Planning

Last winter, I was pouring over the seed catalogs in eager anticipation of warmer days and bountiful harvests. This summer, I am having a little more trouble getting worked up about the fall crop. Why you ask? Because last winter I could predict what was going to happen for the next 8 months and be through the full season without major worries or upsets. Minor ones such as what is going to be eating my plants other than me just go with the territory. The upcoming season does not have that surety.

Most of that insecurity has to do with the purchase of a new home. And a move into that home. I am on track to buy a new home between October 2010 and February 2011. August and September are typical planting times for many crops in the Houston area. Those crops should be finished by first frost. I am hoping that the home purchase will be completed a little closer to February when my lease ends. However, the ones that I am most concerned about planting are the allium crops and carrots. Both take a very long time to mature and both refuse to transplant well at all. I may just have to suck it up and plant my garlic in a movable container and skip the onions this year. Or talk my mom into planting them in her garden.

For the most part however, I am planning on planting broccoli, spinach, carrots (still iffy on this), cabbage, lettuces, getting a fall crop of tomatoes from existing plants, pumpkins, another round of squashes, and keeping my perennial herbs going.