100 Degree Temperature Variation! How we do it!

100 Degree Temperature Variation. Gardening in Texas!
We are not an estate, where we can grow our whole garden all at the same time. We have seasonal planting and Weather planting. Believe me both are different. It does appear that our USDA planting range has changed to 8B which puts us in a warmer climate. That doesn’t make me happy but we must continue , here are some ideas that we do to try to keep things going in the proper seasons.

Please check out our website for seeds if you are still looking .
https://www.alvaradocommunityfarm.com

For good morning my friends Jill here with North Texas vegetable gardening canning recipes a little bit of everything so we have opted or opted or opted to go ahead and have an early sale today and tomorrow and the reason being is we’ve had several people ask if uh they could go

Ahead and pick up some tomato plants so Greg and I discussed it and we thought let’s go ahead and open today and tomorrow and uh go ahead and let them come out and pick them some tomato plants up you can see my herbs are looking really really good I’m really

Happy with how my transplant went with these um these are some of our Basils and then I have some dill Peppers more deal and then then I have more Peppers that I need to um Upp poot and I think I’m going to have to up poot some of these Tomatoes as well and

I sure will our seed trays are doing well I’m liking what I’m seeing here so we’re going to have to Upp poot it looks like some of these and we’re going to have to start some more seeds cuz there’s some more herbs and some medicinals that I

Want to plant and one of those is cingula and um I’ll go over some of the other ones and show you look I’ve got a lot of cabbage I need to put in the ground and then these are some of my herbs very excited about these let’s see which one is this this

Is Genevie basil one of our favorites and then it looks like I’ve got some holy basil coming up that I need to go ahead and get transplanted because holy basil is a wonderful medicinal to have and then this is some of the Thai basil we have been on a rocky weather pattern

This week um we were in the 80s last weekend and I think uh Monday and then Tuesday I believe a cold front came in and dropped us down um to I think 39 yesterday morning and we are at 44 this morning and I’m thankful for that because it’s well above freezing it’s

Good for our sale today we’re supposed to get up to 70 today in 80 tomorrow and Sunday so it looks like we’re going to have a very pretty weekend to work with now are we over um with our freeze I don’t know guys our our average last frost or freeze is around March

15th to March 17th some calendars say the 20th so we are bumping up real close to it and then looking at um the extended forecast I’m not seeing any extended Co any weather in the extended Ed forecast I’m not certainly not seeing anything that’s going to be close to 30

In fact next week we’re going to be in the 50s for lows in the 70s for highs which is ideal spring gardening that is perfect for us some of these beets need to come up I just have to find time to get them pulled guys and get them pickled love

Pickled beets and so does pop and uh probably go ahead and freeze dry some of them and freeze dry some of these greens for Smoothie mixes gardening in Texas is hard it’s hard I’m going to give it to you I’m going to give it to all the people in

Texas because let me tell you something we have had over a 100 degree temperature swing um in less than a year here in Texas so last summer we got up to 113 115 um very very hot weather and then this winter in January we got down to like 9° that’s well over 100°

Temperature swing how in the world do you adapt to that you don’t um we just continue to take chances and uh go ahead and plant when we think we can get away with it and hope that we can get away with it and pray that we can get away

With it but we always have backup seed uh started so if something gets hit we can turn right around and put it in the ground in fact Greg started more tomato plants in the last couple of days so that if something happens we will have healthy ready to go in the ground plants

Mid April or even the end of March actually and we will probably do more right behind it just to make sure that we have healthy plants to go on the ground so that’s not a bad idea if you have the extra seed um to go ahead and do backup

Plants in case you lose something and you just have to turn right around and replant and um and just try to try to have plants on hand I mean yes you you can see tomatoes in April um probably even may but the Heat’s going to get to

Them here where I’m at um before they start really prospering well so Greg next week is probably going to start planting tomatoes and he’s going to start doing it here and I think we’re going to try to put in about 200 plants um I think it we’re going to go ahead

And give it a shot and uh if something happens we have more plants back there that we can protect um but we really even if it gets down to uh 30 31 this High tunnel is so big it takes it a long time to get down below

Freezing we think that we’ll be okay we even if we just hover a little above all you need is a degree or two to keep them safe and I think we’re going to go ahead and take that chance so to my Texas friends every year

We battle this heat and then a cold and all we need is one cold guys just one cold that’s all we need just one really big cold front that lasts even just one day or three days that’s all we need to wipe us out and it did it wiped us out

Um I think around the 1st of January it took out all of our tomato plants that were growing that Greg had planted in the fall um but we’re ready to go again we’re going to get them in the ground soon and hopefully we’ll start seeing some tomatoes on these plants sometime

In miday I’m very excited about that but uh yeah here in Texas it’s not we don’t get to plant our garden all at once we you know you we have to do it in stages like we cannot grow um cabbage and you know certain cold weather hearty or cold

Hearty plants we can’t plant them right now I mean we can plant some of them but chances are mine what I plant will bolt before they come to fruition so it really depends on where you’re at but I really Envy some of you who get to plant

Your whole garden all at once and harvest all at once um instead of having to Stage it in a stair step but that’s what we have to do um you know last year we had a very difficult time getting our fall seeds started and in fact we were

Not successful in getting any of them started and what we did get started was the mustard greens and then they got hit and some and some broccoli uh and then they got hit with um the cold our cauliflower um did okay but then you saw how it the

Heads misformed because we went right into heat and I didn’t get to them in time and that’s my fault but still I would say that the most difficult season for us to grow here in Texas is probably the fall because we just can’t get our seeds started um In

The Heat of the summer when they need to be started to have a prosperous fall garden and I know a lot of you are probably um just like me and we don’t start our seeds in the house honestly I don’t have room to start them in the

House so we try to start them outside but Greg did a misting seed starting table last year and we’re going to try that again this year um we’re not giving up we’re not giving up but um it is very very difficult so our sale starts in an hour

I got to get busy got to go get Mr Greg moving a little bit quicker and I get ready to see what’s going to happen today there’s no wind thankful for that it is a little chilly it’s about 44° but uh it is going to warm up love you all

And uh we will see you some this weekend and I’ll let you know how we do take care God bless see you soon