October Planting List – 2009

Yay! I win. I’m all caught up. So here’s what I’m doing this weekend. First, we planted a Teddy Bear Magnolia in the small bed near our back stairs. This ornamental bed has been driving me crazy since we moved in. Someone put a hydrangea in that bed, which a) is stupid in Texas, and b) is stupid in that location. This is my most difficult spot on our property because it gets complete shade until about, oh, noon. Then blazing sun until about 2:00. Then shade. Nice. Pretty much nothing prefers those conditions, and not many plants will even tolerate it. Also, I’ve been thinking it would be nice to add some screening material between our house and our neighbor’s. As much as I love her, my back door looks right into her den, where she spends her evenings. She waves at me. It would be nice for both of us if there was a touch more privacy, I think. So I took my troubling conditions and desires, and I consulted with the awesome folks at Shades of Green (see sidebar). Much to my surprise, we ended up choosing a magnolia! Being from the south, I adore magnolias. But my internal image of a magnolia is a huge beast on big properties. Enter the Teddy Bear. It’s branches stay closed up like an umbrella, and it only gets to about 17 feet tall and 10 feet in diameter, unpruned. I’m in love.

There are two references I’m using, in order:
Collin County Master Gardeners
Dallas Planting Manual, The Dallas Garden Club of the Dallas Woman’s Club

I’ve put an asterisk by the ones I think I’ll be planting.

DPM
strawberries*
winter herbs (dill, cilantro)*
garlic*
parsley*
chives* (divide and replant the ones you have)

CCMG
garlic* (before 15th)
kale (before 15th)
leeks
lettuce* (before 15th)
onions* (before 15th)
radish
rutabaga (before 15th)
spinach*
turnip (before 15th)

I bought veggie starts of broccoli, cauliflower, buttercrunch lettuce, and cabbage. I know that’s kind of cheating, but they don’t cost much, and it’s nice to have an early crop while the seeded crops are coming in.

I harvested 54 heads of garlic this year, so both Lori and I will be planting out garlic from my stash. What a great feeling!

All I need now is onion starts and strawberries. I experimented last year with spring and fall strawberry beds. The fall bed did far better than spring. So I’m fully on board with adding strawberries to my fall planting list, which I read about in the Texas Gardeners magazine (see sidebar).

It’ll be good to get back into the garden, after being gone for a month.

September Planting List – 2009

Cucumbers on the left, soybeans in the middle, pole beans and bush beans in the foreground.

Again, for the sake of record-keeping, I’ll post the September planting list and harvest update, so I can move on with the October list.

There are two references I’m using, in order:
Collin County Master Gardeners
Dallas Planting Manual, The Dallas Garden Club of the Dallas Woman’s Club

I’ve put an asterisk by the ones I think I’ll be planting.

DPM
cold hardy vegetables
onions (seeds and starts)

CCMG
beets (after 15th)
cabbage* (before 15th)
carrots*
chard, swiss (before 15th)
collards
garlic* (after 15th)
kale
lettuce*
onions*
peas, english (I have found peas difficult in the fall; although if I had been home, I might have done it.)
radish
rutabaga
spinach*
turnip

HARVESTING:
I harvested many pounds of sweet potatoes from the driveway bed at the end of August. This was my first time growing them, and it was a great success. They definitely take up a lot of room, but I love them, so it’s worth it. My husband doesn’t share my enthusiasm, so no need to grow too many. I cured them on the side porch for a couple of weeks, and now they’re in a brown paper bag in our hallway, with the bags of garlic.

The peppers, both sweet and hot, continue to come on strong. I have another round of freezing the sweet peppers ahead of me. I’m confident that we’ll have plenty for the winter and spring. And we have enough dried hot peppers to keep Jan happy, too.

Finally, the okra is still producing happily. It’s such a big, beautiful plant to have in the garden. Just a pleasure, as long as you wear gloves while harvesting. Those fine little hairs stick in my arms and drive me to distraction for the next hour after harvest. However, my neighbor says he kind of likes the feeling, so you may, too. That might explain why he harvested our okra twice while I was gone. We share alike in this neighborhood!

August Planting List (and update) – 2009

The driveway bed, with zinnias in front, basil behind, and okra behind that.

OK, I realize this list is coming waaaay late. But for the sake of documentation, I’m doing it anyway. I spent August rushing to make preparations for a month out of the country. So I actually did get my planting done, I just didn’t get a chance to write about it. I’m back now, and planning on catching up with my garden, both real and virtual.

I spent many hours before I left (all first thing in the morning of course, lest I get a heat stroke) cleaning the spring plants out of the beds and preparing for fall. I was very excited to see that, for the first time since we’ve been here, I have too much material for my compost pile. This is an excellent development, because we bring in straw for our compost piles. I would love to close that loop in our garden and create all of our own browns.

Once the spent plants were removed, the bed preparation consisted of adding compost and tilling it in. Because we have heavy clay soil in this area, many people recommend applying expanded shale (once), which breaks up the clay and improves the soil tilthe. I’ve never done it previously, because I’m quite happy with compost. But after talking with a bit of a fanatic at a party next door, I decided to run a little experiment in one bed. So I also applied a 1-inch layer of shale to one of the front beds where the fall crops will go. I’ll report back.

OK, on with the planting list:

There are two references I’m using, in order:
Collin County Master Gardeners
Dallas Planting Manual, The Dallas Garden Club of the Dallas Woman’s Club

I’ve put an asterisk by the ones I think I’ll be planting.

DPM

arugula
beans*
broccoli*
brussel sprouts
cabbage*
carrots*
collards
lettuce*
mustard
parsley*
spinach*
watermelon

CCMG
beans
mustard
cauliflower
corn
cucumber*
kale
kohlrabi
peas, southern
potatoes*
rutabaga
squash
turnip

I have to preface this by saying that it was a complete leap of faith for me to do my initial fall planting and then get on a plane. While Jan has the best of intentions, I can’t expect him to look after my garden the way I do, and newly seeded beds generally need to be kept moist for a week or so. Fortunately, we had about a week and a half of rain right after I left, and he was saved!

I planted potatoes left over from the spring harvest into my fabric bags, in straight compost, on 11 August. I still haven’t dialed in the whole potatoes thing, and upon return I see they haven’t sprouted yet (it took about 3 weeks last year). I’m wondering if, even with the rain, they didn’t get enough moisture. That is one problem with the bags, as they are completely above ground.

I also planted cucumbers that day. By the time I got back on 28 September, they had grown to the top of the support and are starting to set cukes.

Finally, the week before I left (late Aug/early Sep), I planted bush beans (Royalty Purple Pod), pole beans (Stringless Blue Lake), carrots (Chantenay), chives, soybeans, marigolds and mammoth clover. Everything but the chives had germinated nicely by my return. I decided not to plant the cool weather crops, like broccoli and cauliflower, until my return. It was still pretty hot, and those things germinate better when it’s a touch cooler. Like now.

The mammoth clover is another experiment. I’m using it as a cover crop/green manure. I’ve seeded the half of the driveway bed that isn’t currently in okra. I’ll leave it until spring, then mow it down and till it under. If I can rotate this type of crop through the beds, then I can pull back on the amount of compost that I bring in from off-site. Another step in closing the loop on our little property.