The San Antonio Sandbur Patch

[Wildcat82]

I grew up on a farm in the Midwest where we pretty much raised all our food. We had cattle in the feedlot, a hundred chickens, and an absolutely gigantic garden. We grew just about everything. Midwest Gardening is easy. Basically sow you seeds, and put in your nursery transplants in the spring and harvest all summer into the fall.

Gardening in San Antonio is completely different. I have horrible soil, unstoppable pests, and inferno -like summers. I have searched everywhere for reliable information on gardening here but the garden centers, Texas A &M “Certified Master Gardeners,” neighbors, and internet turn up very little useful information. Over the years I have constantly experimented to see what works here. After many failures I am now somewhat successful and thought I’d share some of the things I’ve figured out over the years in this grow blog.

[GoDawgs]

Wow, that's quite a challenge. I'm pretty sure there are some folks in here that can help. I'm looking forward to seeing what you've learned. There just might be something I can use over here in Georgia!

[karstopography]

I agree about the dearth of published information regarding gardening in south Texas. And neighbors that garden tend not to be very helpful either as they are mostly just going off the not very relevant for south Texas information they received from the published sources.

Anyway, glad to hear you have figured some things out about gardening in San Antonio. Look forward to your posts.

[Wildcat82]

Wow, that's quite a challenge. I'm pretty sure there are some folks in here that can help. I'm looking forward to seeing what you've learned. There just might be something I can use over here in Georgia!

San Antonio has some similarities to south Georgia. That's why I've watched a lot of videos from Hoss Tools and Lazy Dog Farm. I recently started reading your grow log and like it a lot. I enjoy seeing how people cope with less than ideal environments. My pet peeve is watching youtube videos from people who live in areas with perfect soil, perfect climate, and few disease/pest pressures. They make everything look so easy.

[karstopography]

One thing that’s strange about south texas is of all the many people that are gardeners and into gardening, there’s such a large percentage that neglect doing any gardening in the cool season. They focus almost all their efforts on mid-to-late spring into summer as if they were 500-1,000 miles to the north, like they were gardening in Missouri or North Arkansas or Tennessee.

From October through March there are a massive variety of vegetables that can and will thrive in South Texas, but the majority of gardeners seem to hang up their tools during that timeframe. What’s even worse is that the most comfortable gardening weather is generally in those months.

[Rockporter]

One thing that’s strange about south texas is of all the many people that are gardeners and into gardening, there’s such a large percentage that neglect doing any gardening in the cool season. They focus almost all their efforts on mid-to-late spring into summer as if they were 500-1,000 miles to the north, like they were gardening in Missouri or North Arkansas or Tennessee.

From October through March there are a massive variety of vegetables that can and will thrive in South Texas, but the majority of gardeners seem to hang up their tools during that timeframe. What’s even worse is that the most comfortable gardening weather is generally in those months.

There is also the knowing what time frame to actually plant those fall/winter crop seeds in time to get a good crop before they freeze. This is where I have many issues, but I planted those potatoes in November last year thinking they wouldn't grow until spring and then promptly forgot about them, lol. I think that being undercover with the plastic is what helped them to grow and do well too. They are starting to die back so I will be picking them soon.

[Wildcat82]

I agree about the dearth of published information regarding gardening in south Texas. And neighbors that garden tend not to be very helpful either as they are mostly just going off the not very relevant for south Texas information they received from the published sources.

Anyway, glad to hear you have figured some things out about gardening in San Antonio. Look forward to your posts.

I've learned over the years that Texas A & M puts out a lot of poor information for our area and are often flat out wrong. For example:

1). They recommend the Loring peach for our area even though that variety requires 800 chill hours and we only get 400-500 chill hours here. I mentioned this to the owner of Fanick's nursery and he refused believe me til I showed him a photo I took of the signs at 2 other nurseries here.

