Welcome to another year of my climate victory garden, where I see what works in the garden in a changing climate. The huge impacts of climate change are readily apparent to any gardener, and gardening is a great way to keep in touch with the weather (day to day), the seasons (month to month) and the climate (year to year) — not to mention being able to eat the fruits of your labor. 🙂
The detailed info on climate impacts and gardening is left out of this year’s post. If you want to read it, check out last year’s post. The climate and garden stuff will likely be split out into its own post soon so it can be updated on its own.
Last year went pretty well, and I gave away more eggplants and onion than I could even use. Also, had a bumper crop of garlic, which I just finished in time for this year’s harvest. Carrots were also plentiful. We had another hard freeze this winter that killed off my beloved lime tree, and a record hot summer with almost 2 months of temps over 100F with humidity in the 80% range. Deadly heat.
Some lessons learned from last year…
- Take advantage of nice weather while you can
- This year I started lots of seedlings indoors, which helped me get a jump start on the heat
- If there is something you like – plant a lot of it!
- Eggplants, carrots and garlic aplenty, last year and this year
- Stop planting things that don’t do well, seek varieties of things you like that can cope with your local environment
- Still haven’t learned this lesson. Tomatoes are tough to grow in this very hot climate. Still banging my head against the wall trying to grow tomatoes. It’s looking like growing them in the Fall may be the key here, as they seemed to do better in the Fall last year.
- Don’t be afraid to experiment with something new like drip irrigation and shade cloth.
- I expanded my irrigation, as you will see below
My gardening goals this year were to install more drip irrigation, start seedlings indoor during our “winter” season, try giving plants more space to grow, keep trying different tomatoes and pumpkins, and plant some new things.
Drip Irrigation
Plants LOVE consistency, especially when it’s hot out. If you can give your garden predictable watering, the plants will stress less, and produce more. Drip irrigation also conserves water – not so important in Houston – very important in other parts of the U.S. and the world.
I managed to install a new branch off my sprinkler system that comes up in one of my garden beds, and I also put more tubing from various sprinkler heads to different raised beds. I got most of it done before the heat set in.
Another huge benefit of drip irrigation is that you can automate it. All of my drip irrigation is run from a Rachio sprinkler controller, which adjusts watering for the season and the weather, and is also hyper-local, being plugged into my Tempest Weather Station. Now I don’t have to spend as much time in my garden in the summer when it is unbearably hot, or in the evening when it’s STILL hot, AND there are hungry mosquitos on the loose!
The Rachio controller is mounted on the wall in my garage. I did it myself a while ago. It’s pretty easy. Just take a picture of the existing wiring, then put all the wires in the correct slots in the Rachio.
I got the weather station a year later. I dug a hole, put some gravel at the bottom, put in the post then put a small bag of Quikrete down he hole and added water. I used a couple of random boards screwed into the post to keep it perfectly vertical while the Quikrete dried. After that, I just mounted the weather station on top.
Ollas
For fun over the winter, and to get my gardening fix in the off season, I made several Ollas from clay pots and silicone caulk. Ollas are an ancient technology where clay pots are buried in the ground and filled with water. The pourous clay of the pot oozes water into the soil, thereby giving plants exactly what they need, in the amount they need. I put one with my overwintered pepper and it seems to be thriving, despite the heat.
Starting Seedlings Indoors
Many northern gardeners start seeds indoors to get a head start on their short growing season. The reason to do it in the Southern half of the U.S. is to beat the heat. And with the heat getting worse, this seems like it would be really helpful.
I started a lot of dwarf tomatoes, peppers, and a few new things, like artichokes. And instead of using really cheap aquarium lights as grow lights, I invested in some decent, mid-priced grow lights, that made a huge difference.
Plant What You Like, and What Works for Your Climate
It only makes sense to plant what you like to eat. Sometimes though, you might plant something new to see if you like it. I planted Malabar “spinach” once, and it grew like crazy but was slimy and nasty to eat. I love peppers and tomatoes, so always grow plenty. Though this climate is not good for tomatoes, or I haven’t figured it out yet.
Be prepared to eat or give away things that do well!
One issue with planting a lot of what you like and being successful at it, is that you were successful at it. LOL! Now you have an armload of carrots or eggplants, and you can’t eat them fast enough. I gave away about 20 or 30 eggplants last year, and probably tossed a few into the compost pile because I didn’t eat them in time.
Wintering Over Plants
An ongoing goal of mine has been to “winter over” my pepper plants. This means bringing them indoors during very cold weather, so they survive the winter, and thus you get a big head start on the growing season. Peppers and eggplants are often thought of as annuals, but really they are perennials in their native climate (keep growing through winter).
This year I was finally successful at getting one of my pepper plants to over winter. I had a large red habanero plant in a 20 gallon soft pot, that survived, and did really well this spring – early summer. I think my success was doe to the large volume pot, and that I didn’t disturb the roots in any way. Lesson learned!
I also had two eggplants that I planted early, and despite covering them up, the tops got frozen and died back… but, a few tiny low branches survived, and they have grown back into full, healthy plants. Win! I made some delicious baba ghanoosh with my homegrown eggplants and garlic.
Space some plants out
I am mostly doing container gardening, and the plants are densely planted next to each other. A lot of plants do just fine, but some like their space. This year I tried to give some plants more space to grow. Cabbage is a plant that can get pretty big, so I planted a 6 cell tray of cabbage from the big box store, and gave them plenty of room. I ended up with 6 very large cabbages!
