This site is operated by Bob Randall, Ph.D. to make it easy to get information about the book Year Round Vegetables, Fruits and Flowers for Metro-Houston: A Natural Organic Approach Using Ecology.
The book is in its 12th edition and its first edition as a booklet was 1986.
History of
Year Round Vegetables, Fruits and Flowers for Metro-Houston
© Robert A. Randall
Stapled versions
Used for Houston’s First Organic Gardening Class
1st edition 1986 14 pp booklet used for classes
2nd edition 1987 36 pp
3rd edition 1988 48 pp
4th edition 1989 67 pp
Stapled versions
Early Marketed Versions
5th edition 1990 72 pp
6th edition 1991 108 pp
7th edition 1992 145 pp
Spiral Bound Plastic Covered
8th Edition, 1993; 195 pp
Medium green with earliest form of modern “ecosystem” cover. Has an ear of corn, grapes and dragonfly. No printed back.
9th Edition, 1994; 229 pp
Medium light green cover, no “Executive Director, Urban Harvest ” on cover. No printed back.
10th Edition, 1998 263 pp,
Medium dark green, “Executive Director, Urban Harvest” on cover. No printed back.
Spiral Bound Plastic Cover Front and Back
11th Edition, 1999 294 pp
White with picture of author on back.
12th Edition, 2006 318 pp,
1st Edition: New Gardening Book with Different Title, 2019, 511 pp. Sold at Southeast Texas sites listed on the home page. Year-Round Food Gardening for Houston and Southeast Texas: Growing Organic Vegetables, Fruits, Spices, and Culinary Herbs Using Nature, Ecology, and Permaculture. 2019, 511 pp.
Yellow with picture of author on back. Major changes in vegetable and fruit sections
Comments
Hello Dr. Randall,
I wondered if you could give me an approximate date of when the 13th edition of “Year Round Vegetables, Fruits and Flowers for Metro Houston” will be published? I saw a co-worker’s copy of an older version, but I think I’ll wait for the 13th edition before I get my own copy.
Tammy
I don’t know precisely when the 13th edition will be in print. I have started working on it. The earliest will be January 2012, but it could be 2013.
Bob
Hi Dr. Randall, I saw you wonderful garden with John Kohler’s youtube. Just wanted to check that you/family are okay since the horrible flooding. Please communicate when you see this. My prayers are with you. Also my email is bunyshoes@aol.com. Brigitte from California
Glad you like it. We had 36 inches in 4 days during Harvey, but being a permaculture designer helped here. The permaculture idea is that water flows from up to down and fire from down to up. We are in a flat wet area, so live near to the watershed between two bayous and move water from the roof to cisterns to downhill from the house. We only lost one Collards plant in Harvey.
Now in dry steep areas, fire is a bigger danger so be closer to the bottom. Top lightening and bottom flood are bad in both climates. We don’t have mud slides or earthquakes thank goodness.
Jeetom,
My co-author Mark Bowen and I are working on an update to the 2006 12th edition, but there is a great deal still to do. There will not be a new edition before fall 2013, and possibly it could be more than a year from now.
Bob
Where and how can I buy your book?
Constantin
There is a category on the main page called “Where to Find the Book” which you will see if you scroll down through the categories. Good explanation there
Thank you sir for this book! I’ve used it for years and it is my go-to housewarming gift!
Now that it is January 2014, do you have an idea of when we might expect the 13th edition to be available?
Pam: Mark Bowen and I have concluded that the next edition will have a gradual roll out a few chapters at a time since it is not feasible to do the kind of comprehensive rewrite all at once. I have been working on fruits between March and September each year and should have major changes on that sometime in early to late summer. I expect Mark will have some significant updates on the non human food plants portion (what is called ornamentals/ flowers in the present edition, but will take on a rather different emphasis in the next one).
Your latest book. 13th edition where do I find one?
Good Evening Dr. Randall,
I am enjoying your book very much. We are moving to a more organic approach in part due to your influence. Despite your advice that time may be better spent growing something other than tomatoes, I am growing tomatoes. I hope to can enough for the winter.
In the 12th edition, page 198, the text in the right column is covered by Figure 21. Is there someplace where I can find the blocked 1-2 paragraphs? I know it is not a lot of text, but given my tomato obsession, I am sure it would be helpful to my efforts.
