Raised Bed Gardening in Texas

Raised Gardening Beds in Texas Landscape Design

Concrete blocks will raise the PH in your garden soil so you may want to test your soil from time to time. This will be ongoing over the years

The benefit of a raised bed besides the obvious one, being raised so no more crawling ton the ground, is that you design the soil. A combination of compost, topsoil and organic matter is perfect.

Raised beds dry out more quickly so mulch and keep an eye on the plants during the hot dry months. Veggies need six hours of sun.

Don’t turn your bed into a swimming pool! It needs to drain. You can put pea gravel in the bottom. When choosing manure if you obtain it from a farm be sure the animals have not grazed on herbacide treated land … the herbacide will impact your plants/ growth.

Keyhole Gardening

The opportunity to control enriched soil and moisture, a dream for most Texas gardeners and by the way this is very popular in Africa where soil and water issues are a challenge as well.

The opportunity to manage moisture and soil enrichment with Keyhole gardening.

Trent Cantrell: Red Sun Landscapes

Spring Lettuces and Chard in Raised Bed Gardening Texas Landscape Design

Spring Onions in Raised Bed Gardening Texas Landscape Design

Spring Lettuces and Chard in Raised Bed Gardening Texas Landscape Design

April Cabbage Texas Spring Gardening

Parsley in April in Raised Bed Gardening Landscape Design in Dallas

Garlic in April in Raised Bed Gardening Landscape Design in Dallas

Raised Bed Gardening Squash in April

Asparagus in Raised Bed Gardening

Mustard Greens

Mustard Greens – the tenderest and spiciest of the the traditional southern greens.

Raised beds are perfect for raising the most tender of the greens, mustard greens, a spicey green much more tender than turnip greens.

The traditional three greens in Texas are Turnip Greens, Mustard Greens and Collard Greens.

Purple Mustard Greens with Swiss Chard in the Background!

Purple Mustard Green for fall gardening in Texas

The traditional superstition is to only cook greens in odd numbers.

Purple Collard Greens! Taste like regular Collard Greens but are so lovely!

Fall Lettuces! The same as spring lettuces. Lettuces cannot survive in the hot Texas summers.

Thyme in Autumn

Thyme, perennial herb great for raised beds. Raised beds are the perfect vehicle for soil that is amended with organic matter and reinforced with water preserving crystals and pellets.

The Flowering Oregano shown above three month later.

Purple Beans in Texas in raised bed. Fall Gardening.

Eggplants in autumn raised gardens.

Chives

Chives still looking lovely!

Purple Beans!

Fall Hot Pepper Plants in Texas

Hot peppers resume blooming and fruiting with the cooler weather.

Greens, Bugs Love Them, Too

Greens are subject to aphid attacks but these are quite mild in the fall. Cabbage loopers and flea beetles love to chomp. Excellent article on insects that love greens at the University of Florida Extension site.

Insecticide Dusting

If you wash in the sink, they take three different dousings because of the powdered insecticides.

Purple Mustard Greens

The bugs have a nice meal of purple mustard greens! Enough for all.

A natural group of chemicals, called anthocyanins create purple vegetables and make roses and geraniums red, and cornflowers and delphiniums blue.

Anthocyanins change color with changes in acidity of the hosting plant. The less acidic the plant the clearer the anthocyanins.

Once a purple vegetable is cooked the heat causes the decomposition of anthocyanin. Heat bursts cells diluting the acidity of the cell sap.

The green color, which was present but masked by the anthocyanin, becomes prominent once the anthocyanin concentration drops, and what anthocyanin is still left becomes bathed in liquid insufficiently acidic to keep it purple.

In nature, anthocyanins attract insects to flowers and protecting plants from ultraviolet radiation. You may want to wash them in the washing machine and use salt. I use Epsom salt in the sink, rinse and give them a light swish in the washing machine once insecticides are used.

Spinach Looking Good! And I believe those are purple bell peppers next to the spinach. Wont’ that be beautiful and delicious?

Large-Green-Spikey-Leafed-Plants-Raised-Bed-Gardening-Texas-Landscape-Design (1 of 1)

Acanthus Mollis. A perennial that grows in sun or a bit of shade. Sends out shoots of large spikey white flowers with purple hoods. Acanthus grows in Corinth, Greece, and was the reason columns were named Acanthus columns.