2). A & M recommends planting Fall strawberries in September. Here's one of several articles I have seen that state this.
The right time to plant strawberries is September– NOT in the spring or after the Poteet Strawberry Festival in April. Gardeners who procrastinate until late November reduce yield potential. Poteet strawberry producers use an 8-month system — plant in September, harvest in April, and destroy the plants in June.
https://bexar-tx.tamu.edu/homehort/arch ... awberries/

I attempted to grow Fall strawberries as indicated but attempting to keep tiny bare root plants alive in searing 100 degree weather with spider mites everywhere is futile. Two years ago I visited Poteet (about 20 miles south of San Antonio) and talked to several commercial strawberry farmers. They all plant their strawberries from about 15 October - 1 November when the weather is much cooler.

[worth1]

San Antonio as well as Austin has many micro areas that have good soil and a better environment to grow in.
Sadly in South East Mid East Austin all that good soil is getting covered up in concrete and high rise apartments and rooting out all the little backyard gardens.
One must pick the crops that grow the best in the environment and soil that they have to deal with.
You don't see great crops of tomatoes coming from parts of West Texas and Central Texas but you can find some of the best melons this great nation can produce.
I've grown something from many but not all parts of Texas and in Southern Missouri and South Eastern Oklahoma in all types of soil.
They all have great things to offer.
One must only learn to appreciate them.
I recall the backyard cantaloupe patch I had in Central Austin back in the 80's.
Grew the things from store bought cantaloupe seeds.
They were so sweet it was insane.
I didn't do anything but hoe up the grass planted the seeds let them get up a little and ignored them after that.
Just a shot of water if they looked like they were about to croak.
No weeding just let the grass grow up around them.

[Wildcat82]

Here's a few pictures of what's happening in my garden

IMG_2642.jpg

IMG_2656.jpg

IMG_2658.jpg

IMG_2659.jpg

IMG_2660.jpg

IMG_2661.jpg

IMG_2662.jpg

[Wildcat82]

San Antonio as well as Austin has many micro areas that have good soil and a better environment to grow in.
Sadly in South East Mid East Austin all that good soil is getting covered up in concrete and high rise apartments and rooting out all the little backyard gardens.
One must pick the crops that grow the best in the environment and soil that they have to deal with.
You don't see great crops of tomatoes coming from parts of West Texas and Central Texas but you can find some of the best melons this great nation can produce.
I've grown something from many but not all parts of Texas and in Southern Missouri and South Eastern Oklahoma in all types of soil.
They all have great things to offer.
One must only learn to appreciate them.
I recall the backyard cantaloupe patch I had in Central Austin back in the 80's.
Grew the things from store bought cantaloupe seeds.
They were so sweet it was insane.
I didn't do anything but hoe up the grass planted the seeds let them get up a little and ignored them after that.
Just a shot of water if they looked like they were about to croak.
No weeding just let the grass grow up around them.

At our old house in West San Antonio, there was zero soil present. We had 100% caliche. I remember spending a couple hours per day for 2 weeks chipping away with a pickaxe to carve out 10 holes to plant some red tip photinias for a hedge. At our new house, the soil is 60% blackland clay, 30 % rock and 10% caliche. Obviously everything I grow is either in a raised bed or in pots.

[worth1]

San Antonio as well as Austin has many micro areas that have good soil and a better environment to grow in.
Sadly in South East Mid East Austin all that good soil is getting covered up in concrete and high rise apartments and rooting out all the little backyard gardens.
One must pick the crops that grow the best in the environment and soil that they have to deal with.
You don't see great crops of tomatoes coming from parts of West Texas and Central Texas but you can find some of the best melons this great nation can produce.
I've grown something from many but not all parts of Texas and in Southern Missouri and South Eastern Oklahoma in all types of soil.
They all have great things to offer.
One must only learn to appreciate them.
I recall the backyard cantaloupe patch I had in Central Austin back in the 80's.
Grew the things from store bought cantaloupe seeds.
They were so sweet it was insane.
I didn't do anything but hoe up the grass planted the seeds let them get up a little and ignored them after that.
Just a shot of water if they looked like they were about to croak.
No weeding just let the grass grow up around them.

At our old house in West San Antonio, there was zero soil present. We had 100% caliche. I remember spending a couple hours per day for 2 weeks chipping away with a pickaxe to carve out 10 holes to plant some red tip photinias for a hedge. At our new house, the soil is 60% blackland clay, 30 % rock and 10% caliche. Obviously everything I grow is either in a raised bed or in pots.