Thank you for your time,
Ed Hudson, Ph.D.
Tomatoes
Comments: Tomatoes rarely taste as good as ones grown in the northern US, because some of the tastiest varieties (such as Brandywine) have poor pest toler-ance in the South and are grown here with difficulty. Tomatoes also taste best when ripened at about 80˚ noon temperature and that is a near impossibility either in our spring season or fall season. Many of us try a few new ones each year in the hope we will get a great taste. We do, however, have two crops, and some growers get tomatoes year round by concerted effort. Almost any home grown variety will be light years ahead of the international trucked in stuff.
Tomatoes are one of the most difficult Houston area vegetables to grow, but good results are reliably achieved without poisons, if certain fairly easy proce-dures are followed, and a certain amount of loss is tolerated. The most important thing you can do is make efforts to get early crops before heat or cold ruins them.
Classification: tomato family
Varieties: Many nurseries have good transplant varie-ties in late February and some again in July. Some of the best varieties can only be gotten by growing your own. Also, you want to plant in mid-February to early March the largest plant you can manage, so getting large plants at this time is not easy or cheap. You can grow your own inside under a shop light or in summer in light shade. By doing this, you can plant very large plants in the spring, and get a large early production.
There are not many differences in taste among large tomatoes. The best tasting large one is Pink Brandywine, but it is so late, so poor producing, and so apt to get diseases, that I usually don’t grow it. The Texas Wild Tomato and Sweet Chelsea are, in many people’s opinion, the best of the rest. The first is only as big as a pinto bean, but the second is a plum sized cherry. Both are early, produce over a long season, and are disease resistant.
There are a large number of large tomatoes which have little difference in flavor. Some regularly produce more than others. Some are especially early, and highly de-sirable. Overall, Carmello and Champion are some of the best. Arkansas Traveler is a fine tasting tomato that is the best non-hybrid; Marmande is a productive early non-hybrid that dies early. Big Beef and Merced are very large, very disease resistant hybrids of ordinary taste. Celebrity, Bingo, and Carnival all do well, as does President and Early Girl. A yellow tomato Sweet Gold is pretty good too. There are a large number of heirlooms that keep life interesting. New York’s Dr. Caroline Male has written a book on “The 100 best Heirlooms”, but I haven’t been impressed with the first dozen I tried. Evergreen is a variety grown especially for fried green tomatoes.
Hardiness type: warm, tomatoes like the same tem-peratures unprotected people do
Seeds: per 1/10 oz.: 1150, seed stores 4-5 years
Amount to grow:10-20 plants depending on weather you will can tomatoes or freeze salsa.
Temperatures: Sprouting range: 60-85˚;Ideal sprout-ing sprouting 85˚; transplants need 60˚+ at night; best growth: 70-75˚; pollination night 55-70˚, day less than 85˚.
Plant height: 3-10 ft.
Planting date Tomatoes need to set fruit during the few weeks each spring or fall when it is neither cold nor hot. You therefore need to grow transplants and set them out. If it were not for alternaria (early blight), tomatoes would do best in the same place every year. However, this disease which causes target-like spots on leaves and the loss of leaves, is best controlled by rota-tion. You can fight nematodes by planting rye grass the summer before, and you probably will have problems if you don’t plant nematode resistant tomatoes (VFN).
Planting depth: 1/2 in.
Spacing without rows: 2 ft minimum . Tomatoes need to be planted at least two feet apart, and be supported by well-staked cages 5 ft high (see below). However, tomatoes tend to pass diseases and pests from plant to plant, so it is important to space tomatoes as widely apart as possible. The best is to separate them all over the garden.
Approximate days to harvest. if temperatures are in the 60-95˚ range, seeds grow to transplant size in about 6 weeks. Transplants go to flowering stage in another 6 weeks, and ripe fruit appears in another 6 weeks. Har-vest lasts: 8-10 weeks for indeterminate varieties de-pending on the weather.
Spring Crop:
The whole trick is to get as large a flowering plant as possible by the time night temperatures reach 55˚, and before either day time temperatures are over 85˚ or night temperatures are over 70˚.. With luck, you get tomatoes in early May and the first half of June. Then you pull out the plants or if you have successfully pre-vented stink bugs continue to harvest into July.
