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Good idea Annie. Even though I live in zone 3, where we have snow and cold temps in the winter, I would love to see pictures of things growing and blooming and hearing what the warmer climate gardeners are doing. It would help me get through the winter doldrums!

I'm posting a picture from earlier in the year, just to get started. I need to get my camera back to functional mode before I can post new ones.

This picture gives an example of what you can do in the high desert. I use rock mulch because it doesn't blow away in sandstorms. I have a soaker hose buried in this rock garden, so that I can water occasionally when it is really hot and dry. Both the white yarrow and the lavender are quite drought and heat tolerant. Many of the plants in this bed bloom sporadically throughout the year. Right now in this bed, my rosemary is blooming, also cherry sage, hollyhocks, lavender, and the grape hyacith is about to burst forth after being dormant all summer. Lemon thyme is ready to use.

My fall veggie garden is in full production. I need to go out and pick beans now. I have a large salad in the frig made mostly from the garden. Yesterday I made a pot of soup based on what was ready to eat in the garden. I use buried soaker hoses in the veggie garden, hooked up to a water timer, so that I don't waste water. Water is quite expensive here, and every drop counts. I'm sure I'll get into more detail later.

I live in Central Texas in the middle of zone 8. The average last frost occurs the first week of March; the average first frost occurs the third week of November. That sounds like I should have an eight month growing season, but I really have two growing seasons separated by devastating heat.

In a "normal" year rainfall should be 32.5 inches, falling mainly April through June, and Sept. through Nov. Our low winter temperature will be mid-teens, and our highest summer temperature will be 100° to 105°. However, we don't get many mid-teen mornings, and those occur usually in Jan. We rarely get snow; more often it's sleet or freezing rain. Most of our wildflower seeds germinate with the fall rains, and overwinter hugging the ground. They are ready to flower and set seed before the summer heat begins.

There are many spring flowers that are best started in fall in the south. Pansies for sure, but also snapdragons, stocks, calendula, sweet alyssum, china pinks and sweet William, larkspur, and Iceland poppy. They are all frost tolerant in my area, and many are available as transplants from the nursery. Not all of these winter annuals bloom during the winter, but they will provide spring bloom as soon as the weather moderates.

Ipheion uniflorum (picture above) is a low-growing, spring-blooming bulb that produces leaves in fall when the rains return. The blooms are six-petaled, blue with lighter centers, with the common name of Spring Starflower. They prefer a dry summer, and so are perfect for this area. The also stand some shade. My mother always planted ranunculas during the winter even though they are only half-hardy. The bulbs would sprout and stay small, then grow quickly and bloom in spring. She would dig them up after the foliage withered and store the tubers inside till the following winter.

Great info.......I am one of the northern transplants to Central Texas. I have been told that there are two growing seasons but I have just been working on getting veggies started early enough in the spring.......this past spring I had a great garden until the deer decided to eat it totaly one nite !
So I planted a fall garden (a bit late) the beans were doing great and just starting to blossom and the lettuce was getting almost eating size..........and the rains came.....I had 4 inches overnite......the beans are all laying down and the lettuce is just as sad.....hopefully they will recover!
Is there a good guidline as to when to start planting in spring and fall?

I think this topic could be very useful to anyone who has moved from north to south, and east to west, perhaps for retirement, especially to get the input of people who are accustomed to gardening fall through winter. So please, if you're a successful warm climate gardener, tell us how you're doing it, what you're growing when, and above all, where you are.

I have found in talking with many of my neighbors here in NM, that they have become convinced that it is impossible to garden here in the high desert, because nothing they learned about gardening "back east" works here. The soil is so bad, everything burns out instead of growing in the summer, it's so expensive to have a decent lawn, etc. This relatively new city was developed and advertized as a retirement destination, so most of the people living here came from more northern and typically more eastern places.

One of the issues which complicate matters here, is microclimates. What zone am I in?. Technically 7b, I suppose, but ... It depends on whether you're in a heavily populated area or out of town, whether you're in the valley or up on the mountainside, which side of the mountain you're on, even which side of your house you're on, and whether or not your yard is walled, which is a common landscape item here. Because the altitude right here is high and higher, the weather is more extreme, the sun is more intense, and the wind can be quite destructive. How do you figure out what will grow here, and when? Well, not from reading just any gardening book, and not from watching Victory Gardens on TV. The best answer is to find somebody who is successful here and find out what they're doing. That's the biggest reason why we should all share our knowhow.

My veggie garden as of this morning.



This photo doesn't show quite all of it, but my veggie garden is 100' x 18" wide. Why such a strange shape, you may be wondering, when I obviously have enough yard space to spread out. Answer: because it works better for multiple reasons. It took me a few years of experimenting to figure it all out.