One plant that REALLY likes its space, and likes to wander, are pumpkins (and other squash vines). I planted a couple of pumpkin plants and just let the vines wander, while occasionally redirecting them in a more convenient direction. I think this will pay off this year, as I already have three nice, medium sized pumpkins. My goal is to be able to make a pumpkin pie from pumpkins I grew myself.
New Things
Besides improving on the drip irrigation, and growing seedlings indoor with better equipment, I also planted some mushroom spawn. You can buy mushroom spawn which are threads of mycelium growing in sawdust, then use that to inoculate a planter or the ground in a suitable, partly shady location with lots of woody debris.
I was actually pretty successful and had a lot of Wine Cap mushrooms pop up. I was too chicken to eat them, I just wanted to see if it could be done. I may go for it again, and actually eat them next year!
I also converted my seedling growing area into a drying rack with a fan on a timer. Onions and garlic need to “cure”, or dry out a bit, to develop that tough skin that keeps them fresh longer. I put a small fan on a timer, and this worked out well.
Another thing I did was to put things where I wanted them. I moved several small trees and raised beds that weren’t in the ideal spot. Making my garden truly the way I wanted, took a bit of a mindset shift. You have to think about what your ultimate goals are and how you want things to work, which takes a bit of forethought, instead of just rambling along.
Another thing I did this year was to keep a few “sacrificial plants” around, instead of digging them up. Sometimes a certain plant doesn’t do well and attracts bugs that want to eat it. It can be better to leave them in place and let the bugs get their fill, so they leave your healthy plants alone. I had a sacrificial broccoli plant that the bugs tore up. I just left it there.
Another somewhat counterintuitive thought… don’t fret over weeds. As long as the weeds aren’t competing with your plants, then why worry about them so much? I used a great tool called a stirrup or action hoe, which looks like a stirrup from a horse saddle, and can be used to cut weeds off at the base. I just occasionally ran it over the weeds here and there, and it sets them back a bit.
I also just let the weeds go wild in my in-ground bed, as I only had my vining pumpkins and cabbage growing out of that bed. The vines extend way out from that bed, so they are fine. And the cabbage shades out all competitors beneath them. So no factor.
The Fruits of My Labor
Here’s some garden porn of my harvests and some things I made! 😉
Farm fresh from the backyard!
Yum, yum!
Successes, Failures and Lessons Learned
Growing a garden in a changing climate is a definite challenge. Some things grow better, some things not very well. Things people are used to growing in their climate zone now have a hard time, but you can probably grow something you couldn’t grow before. Pretty soon in Houston, we will be growing tropical fruit everywhere. LOL!
Gardening is something you can always learn something new, and can never fully master, which makes it fun year after year. You are successful when you learn and keep trying.
- Garden fails this year
- Carrots too close and late harvest
- This is the opposite of giving plants enough room! I didn’t space my carrots out in one bed and they came out all twisty.
- Onions from starts
- Growing onions from starts that you purchase, do NOT do as well as onions from seed. Starts are little pre-grown seedlings you can buy in large numbers. The biggest onions I have ever grown were from seed.
- Eating/harvesting in a timely way
- I had a few things in the garden get past their prime because I didn’t harvest them in a timely way. I let a bunch of carrots go too long, and it got hot, and they started to flower. Old carrots that are starting to flower end up being very woody, and almost inedible.
- Carrots too close and late harvest
- Lessons learned
- Winter over plants as a whole – meaning don’t transplant winter over plants if you can help it. Keep them in their original pot or give them plenty of room if you transplant.
- Some things are better grown from seed (onions) and some things are fine to purchase at the nursery (cabbage plants).
- Be ready to harvest on time — the other half of planting more of what you like!
- Keep trying new things — artichokes and mushrooms, who’d a thunk it? We’ll see if the artichokes turn out, and I’ll definitely try growing mushrooms again this Fall (and will hopefully be brave enough to eat them!).
- Be prepared for intense storms — not mentioned above, Houston had some severe storms this Spring, complete with gum-ball sized hail. I had my tomato plants blown over, and lost a nice bunch of tomatoes. I guess this comes with a changing climate. More energy (warming), causes more energetic events (storms). A sheet or other cover may have helped mitigate some of the damage.
- Starting early indoors pays off, even in a hot climate — gets you more growing time before extreme heat sets in. Also, planting in the late-Summer for a Fall harvest can also work.
- Make things how you want them, and don’t stress about weeds or anything else.
Left, too close and not thinned out, they get twisted up and don’t grow big.
Right, left in the ground too long, they can split and get woody.
By the time this post gets published, I will be on my third round of planting. Up next will be late summer crops, including corn, more pumpkins and watermelons. Late Summer and early Fall, it will be time to plant Fall tomatoes, which seem to be the best way to grow tomatoes in this hot and humid climate. Also, some stuff I missed or was slow to plant in the spring, including lots of basil and some other cool season greens will get planted. Then in the late Fall (early November here) it will be time to plant onions from seed, to harvest next Spring.
If you are looking for some good YouTube channels to watch on gardening or seed companies, check out the Resource section from last year’s post. And if you are a gardener, please leave me a comment below! If you are just starting out, or want to start, let me know what questions I can answer for you. Thank you for reading and happy gardening!
