Guest Column

-

I've decided to turn the blog over for this entry to my niece.  She's very good on this subject.  I hope you think so too.

The Four Seasons of Houston

When you think of Houston, you don’t really think of this city as having seasons. Most people think we have a hot season and a really hot season. Although it gets extremely hot here, we do actually have 4 seasons. Our seasons are a little different than the “traditional” ones (spring, summer, fall, winter). Houston is in a zone 9 season. I wanted to give you a little lesson in zone 9 seasons and the type of vegetables you can grow here.

Let’s start off by discussing the 4 seasons. The first season is called “Warm Season 1” from March until May. Most of the time March is when you see Home Depot or Lowes stocking up on gardening supplies and plants. This time of year is a great time to ready your growing beds. People do this many different ways. Some plant straight into the ground and others plant in a raised garden bed, like I do. The soil in Houston is different depending on where you live. I live west Houston and the soil there is very clay like. A raised garden bed is a better option for growing in my area. During Warm Season 1 I like to grow tomatoes, squash, cucumbers, beans, herbs (basil, rosemary, thyme, and oregano) and all of the peppers you want to grow. Types of peppers that I am growing and also love our zone 9 are bell peppers, jalapenos, hatch green chilies, and ancho peppers. There are many other hot peppers you can grow but my family prefer the milder peppers.

The second season in zone 9 is “Hot Season”. This time of year is from June until August. You can continue to grow all of your peppers and some tomatoes as long as you give them plenty of water. I’ve also seen people grow okra and black eye peas or cow peas. This time of year is extremely hot and most of the other vegetables will die off. This is where most people start readying their beds for the next season. Whenever I say “ready your bed”, what I mean is to pull all of the weeds and dead or dying plants out, replenish your soil with nutrients, and give the soil a good mix to provide some air. I have been using the same nutrient formula for my bed and it seems to work great. I like to mix top soil, cow dung, and earth worm casings (also known as black gold). Sometimes when cow dung is not available a good substitute is blood meal. This will provide plants with enough food for the whole year.

The third season is called “Warm Season 2”. This is from September until November. We call it a warm season because it’s as close to fall as we can get. The temperatures are very much like Warm Season 1 and it’s not so hot as to kill some of the more sensitive plants. You can grow those same plants in Warm Season 1 like the tomatoes, beans, cucumbers, and zucchini. I also like to plant my onions and garlic near the end of this season. Onions and garlic will take a long time to grow so planting them when the weather starts to get pleasant again will prepare them for “overwintering” into the cooler season.

The fourth and final season we have in zone 9 is the “Cool Season”. The cool season is from late December until February. In this season we can start growing plants like lettuce, kale, swiss chard, broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, and sugar snap peas. Our weather really doesn’t get below freezing most of the time. If it does these plants will be able to withstand the low temperatures and not die. There are some fruits you can grow in this zone and I have had some great success. Cantaloupe is great for Warm Season 1, strawberries love the cooler season, and anything citrus grows in the south.

One thing every gardener needs to keep in mind when growing their own food; there will be triumphs but there will also be failures. Pests will get the better of you, plants will die even when you do all of the right things, and some plants will just grow without producing any fruit or vegetables. All of these things doesn’t mean you get to quit or that you are bad at gardening. You just need to do a little more research and try again. Grow what you will eat and not to just grow something. Make sure to always give yourself some credit for things you did get right and always keep learning and growing.         

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Election

-
This post is dedicated to my 6 nephews and nieces.  I’m not in touch with the younger set (two nieces, one nephew, who are in their early 20s) but I will alert them as best i can about this blog post.  I am in touch with the older set (also two nieces, one nephew, who are in their mid 30s).  I’m writing this post to them and all the young people I know (for purposes of this blog post, i am including anyone under 40).   When I was in 9 th grade, we had a subject called Civics.   I don’t know when things changed in the world of school subjects, but I’m fairly sure Civics isn’t taught anymore, which I think is a real shame.   I’ve always been grateful for an education about how the political system works.   We learned that there were 3 branches of government at the federal level.   You’d be surprised at the number of people who don’t know that.   We were taught that voting matters.     Right now it matters A LOT.   We h...
Read more

Coronavirus

-
Some thoughts on the subject, which I hope will help you. Be careful where you get your information .   Don’t listen to Pence or Trump; they have a political agenda of minimizing what is going on.   Trump has been spewing nonsense.   His only goal is to make the stock market stabilize, so he can say the economy is good, so he can get re-elected. The only 100% reliable source is the Centers for Disease Control .   Their website is cdc.gov .   Please check this out now.   It has all the information you need to know. Don’t read tabloids .   Their goal is to boost readership, and they do this by ginning up the worst gossip about the virus. Gossip or Nihilism :   When your friends talk gossip or scenarios where everyone dies, either ignore them and don’t discuss the virus with them again, or tell them about the CDC website. Once per day :   Promise yourself you will only read about the epidemic once per day.   Go to the...
Read more

White

-
If you are from the South, this entry may make sense to you.   If you are from the North or West or Midwest, you may wind up scratching your head.   Nonetheless: I was born in 1952 in New Orleans, Louisiana.   I don’t remember playing with any black kids.   In 1957 we moved to Metaire, a suburb of New Orleans.   Sociologists would say we were part of “white flight”, white families moving out of the city to live in all-white neighborhoods (and to be away from Negroes).   I am 67 now, so none of my early memories seem crystal clear. My exposure to black people, for many years, was limited to our maids, a succession of black ladies who came once a week.   We were strictly middle class, but most families on our block had a maid.   They were usually paid $5 a day, plus car fare (they took the bus that dropped them off at Veterans Highway and the entrance to our subdivision, called Bissonet Plaza).   They worked from about 8 to 5. ...
Read more