To do this, plant seeds for the spring crop about Jan 1-10 and keep warm in a greenhouse, or in the house a few inches below a florescent light 16 hours per day. You need to keep tomatoes not only from freezing, but also from getting cold, since this cuts down growth and freezes kill them. Night temperatures of 55-60˚ is best.
The best tomatoes are grown by planting in a 4 inch square or bigger pot with good potting soil such as Gardenville’s all compost based soil (INWITH). Then feed regularly with fish fertilizer or a balanced soil food pre-mixed into the soil (such as Soil Food or Mi-croLife p. 121). It is important to keep the plants grow-ing with a large enough pot and fertilizer such as fish emulsion. Move to a gallon pot as soon as possible (if you have space), and as large as possible otherwise. The smaller the pot, the more crucial regular fertilizer is. Once they are up, they need plenty of sun or bright light.
When to plant: To plant, wait until February or March, when conditions have warmed and the 7 day forecast shows no sign of a bad cold wave. Transplants should not yet have open flowers or they may produce poorly. Then if you can protect well from frost with containers such as the highly recommended Aqua Dome (see p. 32), set the whole plant out. With these, you can plant Feb 7 in most of the area because the plants will not out grow the Plant Houses before March 1.
You can also protect plants well from frost by put-ting a 5 gal pot, waste basket, or pail in a plastic trash bag. Then fold the mouth of the bag into the interior of the pot. Place the whole double insulated pot over the plant, and weight it down with something heavy. If you can’t protect, wait to early March (mid-March north of FM1960 or west of Highway 6) and be prepared to cover from frost. If you have a rare late freeze, and there are too many to cover, just go out and dig up the plants and replant inside for a day or two.
Planting: Dig a hole and put a handful of Soil Food or Microlife in, mix it, then add about a teaspoon of soft phosphate. Plant the transplant so as to bury most of the plant except true leaves. Fertilize transplants with fish emulsion well initially and if you wish at 24 hours, 48 hours, 72 hours after transplanting. Then do not fertilize until tiny tomatoes are visible. Too much ni-trogen before fruit set will get you leaves and nothing else
Spring Care: As soon as you plant, mulch with hay, pine needles, or native mulch and newspaper. This pre-vents soil born fungus splashing onto leaves. Then sur-round the plant with an effective windbreak to prevent wind born fungus and to keep the plant warn and grow-ing at night.
The easy way to do this is to use a Plant House (see frost protection). Otherwise, use a 8 ft long by 3-5 ft high plastic or row cover covering on a 5 ft remesh cage. Do not cover the top of the cage. Secure with string, wire or plastic clothespins. If you use cages, stake the cage well with rebar or tent stakes on two sides, since a plastic covered cage will act like a sail-boat in a high wind. Keep the plastic or plant house on the tomato until daytime temperatures are 80˚ or above on a regular basis and your plants have flowers.
After the first visible fruit, fertilize with balanced or-ganic, bat guano or other quick nitrogen fertilizer. You can spray with SeaMix™ or a similar product weekly once the first small fruits are visible.
Summer Crop
Most summer tomatoes– even the so-called summer ones like heatwave, solarset and surefire are nearly a waste of time. Sunmaster has been better in some trials and the tiny Texas Wild is always relaible. After the first week in July, and probably much earlier, all to-mato plants will be disease and pest infected. You can plant seeds of summer varieties in early May. In spring and fall, they need sun, but in summer they grow best in light shade with a few hours of morning sun. Some cherry tomatoes like Sweet Chelsea and Pink Pearl will go through the summer and produce in the Fall, but the summer tomatoes are tasteless and useful only for cooking. Texas Wild Tomato keeps its flavor. It is pinto bean size, but delicious all summer. The birds think so too.
Fall Crop
Fall crops are often better because there are less suck-ing bugs in the late fall and because there usually is less wet weather to promote leaf diseases in the fall. Plant the fall crop where onions, corn or garlic were in the Spring, so as to prevent nematodes. Plant the fall crop in pots about June 25 and keep away from pests in light shade. Pots will get too hot in the summer sun, and roots will burn otherwise. Tomatoes need to be in the ground by July 25 and it doesn’t matter how big the plants are at this date. This is because of the times when fall temperatures drop to ones that allow toma-toes to pollinate: lower than 85˚ in the day and above 55˚ at night. At international airport, these temperatures first appearance average September 21 and their de-mise averages to be October 29. So you need to plant seeds about six weeks before September 21. Of course, if you live in a place significantly colder or warmer, adjust.