The soil where I live is covered in hard round rocks surrounded by red worthless clay in rolling hills above the Colorado River basin in Bastrop.
Under that it gets harder.
The hard round River rocks got there from glacial outflow many thousands of years ago if not more.
I had a geologist explain it to me that used to work for the USGS.
It also explains the vast areas of sand pockets we have in the area.
I always thought there was something different about that guy and we always got along well but he didn't come off nice to others not that he was mean he was just not talkative and very short and professional.
But we yaked all the time.
One day I asked him what he used to do and he told me.
Now the kicker.
He was a plant operator for British Petroleum in Prudhoe Bay Alaska.
Making about a hundred and fifty grand a year more than he could as a geologist for the USGS.
So much for that education.
Just down the hill from Snob knob where I live is beautiful sandy loam type soil settled there from the Colorado river many years ago.
My biggest problem is the forest i live in and the blight i get from all the rotting leaves and molds.
Some years it hits and others it doesn't.
The heat as always is a monster to deal with.
In that concern it's like trying to grow tomatoes in Alaska.
The time frame is almost exactly the same.
I know this because I have friends there and they garden
The main problem we have with tomatoes is the dreaded cold snaps and cold soil temperatures in the later part of winter.
By hard work and planning this can be overcome.
We can protect from cold snaps and we can overcome the cold soil with warm water.
By doing these two things you can get ahead of the game by at least a month.
One year I started tomato and pepper seeds in November in the house.
The results were astounding but it took time and constant planning.
I did it to prove my point and disprove several myths that still go around.
Some of our members here remember it from what is now years ago.
I had around a hundred plants of all types.
Once everything was going great and the plants were loaded the damn deer invaded and ate everything to the ground.

[Wildcat82]

Worth, I just checked a couple geology maps for Texas and it it looks like there are a several strips of soil types that extend northeast of San Antonio to the Bastrop area so we may have similar soil.

I sowed tomatoes (8), peppers (10), and ground Cherries (10) around Thanksgiving. After last years debacle with late frost/early heatwave, I decided I wanted to put blooming plants outside around 1 March. I think I'll have to do this every year.

[Tormato]

Okree

[GoDawgs]

Wow, that's quite a challenge. I'm pretty sure there are some folks in here that can help. I'm looking forward to seeing what you've learned. There just might be something I can use over here in Georgia!

San Antonio has some similarities to south Georgia. That's why I've watched a lot of videos from Hoss Tools and Lazy Dog Farm. I recently started reading your grow log and like it a lot. I enjoy seeing how people cope with less than ideal environments. My pet peeve is watching youtube videos from people who live in areas with perfect soil, perfect climate, and few disease/pest pressures. They make everything look so easy.

Thank you for those words of encouragement! I agree wholeheartedly about the perfect soil, perfect climate etc on YouTube. I usually take those vids with a huge grain (half a box?) of salt.

You'll find that I like to experiment with stuff and methods. Might as well have more fun in the garden! "Inquiring minds want to know."

[Wildcat82]

Wow, that's quite a challenge. I'm pretty sure there are some folks in here that can help. I'm looking forward to seeing what you've learned. There just might be something I can use over here in Georgia!

San Antonio has some similarities to south Georgia. That's why I've watched a lot of videos from Hoss Tools and Lazy Dog Farm. I recently started reading your grow log and like it a lot. I enjoy seeing how people cope with less than ideal environments. My pet peeve is watching youtube videos from people who live in areas with perfect soil, perfect climate, and few disease/pest pressures. They make everything look so easy.

Thank you for those words of encouragement! I agree wholeheartedly about the perfect soil, perfect climate etc on YouTube. I usually take those vids with a huge grain (half a box?) of salt.

You'll find that I like to experiment with stuff and methods. Might as well have more fun in the garden! "Inquiring minds want to know."

