Final Update of My Texas Winter Garden

Spinach and Radishes in Greenhouse

With my time in Texas coming to an end it is time to wrap up my cool season growing experiment.  Over all my results are definitive with the Lettuce, Spinach, Radish and Beets growing much better than the Lettuce and Spinach that was exposed to the elements.  The picture on the left shows how well the spinach and radishes grew in the greenhouse right before I harvested for a meal.  The salad I enjoyed was a simple spinach and lettuce mix with sliced radishes on top.


Texas Salad

With these results and the quality I enjoyed I am really looking foreword to the upcoming growing season where I will be growing more leafy greens and root vegetables like these and also many other plants yet to be decided on.  I will be starting over in a brand new garden space that has most likely never seen a shovel and will 'hopefully' provide a good base on which to grow enough food to feed me and my friends for a entire year. 

Cover Crops
My cover crops of Winter Rye and Hairy Vetch are doing better since my last update.  They have both put on about 1-3 inches of growth above ground.  This extra growth is exciting since it will have added even more biomass both above and below ground and will have fixed more nitrogen into the soil.  This addition of biomass increases the organic matter content in the soil and will help provide nutrients for future plants.  The final step to complete the use of cover crops is terminating the crop and incorporating it into the soil.


Cover Crop Bed- Pre-Cultivating

 To the left you will see a picture showing my Winter Rye and Hairy Vetch Cover Crop just before I dug it up.  Below is a picture depicting the bed after I dug the cover crop in.  Digging a cover crop in helps terminate the plants and its aids in the decomposition and release of the organic nutrients contained in the plants. 




Cover Crop Pest- Post-Cultivation

This winter was a learning experience for me as I delved into greenhouse gardening and tried to grow crops over the cool season time of year.  In retrospect I can find plenty of choices I would have made differently given the opportunity.  I would have used a thicker plastic and made better efforts to seal up the greenhouse right off the bat.  I also would have planted at greater densities so I would have more produce to enjoy before I head back to the wintry north. 



This year I begin a great experiment of trying to produce enough food to feed myself and three of my friends.  We shall be doing it at a place I like to call Learning Curve Gardens because what we are doing will require a steep learning curve for all of us.  The gardens will be a intensively managed all natural vegetable, fruit, meat and egg operation with the goal of growing enough food to feed us over the year and maybe even share with others in our local neighborhood.

I will hopefully be making regular posts (as time allows) about the garden and my activities on it as the summer progresses and will be sharing what I find about the this lifestyle experiment as I go along.  Updates will be posted on the Learning Curves Garden page found at the top of the blog.

Until next time my fellow environmentalists.

Josh