When setting out plants in late July, keep shaded but not dark with board supported on rocks or pots. Do this for 1-2 weeks until well established. Use the same planting care as for the spring, except don’t wrap cages in plastic.
Need for good Cages. The old time staking approach is inferior as are all commercial tomato cages. You must make your own cages. Plants should never grow down as they do when they grow to the top of small cages. Tomatoes tend to stop bearing when the vines spill downwards on low cages. Plants also need room to spread so they dry out in 3 hours and avoid fungus. Also spring tomatoes especially need leaves over them to protect them from the sun. A pruned plant on a stake will produce a lot of bad tomatoes, the pruning can introduce diseases, and pruning is more work than making good cages. If you don’t have cages, do any-thing to keep vines off the ground.
How to Make Cages: Tomato plants are very heavy. You need very stiff, strong material. If you can cut it without bolt cutters, it will probably bend in a year or two. Tomatoes should be put in cylinder cages made out of 7 ft lengths of remesh or hog fencing at least 5 feet high with 6 inch square holes. Anything less strong will bend under tomato weight. Slightly larger cages are more stable. Remesh is rusty and will ruin clothes. You need bolt cutters to make them. Remesh is avail-able from Home Depot and Montalbano— about 20 cages for $40. It lasts a lifetime, but it is yuck work. It is used in highways and sidewalks.
WABASH FEED sells a more expensive galvanized cage wire that is strong, more durable, and much more attractive. Even more expensive, and even better is an easily collapsible yet sturdy galvanized cage costing about $15 each (see http://www.tomatocages.com). If you can afford the galvanized types, you should.
For the Sweet Chelsea variety, you may want to wire a second cage on top of the first and put a pole or rebar piece inside to stake and tie, so as to get a ten ft cage!
Pest Control: Tomatoes suffer from many leaf spot diseases, blights, stinkbugs, birds and caterpillars. These are mainly problems found in hot weather, so early varieties planted early and large will have many fewer problems. If you are trying to harvest in late June, you are asking for trouble.
By separating plants, using large cages, and clear plas-tic, you can help a lot too. A well-designed native per-ennial garden with dill, fennel, and cilantro will bring in predator insects and result in few caterpillars..
To reduce fungus damage of leaves, pick off lower diseased leaves, and put a clean under tomatoes to dis-courage soil diseases getting on leaves. Once there are quite a few leaf branches, begin to pick off or prune off lower branches, crossing branches, tightly touching leaves, to keep leaves away from soil and get air under plant and around leaves so they will dry.
Even so, nearly all tomatoes will go under if there is hot wet weather for weeks on end. A fungicide will save them, but I rarely bother. When tomato vines are finished, take all of them and mulch them a long way from the vegetable garden (under the figs). This is im-portant to remove fungus spores. Also, do not plant tomatoes or potatoes there for 3 years if possible.
When tomatoes get ripe, they probably will be attacked by stink bugs (green, gray, especially leaf-footed; see) and perhaps by thirsty or hungry birds.
Stinkbugs: Leaf-footed stinkbugs have small red off-spring that look very much like beneficial assassin bugs. Juvenile leaf-foots have a large flat upper rear leg. In March or April, if you find a group of small red bugs on tomatoes or blackberries, especially with a large leaf-footed stink bug, you should probably as-sume they are juvenile stink bugs and kill them. By doing this you may save yourself many months of problems. If they are on any other plant (such as beans) and found alone, they are probably assassin bugs and should be helped. Always kill every stink bug you see. I grab them with my fingers and squash them under foot. if you kill all stinkbugs, you will eventually have almost none.
If you have too many stinkbugs at the moment, pick the tomatoes when they first color slightly. In taste tests, it has been found that tomatoes ripened indoors in good temperatures out of the shade and away from roaches, taste just as good, and often have less insect and rot problems. This will also fight bird damage.
If you get fruit worm or army worm caterpillars, spray with a BT product.
If birds are problem, be sure you are providing regular water in a water bath. This makes birds less thirsty and also attracts insect eaters. You can avoid fruit eaters like mockingbirds by planting plenty of small berries—Texas wild tomato, elderberry, lantana, honeysuckle, blackberry, blueberry, fig, etc.
