By Erika Alino

Gardening in a new place is hard. Not only are we in a different growing zone, but the soil, moisture level, and even pests and disease are completely different from what I’m used to. And the hardest part is that since we’ll be moving so soon, I only have one or two tries to get it right! I’ll have to be more diligent about my research, as I won’t be able to fall back on experience.

After my first go at a winter garden, I made some observations for things I would have done differently. These are fairly general and could apply to other seasons as well, so I thought they might be helpful reminders for other people as we make our way through the summer garden season.

2024 Winter Garden Observations

And what I would do differently.

1. Plant Earlier

I wish I had started some of my sprouts a bit earlier. I planted everything from seed, and tried to balance not freezing the seedlings with giving them enough time to grow and harvest before it got too hot. Texas, like Florida, is tricky that way; it seems to go from winter weather straight to the hottest temps, with nothing in between!

Planting earlier would have also given me more time to implement some succession planting strategies. I had every intention of doing several succession plantings for my radishes, based on what I read in Mel Bartholomew’s Square Foot Gardening book, so that I would have a small crop of radishes at a time over the span of the season. But by the time I planted my second round, it was already getting much too warm. Not only that, but everything else had grown up so much in my raised bed garden that they weren’t able to get much sunlight, and the seedlings all perished pretty quickly. 

2. Keep Track

Each planting season, I start out writing down which varieties I planted and in which spot, but that’s about as far as I get. By the time the next season rolls around, I always wish I’d done more. Since I typically store my leftover seeds to plant again, I find myself wondering how long a certain variety took to sprout and how many weeks before it was ready to harvest. Each season I vow to be better next time. Hopefully, one of these times it will stick.

The problem is, my garden notebook gets put away after my initial tracking, so that it’s out of sight, out of mind. I might try a garden calendar – a wall-hanging planner that stays up somewhere I pass by frequently, so that any time I notice some beet sprouts or harvest my first peas, I can easily mark it down. That way, I at least have something I can look back on, or I can take that and add it to my garden notebook later when I think of it.

3. Plant Enough

Based on what I read in gardening articles, this seems abnormal, but I’m typically wary that I’ll plant too much and not be able to use it all. So, I err on the side of planting less to avoid this imagined waste. Unfortunately, I end up with the opposite extreme. I don’t plant enough of one variety, and never have enough of one thing to do anything useful with it.

This time, I wish I’d planted more radishes, beets, and definitely more calendula. I grew calendula for the first time this year, and late in the season I learned about making calendula tea and all the benefits of calendula. However, I didn’t plant enough to use for much. If I’d planted more, I would have been able to experiment more with these gorgeous yellow blooms and take advantage of their healthy and medicinal benefits.

4. Ensure Easy Access

The day I planted all my seeds, I had to make several mad dashes outside to stop birds from pecking at my seeds in the soil. After a couple of stressful days wondering if all my seeds had been consumed, I appealed to my husband for help. A quick trip to our local Ace Hardware store to gather some supplies, and I had a bird net covering over my beds. He makes fast work, that husband of mine.

It worked great: no more birds pecking at my seeds. However, it was rather inconvenient to deal with the massive excess of bird netting that floated around my plants. I kept getting tangled up in the netting when trying to water, weed, or care for my plants. I also think this may have played a big role in my pest problem, making it difficult to search around the leaves and pluck off any unwanted pests.

Unfortunately, the pests got out of control rather quickly this past winter. I have to shamefully admit neglect in taking the necessary precautions to keep the little bugs off. Seeing as my bird netting did not protect my plants from the more microscopic garden enemies, next time I might use the netting in the beginning while the plants are growing, and then remove it for easier access later.

5. Manage Pests Right Away

As I mentioned, my pest troubles were extreme this winter. I never knew caterpillars could eat so fast. I regret not jumping on pest maintenance as soon as I saw the first few little guys on my leaves. My Granny taught me to put a little bit of dish soap in a bottle with water, and spray that on the leaves to deter pests from eating them. I made the bottle up early in the season, but I was not good about remembering to go out and spray. The problem only compounded throughout the season, and between the snails and the caterpillars, a good portion of my garden was just fighting to survive.

My husband and I went on a hiking trip for a few days, and when I came back I had absolutely no cabbage, and a whole lot of caterpillar poop instead. I never did get any cabbage! Next season, I will have to be better about maintenance, and maybe do some more research on natural pest control.

6. Listen to the Locals

One thing I wish I had done is seek advice from local gardeners. I kept meaning to stop in at the local arboretum, but I just never got around to it. I tried to purchase seeds that were heat- and draught-tolerant for our Texas climate, but I might have done well to ask about local plants and practices, which may have even limited my pest problem.

7. Research Plant Species

This was my first time growing beets, and I chose a “unique” variety of white beet that I thought looked nice. However, when it came time to harvesting them, I wasn’t sure when they were ready. I didn’t know what to look for; if they should be pulled up or if they needed longer. I ended up harvesting them simply because I was worried the heat would ruin them, but I wish I’d done more research to ensure I knew what they looked like when fully mature and ready to be picked and eaten. It’s so much fun to try new and different varieties of plants (I get all kinds of amazing seeds from a site called Baker Creek!), but I should exercise due diligence and follow up my purchases with more research.

Final Thoughts

Unfortunately, a number of these observations aren’t exactly new. Some of these things, such as planting more of one crop, staying on top of my garden tracker, and tackling pests effectively, are problems I have been struggling with for as long as I’ve been gardening. I’m hoping that writing this will give me a little boost to start implementing some of these practices that I know I should be doing!

Hopefully this helps other gardeners with these same issues to not feel like they’re alone – at least, I hope I’m not the only one dealing with these same things over and over. If you have any tips for any of these problems, or if you have any other gardening woes, feel free to comment any questions or suggestions, or even just complaints! I would love to hear from you.