Now is the time to get the garden ready for the fall planting. If you are done with the spring things, pull them out. If you are planting fall tomatoes, now is the time. Spring tomatoes are coming out and I’m trying to keep peppers alive. There are a lot of folks that want hard and fast rules for growing vegetables. There are very few. Even the planting guides are written on paper and not carved in stone. A while back, Texas A&M published the 10 commandments of Gardening. These 10 Commandments of Gardening has to be the closest to the end all of all the fall gardening lists. Especially number 1, Thou shalt not read gardening books and magazines published north of a line running from Dallas to Charleston, or West of San Antonio.
Number 3, I believe, is the most important; Prepareth the soil well before thou planteth thy crop. Gardening is like almost everything else in life. It’s about the preparation. I am a huge fan of fertilizing before you plant. If you are using all-natural fertilizer you need to start two weeks earlier than if you are using the synthetics.
Number 6, is another one that sticks out to me. Choose ye adapted vegetable species and varieties. Yes I have had success with head lettuce but my failures tend to overshadow them. On the other side of this, one of our former employees planted an artichoke starter plant. Not even on the second page of the list for our area of the world and a large number of people told her not to waist her time. She babied it through the winter and harvested around a dozen artichokes. Her success is the exception rather than the rule.