Diseases Good vegetable seed catalogs such as SOUTHERNE list disease resistance for the different tomatoes. To use this information, you need to diag-nose what is giving you trouble. Fungicides like liquid copper or naturally resistant plants should prevent these problems, as also anything you can do to prevent spread by wind (row covers and plant separation); by soil spread (mulch), disposal of old vines, rotation), or by water spread (keep leaves dry).
On the whole, it doesn’t matter a whole lot what the disease problem is. After the first year, you will get them, and it is a lot of work to fungicide regularly. Some common Houston tomato diseases from most important to least include: Tomato early blight fungus (Alternaria solani), Cotton root-knot nematode and Southern root-knot nematode (Meloidogyne incognita ) (eel worms); Tomato fusarium wilt races 1 & 2 (Fusarium oxysporum), Tomato Family Gray leaf spot fungus (Stemphylium solani), Tomato leaf mold fungus (Cladosporium fulvum), Tobacco Mosaic Virus, To-mato anthracnose fungus (Glomerella phomoides), Tomato late blight fungus (Phytophera infestans), Ver-ticillium wilt fungus (Verticillium albo-atrum), Tomato septoria leaf spot fungus blight (Septoria lycopersici), Tomato spotted wilt virus.
Harvest & use . Any tomato that has turned to light green will ripen, so pick when they turn pink to avoid either birds in the spring or frost in the fall. If you want to preserve flavor, don’t put them in the fridge. An excellent salsa can be made by putting tomatoes in a blender with chiles, parsley or cilantro, garlic, lime juice and bell peppers.
Then there are green tomatoes. You can make any recipe for tomato sauce or hot sauce with half red and half green tomatoes.
Fried Green Tomatoes: You can make them in a num-ber of ways: the most healthful being one from Rodale: Get 1 C whole-wheat flour or cornmeal, 1.5 teaspoons pepper, 6 large green tomatoes sliced into 1/2 inch slices, 2 Tbs. cooking oil, 1 Tbs. fresh basil or 1/4 tea-spoon dried basil. Mix the flour or meal with the pep-per and dredge the tomato slices in the flour/meal. Put oil in a heavy skillet and when very hot, put tomatoes in one layer high. Lower heat and cook till light brown on one side, turn carefully and cook until inside is ten-der and other side is brown. Put on hot dish and con-tinue to cook all.
The more traditional recipe uses 1 C cornmeal, 1/2 C flour, 1 Tbs. sugar, 4-5 medium green tomatoes sliced 1/2 in thick, oil or shortening, salt, freshly ground black pepper. Mix cornmeal, flour and sugar in bowl, dredge slices in coating pressing firmly. Heat 1/4 inch oil in skillet at medium high, and add slices slowly not crowding. Fry until golden brown about 2 min. Flip, brown, put on paper towels to drain and salt & pepper them.
Storage: Store mature green tomatoes at 55-73˚ and ripe ones at 55-60˚. Green ones do not produce ethyl-ene thereby ripening or spoiling other susceptible crops stored with them, but red ones produce some. Both are easily ruined by ethylene, so separate your ripe toma-toes on a counter rather than put them in a bowl to-gether. Salsas are easily frozen or canned. Tomatoes are a good reason to learn canning. http://www1.uwex.edu/ces/pubs/ in the food and nutri-tion section has a good explanation of how to make salsa. The recipe can be adapted for tomatoes.
Which is the latest edition? Or when is the newest edition estimated to be released?
Thank you
The latest edition of Year Round Vegetables, Fruits and Flowers for Greater Houston is the 12th edition. It has a yellow cover. It was last revised in 2004 and is clearly in need of an overhaul and update. The same can be said for Mark Bowen’s three books on habitat landscaping, but those are out of print. Mark and I have been working on changes as time permits.
In fall 2015, I expect to release either a 13th edition of the old book with a major overhaul in the fruits and pest management sections, with other changes in autumn of following years, or the first edition of a new book tentatively called “Year Round Gardening for Southeast Texas” that will include those changes plus newly worked chapters by Mark on plants not used for human food. All of this depends on the amount of free time each of us has to write, but the date at which it will happen is very highly likely this year.
When is your newly edited book coming out? Dr. Natelson recommended your book to me.
