The Texas summer garden season isn't for the faint of heart.

100 plus degrees, tomato blight and millions of squash bugs – it's enough to get even the hardiest of gardeners down.

The only cure for the summertime garden blues is to plan your fall garden and dream of cooler temperatures with less bugs and disease.



Check it out:

Fall and winter gardening are one of the best parts of our extended warm seasons here in Texas.

Here are the steps to ensure your family enjoys a bountiful harvest.

Plan: Think of your garden plots, and the areas that have been vacated by summer plants, that have met their end.

Determine the fall crops your family likes, or might like to try, and make a sketch of where they might fit into the garden. Even if you don’t have a traditional vegetable garden space, many fall crops work well and look pretty in a container pot or even flowerbeds.

Preparation: Clean out beds of spent plants, add compost and place mulch on top of the compost.

This allows the beds to get good microbial colonies going, assisting your seedlings in growth and plant health.

Time to shop: It’s a widely known secret that I can’t help myself with garden shopping – but by buying seeds, I spend just half as much as one week’s worth of groceries.

With (a little) sweat, hard work and some decent weather, we should have a whole fall and winter’s worth of organic veggies, which translates into hundreds of dollars of savings!

If you've been composting all summer along, you should be able to use that compost in your garden, saving yourself another expensive purchase.

My Fall Garden Seed List:

Bean Bush Contender Organic Seed
Bean Bush Royal Burgundy
Bean Bush Purple Queen Seed
Arugula Rocket Salad Organic Seed
Beet Gourmet Blend Organic Seed
Carrot Danvers 126 Organic Seed
Carrot Carnival Blend Organic Seed
Carrot Royal Chantenay Seed
Carrot Scarlet Nantes Organic Seed
Cucumber Marketmore Organic Seed
Kale Italian Nero Toscana Organic Seed
Kale Red Winter Organic Seed
Butterhead Speckles Organic Seed
Lettuce Mesclun Gourmet Baby Greens Organic Seed
Lettuce Mesclun Sassy Salad Seed
Lettuce Mesclun Valentine LG PKT Organic Seed
Lettuce Romaine Parris Island Organic Seed
Lettuce Romaine Rouge D'hiver Organic Seed
Mustard Red Giant Seed
Pea Snap Sugar Snap Organic Seeds
Pea Shelling Progress #9 Organic Seed
Pea Snow Oregon Sugar Pod Organic Seed
Radish French Breakfast Organic Seed
Spinach Bloomsdale Organic Seed
Spinach Lavewa Seed
Spinach Tyee Seed
Swiss Chard Five Color Silverbeet Organic Seed