You are so lucky , here in central NY we are done for the season.... I dug all my Dahlia tubers yesterday, we start our planning in the end of may... I am going to move to Austin next year , It is going to be challenge for me , I am use to garden in zone 5.

Hee, while I am just getting started!

Austin is a good town. I lived there for awhile a few years ago. The summers are very hot but this year it rained a lot, and my friends had tomatoes into August and even September (generally, it's too hot for tomatoes in August.)

My garden is really doing well and we are going to eat some of the first greens tonight :)

You'll do great in Houston with a winter garden. I live in South Alabama and love to square foot in the winter. I have Alaska Peas (growing up trellis), Georgia Collards, Bright Lights Chard, Grand Rapids Lettuce, Black-Seeded Simpson Lettuce, Copenhagen Market Early Cabbage, Short 'N Sweet Carrot, India Southern Giant Curled Mustard and Cherry Bell Radish going in my garden right now.

Fall and Winter is about the only time that I can grow these items. Lettuce planted in the Spring doesn't last long because of the heat in this part of the country. When I plant Radish in the Spring, I can usually just get one planting in (Cherry Bell -- 22 days) and thats about it.

Our last couple of winters have been very mild and only a few days did I have to worry about covering my garden up because of freezing weather. Even then it wasn't a problem -- I just used Vis-queen (sp?) and it worked well.

Good luck with your garden!

Your gonna have so much fun with this garden.

I amended my soil and not the mel's mix but if you choose to use peat moss in the future, I found when I layed a lasagna garden that putting it in one of those big blue buckets from lowes and filling the bucket with water was the best way. Course I was up to my elbows in the stuff, it's a pain either way. The lasagna lady just 'leave it out a week to wet by the rain' HAH, like we get rain.

Anyway, I wanted to suggest you feed the broccoli somewhat regularly (once or 2x a month) with a liquid fertilizer like fish emulsion. I have most of what you planted in my SFG (im in Dallas) and its going well except the broccoli and brussels sprouts, and I think that my mistake was under feeding. It could have been the heat that slowed my broccoli, but I think I wasn't fertilizing it enough, I read they are heavy feeders.

If you want future things, I am particularly impressed with my broccoli raab it's growing great, I'm waiting for it to sprout soon. If you haven't eaten broccoli raab you might not like them, they are quite bitter italian greens that are a turnip relative, they sprout broccoli type little heads and you eat the heads and leaves, great sauteed with garlic N olive oil (you can blanch em to get a bit of the bitters out or boil in chicken broth).

Kohlrabi is also growing good and it's funny looking. Arugla also grows great, and very fast. It' good mixed with spinach, it might be part of your mesculun mix.

Kris- thanks for the advice! I have also read that it's good to feed boron to broccoli, to keep it from getting a hollow stem. Have you ever done this? I use fish emulsion on almost everything, even my houseplants. It's just good stuff.

Have you ever used Soil Soup compost tea? I read up on it and decided to get some for my garden, since I am using the Mix. Even though the compost I bought is supposed to have beneficial bacteria, I thought it would be good to add some.

My nasturtiums sure perked up after the compost tea; I am not sure if it immediately helped the other plants, but I still think beneficial bacteria are a good idea in the long run.

I've never had broccoli raab, although I consider it often. No one ever told me it's bitter, though- I probably will stay away in that case. I've heard that the flavor is a cross between broccoli and asparagus, and I love both of those.

Btw, I am going to start a Yahoo list for Texas SFG'rs, just so that we can have a smaller list to address Texan gardening concerns. Should I send you an invitation?

- Priscilla

I'll take an invite to the Yahoo Texas SFG group. I'm in Huntsville, been using SFG methods for several years now.

Ray,

Excellent, we'll be glad to have you. Here's the link below:

Here is a link that might be useful: SFG Texas

Hey Priscilla,

I read the same about boron, but I also read that while plants like broccoli need a good bit of it, other plants are real sensative to being poisoned by it. Basically that what would be perfect for broccoli will kill something else. So since I plan to rotate spots, I decided to wait to see if I had symptoms or til I did a soil test.

I haven't done compost tea yet cause I'm lazy, but I bought buckets and a little cheap fish tank pump-cause I read it's best to airate it. I think its a real good idea. I also like spraying with molasses (2T/gal) I think it boosts soil bacteria too-I think howard garret reccomends this.

I'm a big believer in compost, I kinda think of it as tea every time I water-see I'm lazy :). My soil was amended with lots. But I was recently even more impressed when I pulled my mulch off and mulched with compost, my broccoli seems to be really taking off with it (though could be the fish emulsion too :). You will need a regular mulch during the summer cause the heat is brutal and you can't keep enough water in the soil without it. But nextime I'm going to do a compost mulch under the mulch.

"cross between broccoli and asparagus" Ok I'm personally confused on this one too. I know when I bought 'broccoli raab' at a grocery in Atlanta that it was bitter and when I bought 'broccolini' it was like you describe, I've also bought 'rappinni' and i think it wasn't bitter but 'rappinni' is supposed to equal 'broccoli raab' see all confused. Though this was several years ago so I might have confused the names and they look really similar.

But basically I like both, but I haven't eaten what's IN the garden yet cause it hasn't formed shoots, but I think it's supposed to be the bitter kind. I got it from cook's garden labeled as 'broccoli raab', so I'll get back to you, lol.

Oh cool, I signed up for the group.

Doesn't it stink the house up when you water the inside plants with fish emulsion? Or do you leave them outside for a while. If it doesn't stink, what brand is it!

I just moved house and I'm not sure where my emulsion is, but when I find it I will let you know the brand. Although it alone smells nasty, it doesn't leave a smell behind after it soaks into the plants. I buy mine at the farmer's market here in Houston.

About the peat moss -- this past year when I started two new beds, I didn't use the compressed peat moss. I agree -- it is just too hard to break apart and work with. And I found that it's hard to get it to accept moisture at first. To me, it actually seems to repell water.

But, I did find something at Home Depot that was really cool. It was peat moss (not compressed) that had MiracleGro already mixed in it. It was already moist and mixed very easily with my compost and vermiculite. And I have to say that my plantings grew wonderfully. I've now added some compost on top of this when I planted my fall garden.

You might want to try this MiracleGro peat moss though. It's a dream to use for Square Foot Gardeners :)