Thanks,
Robert Strickland
Robert, In fall or early winter 2015, I expect to release either:
• A 13th edition of the old book with a major overhaul in the fruits and pest management sections or
• The first edition of a new book tentatively called “Year Round Gardening for Southeast Texas“ that will include those changes plus newly worked chapters by Mark Bowen on plants not used for human food.
We update the book progress quarterly in a section to the left called The New Edition
There will then be changes in autumn of following years. All of this depends on the amount of free time each of us has to write, but the date at which it will happen is this year. As of July 2015, an adequate draft of the fruits chapters has been finished and I am well into the Pest Management chapter. Mark is moving ahead with his chapters on habitat and other landscapes. So something will definitely be out in late fall or early winter.
Where can I find sweet potato spinach?
You need to root a cutting during early summer. This is easy if you know someone who has it. I have emailed you to find out where you are located so I can make a suggestion as to source.
I’m interested in finding sweet potato spinach as well. I live in Orange County
Donnie. I lost that variety in the 2020 freeze. Any sweet potato greens provide the same leaf quality. You may be able to grow any sweet potatoes for greens in clay and shade. You just won’t get tubers worth eating. Are you in Orange County Texas, California, or Florida? It probably doesn’t make much of a difference as far as this topic.
Dr. Randall,
Any news on the projected date of release for the 13th edition of your book?
Thanks,
Robert Strickland
I still don’t have a date but am making a lot of progress. I have completed two much changed fruit tree chapters and one pest management chapter. I am nearly through with a major rewrite of the first vegetable chapter. I’m not sure what more will change in the next edition but my hope and intention is to get the new chapters incorporated by late fall or perhaps early winter.
Thank you.
Robert Strickland
Never mind picking up the book at urban harvest today. Thank You.
Is there a way to get the book?
Virna
The new version will be out in 1-2 months. July 2019 I expect. At that time, I will post under where to get the book on this website.
Is your 13th edition available for purchase?
Yes. It has a different name so is not exactly a 13th edition, but it is the equivalent of one. You should see information at the top of the page as to where to buy it.
Where can I purchase the newest edition?
See the home page of this site.
At the time you were writing your most recent edition The Ground Up was still locally owned and FarmDirt didn’t produce soil mix yet. Have you gotten any feedback from your readers or found out on your own about these soils?
I haven’t heard any feedback on either. If and when I update the soils chapter, I will again try to determine what local suppliers are doing and other details about them. One of the difficulties of writing a comprehensive book is that the world is dynamic and keeps changing. I’ll check their websites and look forward to commentary about their products either from customers or the companies.
Hello,
My garden club would love to have you speak at one of our meetings. Could you provide contact information so we could discuss dates and details?
12th edition pg 198 has tomato stake picture over a line or two. What are the hidden lines? Thanks ( great info)! Craig. ctopham2000@gmail.com
We dealt with this regrettable problem in the period of 2006-2012. The book is out of print and has been strongly superceded by the 2019 book. That is 60% more information (511 pp)
and is much more useful in dozens of ways. Locations for that book are found at the top of this web page. I’m sorry but I no longer have the information you are requesting and can’t help you.
Dr Randall,
I have a nonprofit called Harvest for the Hungry located in Freeport, TX (see harvestforthehungrytexas.org). Our mission is aligned with your mission of feeding healthy farm to table food for those struggling with food insecurity. We are located on 61 acres and would certainly benefit from your expertise and knowledge in our orchard, high tunnels, and other farming areas. Is it possible to have you consult for us for certain issues that we are dealing with at the farm? Thank you for your consideration. David
Hello! Just purchased your book this week and am curious where I might be able to purchase some Sweet Potato Spinach plants. Love the book!
Hi Bob, I have looked everywhere for your up dated book but cant find it. Can you pls tell me where I can get it. Thanks, TinaCray
Possible places are listed at the top of this home page including mail order
Hi Dr. Randall,
Could I buy your peach and nectarine scionwoods if you still have any? I’m interested in grafting my own peach and nectarine tree on Lovell rootstock. I couldn’t find nurseries selling very low-chill scion wood I live in the inner loop.
Thanks!
My tropic snow peach is old and at this point likely diseased so bad graft wood. The. nectarine produces small not very tasty fruit. So, neither are good candidates for graft material. Sorry.
Thank you.
