Gulf Winter Gardens

[HoustonHeat]

I am not sure this subject is threaded yet so sorry for starting a new one. I am new to gardening and loving the Tomatoville site. I have learned a lot in a few weeks.

I would like to hear from others about winter gardens in the hot south areas. I have focused so much on heat tolerant varieties and ensuring I am early in the spring and am going to plant a fall crop that I never considered taking advantage of our mild winters.

Has anyone planted winter tomatoes (or other crops) that are normally summer crops but have some cold hardy varieties that would do great in Houston? If you have had success with anything please share. (tomatoes, beans, corn, etc..)

[oakley]

Here is a link to a previous discussion as you may not be familiar with the search
function. That's a start...
http://www.tomatoville.com/showthrea...fall+gardening

Those in the South usually call it Fall gardening. You can start new plants by cloning,
planting suckers from your Spring tomatoes or start seeds now or soon...

[Gardeneer]

Agree w/ Oakley
check that thread, if you like.

I am also into it for the first time.
I have few cuttings from my spring/summer varieties and some from seed.
My fall tomato garden is going to be much limited in the number of varieties and plants.
It is going to be mostly educational and fun type of gardening. I am not looking for bumper crops, like I have now.

[b54red]

I just attempted 50 grafts for my fall garden. When grafting this time of the year my failure rate is usually pretty high so I will probably be attempting more this coming week. I really only need about a dozen plants but I would like at least one of each variety I want to use. If I have any left overs I will be giving them away to friends who also try for fall gardens.

Sometimes down here tomatoes and peppers can last just into the next year if we have one of those late arriving and very mild winters; but sometimes we can actually have tomato killing weather as early as October.

Bill

[HoustonHeat]

Thanks.. b54red I remember your thread about cold harty varieties. I am going to purchase some of those Russian or other types to try. I feel good about fall (September-November), but am going to see if I can have plants December - March outside and probably a few determinates in pots to pull into the garage when necessary. I also heard about the Fava bean that I may try. I guess we have to suffer through summers but our reward is we possibly get to garden through winter.

If anyone specifically have recommendations for any varieties of any vegetable I am all ears..

[HoustonHeat]

Thanks Oakley.. I am checking out that link...

[HoustonHeat]

Hi Bill

I have been reading some of your posts and have a question about Indian Stripe tomatoes. There seems to be a PL and RL version but when I look for seeds I cannot specifically locate PL. Can you share more and what is the difference? Is it PL if it does not specify?

[b54red]

Originally Posted by HoustonHeat

Hi Bill

I have been reading some of your posts and have a question about Indian Stripe tomatoes. There seems to be a PL and RL version but when I look for seeds I cannot specifically locate PL. Can you share more and what is the difference? Is it PL if it does not specify?

I found a potato leaf plant in among my Indian Stripe seedlings and decided to grow it out and see what it was. The resulting fruit looked just like IS so I sent the seeds to Carolyn who had it grown out and then spread the seeds far and wide. I also grew it out and found it to be very similar to IS but with better fruit setting ability in hot weather and found it to be more productive as far as number of fruit. It is now my favorite summer and late summer tomato because it sets so many more fruit than any other variety I have tried. I don't usually set them out until at least late April or May because I reserve my early planting for those varieties that don't do as well in our summer heat. I just picked my first four ISPL tomatoes this morning off a plant set out on May 1st. The four came off a cluster with over 20 tomatoes on it. They were medium/small fruits but with that many in a cluster I was surprised they were as big as they were. The only two drawbacks to ISPL and these apply to a lot of black tomato varieties is they do poorly when they get far too much rain and they are susceptible to gray mold. Another reason to grow them in the heat of summer is their flavor is greatly enhanced by very hot dry weather and they tend to be more bland in cooler conditions.

I find that ISPL is to IS what Spudakee is to Cherokee Purple. Spudakee is far more productive than CP for me in my garden just like ISPL usually is to IS. Both make virtually the same tomato as its regular leaf version just more of them.

Bill

Bill

[HoustonHeat]

Thanks Bill. That explains it. I have a lot to grow for now but will keep my out for ISPL in the future to tryout.