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Anyone here have a vegetable garden? My parents had tomatoes growing when I was a kid, and my grandparents lived on enough land to have homegrown cucumbers, squash, sweet corn, watermelon, cantaloupe, etc.

Now that I finally have a house, I'm planning on planting my first garden here in a few weeks.

So far planning on tomatoes (both large and cherry sizes), cucumbers, squash, bell peppers, serrano peppers, and habanero peppers.

I'd love to see some set ups for some produce you got out of your own backyard.

I can't wait to eat homegrown tomatoes again.

Good luck to you. I hope to hear some hints from other forum members.

I tried my first Texas garden last year and it was a disaster. I love home grown tomatoes so I planted three different types, but the stink bugs just swarmed all over my plants. The few that I could eat tasted as good as the ones I have been buying in the grocery store; which is to say tasteless.

My basil did really well, but what good is basil without the tomatoes?

I can recommend getting heirloom varieties for the area you are in. Personally we like the indeterminate (viney) varieties over the determinate (bush) varieties of tomatoes. I will go look at what vairieties we had last year, but our neighbors got tired of seeing us coming with tomatoes. We had cherry/grape, "salad" and slicing sizes. Same with cucumbers and squash - learned how to dehydrate squash into "chips" with cracked black pepper and sea salt for snacks.

Our biggest issue with our first "big" garden last year was all the composted rabbit manure we tilled in was awesome fertilizer, but this year we are going to put a weed killer down first before planting so the grass doesn't take over! With full time jobs, we couldn't keep up with the grass and it became a jungle... we had to wade in to find our harvest.

I will check on the varieties we used in the Houston area and post them... Love our garden!

74novaman wrote:So far planning on tomatoes (both large and cherry sizes), cucumbers, squash, bell peppers, serrano peppers, and habanero peppers.

I was Home Depot this morning and saw a "salsa garden" kit that has all the veggies. I'm thinking of turning over the small (dead) flowerbed in the side yard and doing something like that instead.

Basil without tomatoes is great for pesto. Use enough garlic. And olive oil.

We're fixin' to put our garden in soon. My wife has been digging and getting it ready, and she'll put me to work as needed. We compost all kitchen waste, add cow manure and ashes from the wood stove. Last year the bell peppers were the best and most prolific thing. Tomatoes were not so good - tasted good but not many, the bugs got to them. More varieties of hot peppers this year. She grows this one variety of cucumbers that are round, like a ball, not long like a submarine. They're pretty good, you can eat one like an apple without preparing.

A few of the varieties we had were Arkansas Travelers, (we did have a hybrid cherry that did well - Sweet 100), Marians or Marions. The cukes did well too, they were Straight 8 and Parks Whoppers, our favorite we have previously grown were Sweet Success! They were amazing.

Happy Gardening!

Divided Attention wrote:...but our neighbors got tired of seeing us coming with tomatoes. We had cherry/grape, "salad" and slicing sizes.

I don't believe I've ever said this to anyone before, but you can be my neighbor anytime.

My wife and I grow 5 Celebrity plants every year in N. TX. Need lots of rich soil and lots of water here. We built a rain barrel and the plants prefer that to chlorine water. Good luck.

I have done organic gardens in years past ut did not plant a thing last year due to all the travelling I was doing. But I will be preparing the ground next week. Have already planet the seeds and have a few sprouts.

Are you starting from seed or plants?

If from seed now is the time to start the seeds in small pots (maybe a little late but still do-able). There is a "green house" that you can get that is a shelved plant stand with a plastic cover. I have seen them at Lowes and Home Depot. It is small enough to move indoors if the weather gets too cold and the cover keeps the heat and humidity in. It will hold about 50--2" starter pots.

Use a good topsoil, compost, mulch mix as your starter soil and follow the instructions on the seed package for planting deptha nd water requirement.

To prepare the planting bed, firts spray with a 10% vinager (full strength) wih 1 tablespoon of dishwashing soap and 1 tablespoon of orange oil on any grass or weeds to kill it out. This is a non toxic weed killer. It works best to spray on a sunny day. After the spray dries, till up the ground and add compost an a good organic fertilizer as it is being tilled.

When you are ready to plant, add 1 teaspoon of Bat Guano (bat poo) into the planting hole. (do not over do it on the guano).

For pest control use a spray of orange oil at a rae of 5-10% orange oil and the rest water. For any fungle deseases, sprinkle some corn meal around and on the effected plant. Hortocultural corn meal works best but regular will work (this s also good for brown patch in your lawn). Sprinkle some dry molasis on the whloe yard including the planting area to stimulate the microbes in the ground that also helps with pest control.

The one thing if you have tomatoes that you cannot do--invite my grand daughter over. Year before last she was eating them right off the plant. Not a bad thing since no chemicals were used.

I had so many tomatoes, okra, peppers, and squash that my neighbors, kids, and us never went without. Oh, did I mention that my garden was 20' x 10' with only 6 tomatoe plants. They produced about 30-40 lbs of tomatoes.

For "fertilizer" on our container plants we use a "bunny poo tea" basically just manure in water - rabbit poo is not hot like horse, cow or chicken, and can be put right on new plantings/seedlings. We use the "worm worked" manure aka "worm dirt" to plant potted plants directly in. We also till it directly into the big garden.

Thanks for the hint on an organic weed controller. Always looking for less impactive more natural ways to get food on the table.

We had one last year. Grape and big tomatoes, squash, onions, jalepenos, and okra.

We had basil, thyme, cilantro and chocolate mint in our herb garden.

Used earth's finest manure compost. Round up first.

This year, probably just tomatoes and squash with the herbs. Oh,and chives.

I tried trash can potatoes, but it's too hot. I'll get the seed potatoes for this coming autumn/winter, and try it again.

Got our garden in this week!

Decided to go raised beds due to massive amounts of black clay here in central texas.

Bought 8 foot long 1x6 inch boards for our borders (some day it'd be nice to pretty it up with some decorative rocks or something, but its functional.)



spread some sand to mix in with the clay underneath, then turned the soil to a depth of about 8 inches.




Simple L brackets held it all together, and it was filled with a veggie garden specific compost from a local soil company.


We planted 8 plants of 6 different tomato varieties this year (Celebrity, Grape, German queen, Better Bush, Better Boy, Super Fantastic).
4 bell peppers, yellow red and green, 2 squash plants, 1 serrano pepper, 1 Anaheim pepper and 2 jaelopeno pepper plants.
The Tomatoes

The peppers and squash


Close ups:

74novaman wrote:Got our garden in this week!

Decided to go raised beds due to massive amounts of black clay here in central texas. Bought 8 foot long 1x6 inch boards for our borders (some day it'd be nice to pretty it up with some decorative rocks or something, but its functional.)

Very nice - I am jealous. It looks like your yard is big enough for a small farm.
Thanks for the pictures. Post some more when it gets to be pickin' time.

WildBill wrote: Very nice - I am jealous. It looks like your yard is big enough for a small farm.
Thanks for the pictures. Post some more when it gets to be pickin' time.

Thanks Wildbill! Yeah, its a nice long yard, but a bit narrow. It was one of the big selling points on this house over some others we looked at. More yard than we know what to do with!

Some garden updates...its 3 weeks in, I finally have drip irrigation set up, and we have our first tiny tomato on the vine. Going to put the tomatoes in cages here in the next few days.

Tomato bed:


Peppers and Squash:


First tiny tomato:


Size comparison using my lens cover:


The squash are struggling a bit (after some research, I was over watering them apparently) and a few of the tomato plants had a disease issue thats been cleared up. I'm still hopeful for a good crop.