I’m about to buy fruit, shade and nitrogen-fixing trees and shrubs this week. I’ve selected Methley, Burgundy and Mariposa plums. You mentioned Beauty plum as a pollinator for Mariposa. Can Mariposa be pollinated by the other plums even if I don’t get the Beauty plum?
I’ve selected Eva’s Pride, May Pride and Mid Pride for my peaches. I bought Sun Red scion wood and I plan on grafting the bacterial-resistant nectarine variety to Lovell. I was keen on Red Baron, however, after I read your slides mentioning low fruit production on this cultivar, I changed my mind.
I plan on interplanting Nitrogen fixing shrubs like milky vetch and false indigo and liquorice (and other) between trees as a potential way to fertilise the fruit tree and add biodiversity (I’m currently in the process of preparing the land covering the plot with 18 inches of wood chips; it’s taking longer than I had planned), what do you think of that? Goumi berry was another shrub I wanted to plant at the edges to feed the wild life as a potential idea to protect ripe fruit. What are your thoughts on Goumi berries growing in houston? Following the same principle, I wanted to plant Eastern Redbud, Red Maple and Autumn Bliss Service berry as a potential trio. How do you reckon service berry will hold up in Houston? This trio is again for the wildlife with the bonus of beautifying landscape.
Muscadine grape question:
I noticed most university extension articles recommend spacing trellis posts 20 feet apart and any closer would be messy. What has been your experience pruning and maintaining muscadines?
Arun. There are really two ways to think about these issues. For a backyard or a market farm? My main advice is for backyard. Basically, I drive a T-post/T-Stake (types with holes) into the ground and then fix a second metal stake to it at the right height for the trellis. I use two bolts of a size that fits the holes and wing nuts because they are easier to adjust later. I use clothesline wire and run it on the top through a top hole if possible. Distance between stakes is a matter of choice, but I have found that 10 ft or even 8ft spacing holds the weight of these massive vines better than longer distances between supports. If you are doing market farming, the ag sites recommend much more sturdy supports, and this may be economical on a large scale. 20 ft could work if your supports are sturdy enough and won’t lose verticality. Another issue is how much space on either side of the trellis is useful. If I had room, I would be inclined to put all grapes on a lattice like arbor of the sort used in kiwis. That way the canes get more light and the grapes are underneath where it is easy to see them from below and harder if you are a bird to see from above.
Thank you! How far away from a row blackberry bushes can I plant a muscadine grape trellis?
Sent from my iPhone
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Blackberry bushes run about 3 ft from the center and muscadines probably 4 ft from the central cordon. You would want a path of at least 3 ft to allow walking, pruning, picking both. 3+3+4 would mean center of blackberry row to center of cordon 10 ft ideal. Because I lacked spa ce, years ago I planted blackberries under muscadines. What I found is that can work but the cordons for the muscadines need to be as high as feasible to get light below and best if you have a square arbor with no dangling muscadine vines below wires.
Rabbiteye blueberries and chill hours
I’ve been roughly tracking chill hours for southwest houston (rice village, meyerland, braeswood area) and I think it’s 224. I lay have lost track. I had once calculated 248 potential chill hours. love blueberries and the rabbiteye blueberries have a high chill requirement than all the low-chill southern high bushes i planted. Have you had success with rabbit eyes bearing fruit? If so, what varieties?
Arun–how are you calculating chill hours. If you are counting using the Utah method (hours between 45 and 32), that is not appropriate for here. We are subtropical. That method is for multi-month freeze areas. My book 2019 page 368 gives 1992-2012 chill data for National Weather stations using Dr Byrne’s TX A&M calculation method sited on 367. Bellaire is between the Hobby and Sugar Land NWS sites so for that 20 year period, Bellaire was under 399 chill units only 10% of the time. Hobby was over 600 75% of the time. Sugar Land 73% of the time. Moreover I grow blueberries fairly close to Bellaire and have no chill issues on any Southern Highbush. Blueberries have lots of other problems–too hot in summer for good growth so little new wood for berries. Also they have poor ability to take in water for cooling, so irrigation and mulching are related factors. Climate change is making it harder than ever to grow blueberries this far south, but so far it isn’t chill, it’s heat that is the problem.
Would it be better to have blueberries as an understory and plant a bigger tree like a fig tree or a Mullberry tree or persimmon tree for dappled shade?
