Texas Fruit & Vegetable Gardening, 2nd Edition: Plant, Grow, and Harvest the Best Edibles for Texas Gardens (Fruit & Vegetable Gardening Guides)

Starting at the Beginning with Seeds

Seeds are amazing little parcels that basically contain miniature plants carrying big sack lunches, all packaged in protective wrappers. They have everything they need to grow, including genetic instructions for how big to get, what color to be, and how much to produce. They even remember who their parents were and where they came from! If you are going to be a gardener, you need to know how to grow plants—the easier ones, at least—from seed. Many vegetables are sown directly into the garden from seed. Others that are more difficult to germinate (sprout) or have slow-growing seedlings are most often grown in a greenhouse and stepped up into small pots, generally by professional nursery workers. These are sold as transplants that make it easier and faster for you to produce a crop without all the babysitting.

Fruits

Everybody likes sugar. Heck, I’m part hummingbird. But we all know that refined sugars aren’t good for us. Overdosing on sugar is a recipe for obesity and diabetes. Luckily, nature provides us her own candy in the form of fruits. Homegrown fruit can give us our sugar fix, plus antioxidants, fiber, and exercise while producing it. Fruits are also a good way to introduce vegetable-hating youngsters to the world of nutritious produce.

Before you get all excited about stocking your own home fruit stand, you must first realize that we are limited in what we can produce in Texas. Some fruits, such as apricots, black raspberries, and kiwis, are essentially impossible to produce here. Others, such as apples, plums, and peaches, require lots of preparation, maintenance, and tending. But just about anybody can grow blackberries, figs, and pears if they choose the right types.