All your herbs, except basil, are good to get going. In fact, you might be running out of time for cilantro. Cilantro can't take our heat and usually bolts by late March. I start cilantro in November. Oregano is evergreen and perennial. Mint is perennial but a hard freeze will burn them back. Rosemary just doesn't care about anything- heat, cold, drought. Get it in the ground and water every couple days for two weeks then completely neglect it. A containerized Rosemary will need occasional watering, though. They are so much better in the ground. Pick a sunny spot. Trailing Rosemary does better in containers and I find their flavor better than the upright variety.

Start your basil seeds, bring it inside if it freezes.

Beets, carrots, onions, peas, garlic- get them going. I've had all those in the garden for two months and they've done fine with the frost since they're more cool weather crops.

Ginger and turmeric are also hardy, no need to wait.

Tomatoes, eggplant, squash, potato- frost tender. It's a perfect time to get them started indoors. Transplant in early March once they have a couple true leaves.

Tomatoes- start half now indoors and sow the rest of the seeds in a month so you have tomatoes all year until the first freeze. This advice is for indeterminate tomato varieties. In central Texas, the determinate varieties typically stop producing in July/August with the high temperatures.

It's not on your list, but lettuce and greens (kale, arugula, bok choy, etc) sowed now will provide you with lots of baby greens for salads for the next couple months. I like to throw a mesclun seed mix in any empty spaces.

Also, broccoli. It's probably too late to harvest florets, but I just discovered this winter that broccoli greens are so so so delicious.

Good luck!

Indeterminates stop producing in July and August as well. Need temps below mid 90s, which we won't have. I've never seen a tomato on any of my tomato plants in July and August (if the plants have survived the heat). Not many flowers either, so flower-set spray might not be an option. The fall season is shorter than the spring season (temperature drops faster in the fall than it rises in the spring), so fall tomatoes in general are harder to get. Peppers and eggplant are a little more forgiving of high heat.

It's not too late to start your own seeds. You will probably even go longer into the growing season than those persons living further north of you.

If you are planting directly into the ground then just check your average frost date and plant after that, or prepare to protect them a day or two if needed. Otherwise, you can start the seeds indoors.

Dan - no I'm sorry I don't know what I'm up against with zucchini. Can you explain? I thought I heard they were pretty easy and my husband loves it so that's why I was going to plant it :)

Thank you all for your responses! I forgot about lettuce and greens. That's a good idea also. I can't wait to get started. :D

***Do most of you buy your seeds and plants just from local stores or do you order online? Or do you use cuttings from ones you get at the grocery store? (Like potatoes)

When I tried growing bell peppers they never got bigger than a grape. Do any of you know why this could be? I grew it in a container. Maybe too small of a container? Wrong fertilizer?

If the container was too small, sure, that could do it. Or if you didn't use an appropriate planting medium (containers are tricky in that regard). Enough light? If you need some help here, you're going to have to be a LOT more specific.

As to container size, you won't get full size bells without a full sized plant, and a full sized plant is pretty big. A 10-inch flower pot is pretty much what you at least need for chiles. I'd suspect you'd need a larger one for bells.

Since this isn't very Texas-specific, you might be better off in the Container Gardening forum, or the Vegetable Gardening forum.

With regard to zucchini and squash vine borers (SVBs), SVBs are a serious problem in most of the country (except for the west coast). They penetrate the hollow stalks of squash (and to some extent cukes and melons) and put larvae in there that, when hatched, eats it's way through the stem, killing it. Here in central Texas, you simply can't grow such summer squash unless you cover the plants with a fabric screen to keep the SVBs out (in which case you have to hand fertilize, because the bees can't get in). You can soak the plants with pesticide, but that doesn't even work that well.

When I gardened on the west coast, zukes were easy. Drop a seed in the ground, walk away, and be giving away loads of squash a few months later. Doesn't work that way here, because of SVBs. I regard SVBs as BY FAR the worst vegetable garden pest.

If you want squash, consider a moschata species variety, such as butternut. The stems aren't as hollow, and they are pretty SVB resistant.

If you are a onetime vegetable gardener from northern or western climes, and are trying to restart in Texas, be aware that almost all the gardening rules are different here. It took me years to adapt to southern gardening after years of gardening on the west coast. It's a different game.

This is what I did last year and it worked well:

-Bought some 14inch tall and 4x8 ft raised beds in wood. Filled them with store bought soil mixed with some of the compact clay from the garden.

-Sowed tomatoes, peppers, melons and cucumbers (heat-tolerant species) inside in January.

-Sowed Basil, Zinnia, Amaranthus and Nicotiana in February.

-Direct sowed beans, salad, peas.

-Bought some herbs which I planted out directly.

-Planted out most of it in the middle of March.

-Vegetables, tomatoes, and cucumbers got harvested. Most of it died in July. (Except a tomato specie called "Matts wild cherry tomato" which was very heat tolerant (but also quite unstoppable,weedy, overwhelming plants and self seed wildly!).

-The peppers did I actually harvest until Christmas (had to plant them in a flowerbed- ran out of space).

-I will full heartedly recommend Zinnia for the Texas gardens. They was a blast ! Flowered along time.

I haven't seen the SVBs, and they sounds like a really serious treat. Though I haven't actually Zucchini, but three types melon and cucumbers. Sounds like a terrible pest.

-I bought some plants too. Find a good garden center and use some dollars on something exciting. Lots of fun with a small investment. I bought a Passionfruit Plant. Its a tad invasive, but I've got loads of Passion Fruits this fall and winter. Very healthy and very excotic for a Scandinavian like me.

-Good Luck!

I write about my garden in Houston here.

I have been advised to cover my squash while it is growing and then to uncover them while they are flowering. By the time that the squash vine bore finds them, lays there eggs and the eggs have grown to a size in the stems to kill the vines, you will have a crop of Zucchinis . also get ones plants in early because the SVB are not as active in the early part of the season. This was directions from the Natural garden's garden guru. One also has to keep an eye out for squash bugs. They will proliferate in a heart beat. I keep a thing of soapy water and look every morning for those buggers. I grab them and toss them in the soapy water to drown.

Agrilife at the county has planting schedules for the different counties. google "planting schedule and _______(your county)". I have three schedules that I have laminated hanging arround.