditional garden this year, in the ground. I simply don't have time to till up a spot and get the soil ready. When my folks lived on the farm we had a large in-ground garden. We'd make a compost from kitchen scraps, chicken droppings, and whatever else to use to prepare the soil in off-season so the soil would be ready to go by planting season. I'll probably start on a plot for next year pretty soon, but I certainly won't be planting anything in it this year unless it's a few fall veggies.
When my dad got sick my folks moved to town. They still have a few acres behind the house for a garden, so I'll get a spot ready when I have time. Until then, however, I've got some chemical totes from farmer friends of ours, cut them in half, cleaned them out well, and I'm using those for, basically, a few raised garden beds. I drilled drain holes in the bottoms, filled the bottom with some oak wood that we already had (don't ask me why...I saw it on a YouTube video), then used a mixture of garden soil and compost from the local Walmart to fill them to the top. We'll plant our veggies right in there.
Meadowlark lives in East Texas and he grows fantastic veggies. I wonder if you are anywhere near his place?