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Chill hour calculation: I came up with 513.2 chill units using the january-december mean model. Is this correct? I’m still finding it hard to believe. Would this mean certain rabbit eye varieties, blackberry varieties and other fruit varieties would bear fruit? I was calculating using the accumulated chill and selected all my varieties in the 100-250 range.
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Another blueberry question
I found a post for a list of blueberry varieties and their chill. Did you grow all of them? Second, I found two new Southern High bush varieties (actually more and I’m reading about their characteristics), Gupton and Pearl, that have a 400 chilling requirement and two Rabbiteyes, Prince (300 to 400) and Keewer (350-450). Gupton allegedly grew really well in Baton Rouge amongst other Soithern High Bush varieties and Pearl has good resistance to splitting in the rain. Based on your recommendation on buying trees with 400 chill hours or less, would it be safe to buy these bushes?
Amongst the Rabbiteyes varieties, I am getting Krewer, brightwell, tifblue and pink lemonade. How are my choices?
I can’t really comment about the relative qualities of these different varieties. Baton Rouge is significantly colder most years than where I grow in SW Houston, so that doesn’t help unless you are growing outside Harris County. In my experience, most of these selections ted varieties work from the point of view of chill and most are excellent size and flavor. The main problem here is getting them through the summer especially when nights and days are 80F and 95F respectively.
Hi Dr. Randall,
I have been preparing my soil for the past 6 months by heavily mulching the front and back yard. Lately, I picked up chrostmas trees to protect my young banana plants and young olive trees from the freeze (also to make the landscape look like a naturalised forest setting).
I am doing this all to try understand where my food comes from, how to grow food sustainably, to conserve as much water as I can and to increase soil biodiversity.
This morning, the City of Houston gave me a violation notice based on complaints they have been receiving from neighbours about the mulch and christmas trees. I have till the 3rd of march. What can do or say to avoid future complications? And how would you approach this situation?
Best,
arun
Arun
I don’t know if this suggestion will help you in time.
(1) “The Natural Areas Ordinance” for the City of Houston describes what you can do and what you can’t unless it is written into the Deed Restrictions
(2) You may need to get a permit for what you are doing.
(3) Most of the neighborhood cleanup police are reacting to what they can see in the front.
(4) If you are going to change the look of the front toward more wild, do it gradually so they don’t notice the changes.
You can cut Xmas trees with loppers or saw and lay branches flat then cover with mulch.
Hope that helps.
Bob
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Thank you!
I’m looking into the Natural Areas Ordinances to see if I can get a permit.
Best,
Arun
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are starfruits worth growing in houston?
Probably not. Even in the most protected place I have, they freeze out to their roots whenever temperatures drop below 25. I did Harvest some fairly good fruit a couple of years. Anywhere temperatures in winter are almost never below about 28˚F, worth a try. But in the last quarter century, not worth it here
What about bananas?
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There are two varieties I’m trying, Misi Luki and Pisang ceylon. Apparently Misi Luki grows well in New Zealand. Both survived the freeze. My blue java’s top growth died. I replanted it in a different location and unfortunately it was uprooted. I’m thinking of trying Blue Java in a 200 gallon container.
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I haven’t grown either varieties. There are many varieties of bananas and only a few varieties are able to produce the year after a winter with a hard freeze. My top rated one at this time is Ice Cream (aka Blue Java or Java). The plant has no trouble coming back from a high teens temperature and you will probably get a lot of very tasty bananas if temperatures stay 27-28F or higher in winter. One year the plants went dormant in the winter with unripened fruit and then leafed out and produced in June! I have lots of pups every summer so can provide them if you have been to my house.
I didn’t know blue java was that resilient. I bought Blue Java after watching John Kholer touring your food forest but I’ve never visited your house. Where do you live and how much are the pups for?
I can trade some fig cuttings. I’m rooting several at the moment and I have some spare. These are some of the best tasting fig varieties that can handle cold, humid and rainy conditions better than others, based on a recommended list. I also have a newly grafted Reverend Morgan apple tree on a vigorous and disease resistant rootstock, and two peach trees that I need to head back to form its scaffolds. I’ll be heading back 2 – 3 feet of growth on Eva’s pride and May Pride in the winter or early spring. I’m also growing okinawa sweet potatoes and buying more purple fleshed sweet potato slips if that’s something you’re interested in.
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