Generally speaking I'm in that finger of Zone 7b which goes up the Rio Grande Valley to Albuquerque. But Albuquerque is Zone 8a. I myself am up out of ABQ to the northwest, but still in a city environment. In my sheltered back yard, I can easily do zone 8a or even 8b. It's all about location, location, and location. Average annual rainfall here is slightly under 8". Altitude at my house is around 6000'. So we're high desert. Last frost date in the spring can be as early as late January or as late as May 1. First frost in the fall can be as early as mid September or as late as mid December. But if you try to limit your gardening to between May 1 and September 15, which newcomers often do, you will almost surely fail. Summers can be prohibitively hot, dry and windy, oh, not as bad as Phoenix, but bad enough.

I am fortunate that before I moved here from Ohio, I was into organic intensive gardening. It opened my mind to the value of observing conditions on the ground and acting accordingly. There is no such thing as risk-free gardening here. The best gardening times carry the ever-present threat of a cold snap taking out everything.

I have also lived and gardened in FL and AK.

Front Door Oasis



This is a corner of the flower bed near my front door. It is fairly shady, which helps keep it from burning out in the summer. I've tried a number of perennial flowers in it. There's even a red currant bush next to the door, which is good for a batch of currant jelly every year. I water this bed on a fairly regular basis in the summer to keep it going.

The airy thing in front is a Pink Siskyou gaura, and behind it is a yellow gazania.

Fall Carrots, Turnips & Onions



The onions are Lisbon bunching, which keep on going as long as you leave a few behind to multiply by division, that is, each one splits into two or four. This patch has been there for about 3 years. They winter over beautifully.

This is my best year yet for turnips and carrots. They don't like to germinate in the heat and low humidity of summer. They bolt to seed here if you plant them in the spring. I plant for fall during our "monsoon" season, which is usually mid July through August. The temperature is typically still in the 90's but cooler, and we get most of what little rain we get during this time, so it is not quite so bone dry.

My trick for getting them to germinate, is to plant radishes between the rows. The turnips are in two rows 12" apart parallel to the soaker hose, I planted the radishes between them. The carrots are planted even closer, in rows about 8" apart, across the soaker hose, and I planted radishes between each of those rows. The area has to be kept constantly moist until everything comes up, which can be difficult if the humidity is 10% or less. Once the radishes are up they shade the area and hold in moisture under their leaves which helps the carrots and turnips to germinate. Pull the radishes out when they are big enough to eat, and the carrots and turnips will be ready to grow on their own. If they are well mulched with pine needles, they will last through most winters. I have a ready supply of the pine needles, as my neighbor's tree extends over my garden and if the wind is blowing, they all wind up in my yard.

Fall Green Beans



Green beans are fairly easy to grow here. They need afternoon shade in the summer. Those planted in spring need to be covered on cool nights. Likewise those planted for fall. The other great problem with beans is they really don't like a bad sandstorm, it can rip the leaves to shreds.

Let me expound on why I have a long skinny garden instead of a square or rectangular one with rows, in case you were wondering.

The first benefit is that the wall protects tender veggies from strong winds and hot sandstorms.

Second, the wall moderates temperatures both up and down. It holds heat and radiates it at night, and holds the cool of the ground on the other side of the wall and radiates it during the day. Given that this area has daily extremes of temperature, tender plants are happier where the changes are dampened down.

Third, the sun bites really hard here because of the high altitude and lack of humidity in the air. Especially in the summertime, afternoon shade is essential for tender veggies to survive.

Hi nubee, I see you're struggling with Texas. I don't really know TX, since I never lived there, but a rule of thumb might be to plant when there's likely to be rain, and the weather is not actively freezing. I wonder if mindshift above is in your area? Your local library probably has garden books written specifically for your area. Actually I learned a lot talking to my dentist when I first moved here. Mention your interest in gardening when you meet people. Most passionate gardeners will be happy to spill the beans on gardening in your area.

If you're Zone 8, try planting cool weather veggies in February. I always do peas, onions, spinach, etc. then, even though there's still a substantial risk of frost.

It sounds like you're in an area of potential heavy rainfall. One of the ways to deal with that is to make raised beds, which are more resistant to flooding. Sometimes it helps to plant things in closer together too, rather than in widely separated rows, which would be more subject to soil erosion and wind damage.

My favorite setting for teaching intensive gardening techniques is a 4' x l6' raised bed.

I have taken inspiration from a book called Square Foot Gardening,, which has been recently redone. The author gets too picky for me though. Another one that I learned a lot from was Joy of Gardening by Dick Raymond. It's about widerow intensive gardening. It may not even be in print anymore, I haven't seen it in a while. A third one I liked is How to Grow More Veggies by John Jeavons, it's an old hippy homesteading book, may be out of print as well.