I like to experiment a lot as well. In a tough environment like this, conventionally wisdom often fails so diversifying your growing methods makes sense. I do this since I know from experience many of my methods will fail every year. Just look at my photos and compare the beautiful tomatoes in containers versus the horrible tomatoes in my raised beds. I've had to replace 4 dead tomatoes in the bed and the rest look terrible because of the hot dry windstorms we've had here decimated those plants. But the container plants have been shielded from the wind and look 10 times better.

[Wildcat82]

IMG_2665.jpg

Quick update: My June Gold Peach is blooming nicely. I had to spend a hour yesterday hoeing out a veritable lawn of Lamb's Quarters around last year's straw bales. Meanwhile my pomegranates (Salavatsky and Parfianka) are starting to wake up but it looks like most the the shoots have died over the winter. I'm guessing it got too darned dry over the winter even though I did water them at least 2 times between late December and mid February.

IMG_2663.jpg

IMG_2666.jpg

[Wildcat82]

Here's a few closeups of my sickly eggplant and green beans. It's been bone dry here with no rain in the past 2 weeks so it can't be some fungal disease. I assume mites, either spider mites or more likely broad mites or russet mites have been attacking the bottom leaves. This evening I sprayed everything in my garden with Minx (abamectin). Let's see if this helps. I probably should have sprayed in 2 weeks ago in February.

IMG_2679.jpg

.

IMG_2680.jpg

IMG_2681.jpg

IMG_2682.jpg

[Wildcat82]

In My Yard, Mites Cause 100% Garden Wipeouts.
From 2001 to 2018, I had 3 good years and 14 years where I didn’t get even a single solitary green tomato. In the bad years, my plants were put out as early as possible and by the first part of April, they looked beautiful and were covered with blooms. And they would never set any fruit. I queried the Texas A&M Master gardeners, nursery experts, neighbors, conducted internet searches, etc for reasons why my plants wouldn’t produce, but turned up nothing. Then in 2019, I happened upon a blog post by some gardener in Australia who mentioned broad mites attacked her tomatoes as soon as she planted in the spring. Broad mites (unlike spider mites) thrive in the cool spring temperatures and destroy tomato blooms (but not the leaves). Articles I found from Penn St and University of Georgia confirmed this. For the next 3 years I trialed a number of home remedies discussed on Tomatoville and elsewhere. None worked very well. Then last year I found some expert advice on marijuana grower forums (marijuana plants are attacked by broad mites). Starting last year, I began spraying with commercial tomato grower miticides (a rotation of Minx, Floramite, Oberon, Grandevo, Venerate) they recommended and these eliminated 100% of my broad mite and Spider mite problems. OrganicBTI.com or Ebay are the only websites where you can find home garden sized (1 ounce) quantities of Minx, Floramite, and Oberon otherwise you’d have to spend $$$$$ for industrial sized quantities.

Keep in mind broad/russet/spider mites will obliterate a whole host of other garden plants as well including strawberries, melons, cucumbers, eggplant, peppers, ground cherries, marigolds, etc. I’ve never been able to grow any of these until last year.

[Wildcat82]

My figs have finally rooted! I ordered 4 fig cuttings from Krempf in December (Black Madeira KK, Adriatic JH, White Marseilles, Italian #258) based on reviews at ourfigs.com. I knew they'd be challenging to root but this was much harder than I thought it would be. After 5 weeks in some composted hardwood fines, there was no rooting at all on any of them. I figured I had failed so I ordered 3 more cuttings (Black Madeira, Adriatic JH, and Bourjasotte Noire) and planted then in coco coir. I went ahead and also planted my previous 4 cutting in the coco coir even though I figured they were dead. Now, 7 weeks later 2 of the supposed dead cutting have sprouted a few 2 inch roots (and one of the newer cuttings has put out a tiny root. Here's the 2 I've potted up. I'm cautiously optimistic. Only problem is that with moving from one growing media to another, I'm not sure which variety rooted.

IMG_2703.jpg

[Wildcat82]

In the next 6-7 days the low temps will be in the upper 30's and nothings growing, so there isn't much to report on my grow log. So I figure now is as good a time as any to share a couple pictures my brother sent me from his farm last Fall. Enjoy.

20221007_095504 (2).jpg

screenshot.png