What is the Best place in Texas for growing Fruit and Vegetables?
The Jungle Explorer
6 years ago
last modified: 6 years ago
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Growing vegetables (and fruit) in Africa
Comments (5)@mauirose - most of what is grown around here is only done during the rainy season. Two seasons here, dry & rainy which are cool and warm, respectively. They plant and grow then due to the free and ABUNDANT water supply. Whereas now, their gathered water is used for simply living day-to-day. But, what they do grow here mainly is maize, beans, tomatoes, potatoes, bananas, onions. Do you mean that fresh produce is rarely available or just that the fresh produce you are accustomed to buying in America is not available? Well, a little of both but more of the latter. Cucumbers, carrots, tomatoes, beans and a few other things are regularly available in the markets. Yellow squash. Nada. Zucchini. Only seen twice in a whole year and not at all good and expensive. Okra. Moderately available but expensive. Sweet Corn. Nada. Watermelon. Tasteless. Cantaloupe, celery, lima beans. Nada. There are a lot of other things we'd eventually like to grow that aren't on my list. But, being beginners, we're starting out slow. Where did your seeds come from, did you bring them along with you? Most of what we have are from the States. Parkseed.com and Burpee are the two main brands we have. I plan to try to seed harvest so I don't have to rely on a shipment from back home. What is the soil like in your new home? Umm... I'm not familiar with soil types but I know it definitely isn't clay. It's dark and kinda clumpy. Very dry and light right now because of dry season. What will you use for fertilizer? I haven't yet, but plan to build a compost bin to make my own. I have no idea exactly how to do that but I just love the resources online! Plenty of cows around and I'm sure we'll be a spectacle asking some common Tanzanian if we can buy their cow poop. @Edie - I haven't a clue about the critters although there doesn't seem to be an evidently large population of them. May be the fierce African sun! We did find zucchini twice in the main town market but all of it had hole eaten into it by some kind of pest. What are symptoms of a Squash Vine Borer? @ruthieg__tx - to keep the word count low (as I'm already many lines deep) the best way for me to tell you about us is to refer you to our family website, www.mccalled.com. It has a ton of information about us on there as well as links to our (me, my wife and our 15 mo old son) blogs. Yes, my son has his own blog already. We maintain it, of course. But, if you get on there and want to send us a question, just use the contact link and fill out the form. The messages go to both Dana and I (Jonathan) and we absolutely love using the internet to keep in touch with people who are interested in our lives here!!! Karibuni sana! (Swahili for "Welcome (very much or a lot)") Currently we have the following growing (planted in): Yellow squash (late Apr) Zucchini (late Apr; 3 plants already have fruit) Sweet Corn (Apr) Cucumber (late May) Tomatoes (Mar & Jun; local variety) Strawberries (long time ago; they produce year round here) Bananas (young trees; expect fruit this time next year) Avacado (young trees) Mango (young tree) Orange (young tree) Papaya (young tree) Peach (young tree) Carrot (ending 1 harvest; just planted more yesterday) Grapes (REALLY no idea what's going on here, we just bought a large vine; I think it is going into hibernation) Lettuce (early Jun; starting indoors) Broccoli (early Jun; starting indoors) @pnbrown - Onion seed we don't have. Tomatoes seem to do good year round here. I've seen the tree-tomato shrub. I wonder how hard/easy it is to grow? This climate is quite spectacular. With water and a little TLC, it almost seems as if anything can grow at any time here, except the really cool weather stuff, of course....See MoreBest place in country for growing fruit...
Comments (46)Frank: There is no place east of the rockies that even comes close in my opinion. Ya I'm in a good place...for a greenhouse. But compared to CA, well there's no comparison. When I lived in Amarillo I often said that we get more bad weather in April than CA gets all year. Most years that was certainly true. Around lake MI you are looking at a 4 month shorter growing season and what you have is not nearly as good as CA. What I loved about CA is you had a long dry warm summer season that was ideal for ripening high quality fruit. Then you had a mild winter with some rain where everything greened up. It was like another summer only better in many ways than the real summer. You harvested citrus and many other fruits and harvested your cool season vegetables. I harvested sweet peas all winter just for an example. Around here all winter is good for is wind and drought. My peas, the one year I tried them were froze out in early November....See Morewhere is the best place to vegetable garden?
Comments (20)Third vote for Oklahoma. I live in the northeast corner of the State and near a beautiful lake. Housing is just about any price you want to pay ranging from lake front gated communities to very modest. I was a military wife so I have lived in a lot of different places and this is my favorite. Our weather is a bit unsettling since we have a lot of tornado warnings in Oklahoma, but an excellent early warning system. The northeast part of the State is very wet especially in the spring. We are less than five months into the year and have received over 20 inches. The frost free season is said to be early April to about Halloween, but there are many nice days before and after those dates that allow you to grow the hardy crops, or more, if you add a little protection. I normally have salad greens until mid December if I remember to throw a cover on them on really cold nights. I stop gardening in December, and begin transplants inside in late February. I just use a light set-up and don't have a greenhouse (yet). I live about 45 minutes from Joplin MO, and a lot of my shopping is done there. I live near a small resort town but we have a WM Supercenter and Lowes, fast food places, and numerous small businesses. As I am typing, the window is open and at midnight it is 73 degrees. From the garden we have had radishes, green onions, sugar snap peas, various lettuces and salad greens, a few stawberries from a new bed, and in future years should have asparagus and several berries. Almost all of my summer crops are in the ground, except those that will follow the broccoli and onion harvests. The broccoli is just beginning to head and the onions are just bulbing. I have not had to water in-ground plants at all except for new plantings in raised beds, and that has only been a couple of times. Summers are hot and I will probably water a few times in the hottest part of summer. I have been trying to get 'tracydr' above to consider the NE corner, but so far she seems to be favoring the horse country and the college towns. LOL I can't say much more about that tho, since my youngest son graduated from there and my husband did his Masters there. Tracy, I understand what your husband is doing as I have a son just completing a PHD in Texas. I wondered if he would ever make it through high school, so who knew? LOL...See MoreWhat fruit trees do best in coastal Texas
Comments (30)I live in NW Harris County (I consider our broad area "gulf coast" which is why I'm interested in this forum, but I actually live on the brink of the Texas prairie) and there are at least 3 neighbors in my subdivision who grow outstanding (looking) orange trees!! They are very tall, though. I have noticed that the fruits at the tops of their trees have not been harvested (you can see them over 10 foot privacy walls). I'm pretty surprised that those trees are thriving here because we do have cooler weather than Houston downtown or areas closer to the coast. However, I'm guessing these individuals did their research and got very hardy, appropriate orange species for this part of Texas!...See MoreThe Jungle Explorer
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