June 23, 2016
I had not been gardening in Alpine very long when it dawned
on me that our growing season is not like the rest of the country.
I have lived on both coasts and several states in between. WE
garden in a unique location.
Growing veggies like I would elsewhere, I got marginal
success. Traditional spring veggies (broccoli, cauliflower, spinach, peas…)
would start out OK with March plantings but spring around here can get vicious
with heat, wind and low humidity pretty quick. Everything these crops dislike.
Most years these spring crops would become aphid magnets, and it would become a
battle to get a decent crop to mature.
I felt I needed to define the growing seasons to help
determine at which times to plant different crops.
Clues were derived from where different crops originated in
the world; I then tried to match these crops to the time of year that the
climate in West Texas could most reasonably duplicate. I evaluated all of the
different crops and then matched them to these seasons. This has dramatically
enhanced my success!!
I broke the gardening year into three seasons.
I like to start the gardening year with the best time to
garden in West Texas. This is the Monsoon
/ fall season. This is (or can be) our most amiable season. All crops that can
be grown in West Texas can at least be started in this season. A number of
crops started at this time finish in the spring. This season starts the first
of July and goes until the first killing freeze.
The next season is the winter/ spring season. This is a short
season. It is from the first killing freeze until the heat and wind begin. This
is roughly from the middle of November until the end of March. This season is when I finish most of the
crops started in the Monsoon / fall season. These would include the brassica’s
(cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower…) and spinach. Two other crops would finish in
May/June (onions and garlic). It is in
this season that I plant my summer crops which include seedlings I started in
December (tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants).
The next season I call the angry season. I think it is the
least hospitable season in West Texas. We suffer through it to bask in the rest
of the year. This time of year can see triple digit temperatures, single digit
humidity and for “funzies” fifty to sixty MPH winds and hail storms. This does
not happen every year but there is the ever present potential!!! Save for Okra
and sweet potatoes I plant NOTHING else at this time. It can be EXTREMLY difficult to keep seeds
and seedlings moist enough so that they can get established.
Next: matching veggies to the seasons.
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