Howdy y’all! I am Christi, or Little Salty Homesteader, and I am a backyard gardener in North Texas, Zone 8a, right outside of Wylie and Rockwall. You can expect videos detailing my successes and failures, and how-to content in gardening, cooking, and preserving. Eventually you can expect videos on our move and build of a small farm with goats and chickens. Thank you for watching and subscribing!
The cowpeas will grow like gang busters, until the first cold temperatures in the 40's. That usually happens sometimes around Thanksgiving (seems like on the very day). Once the first really cold spell hits they stall out and never come back to producing even if things warm back up. They really like hot temperatures.
I’m just starting my garden and heard that broccoli will bolt in warm temps. How are you keeping it from bolting since it’s still hot? I’m in Denton TX btw
@@catherinemarie6 luck I guess! I followed the planting schedule given by Seedtime.us, which schedules things based on your zip code. It also gets shade from the tomatoes and, later in the afternoon, from my house. So it’s not in the scorching sun all day long. I was worried about it last week when it was hot, but it seemed to pull through fine!
Gardening, the art of failing but always trying again because THIS COULD BE THE YEAR!!! 😅 But also, I struggled with all of my starfighter tomatoes. All four varieties I grew acted much like you described. I’m on the fence on if I want to try again. I probably will until I run out of seeds, or get distracted by new varieties.
I am grateful for the rain we got, its been a while. Im in Carrollton, TX, so not terribly far from you. I didn't appreciate how the wind knocked down some of my pepper plants, though. Yiu wind some you lase some
What is this "rain" you speak of ? The word sounds familiar. When I got my city bill it said stage 4 water restrictions. No watering. You've probably thought about water catchment for your future farm, don't forget about grey water. I don't hear a lot of gardening/homesteading channels talk about it. Grey water is keeping some of my ornamental plants alive. Sounds like your back is better, didn't hear any pain in your voice this video.
@@AProAmature my back is almost 100%, thank you for asking! We got almost 2” on Monday, and another 1.5” last night, and it was much appreciated. Yes, our next place will definitely have water catchment systems in place, but that is a great point about the gray water. I think Kevin from Epic Gardening uses gray water for his watering needs!
If you haven't tried "Ashley" Cucumbers, they have done exceptional for me. They are a pickling type and with 5 vines, I was picking 4-6 every other day all summer. I'm in Grayson County, North Texas
I really feel like sending you a bunch of seeds just to mess up your seed organization. But If you learn more from failures than successes, I can say I am a much smarter gardener this year than last year.
@@growyourownfood7814 that’s hilarious - I had too many duplicates so I had to force myself to get organized 😂. And if you’re learning, you aren’t really failing, just knowing how to do things differently next time
@@littlesaltyhomesteader It is the garden that failed, not me, haha. There is an old joke about a coach telling his players that you learn more from a loss than a win. At the end of the year the players said the coach was correct, we were the smartest team in District. Honestly, I have been gardening long enough I do not take a crop failure personal. Sometimes it is my fault, but many times it is just bad luck. One too many rain storms, or one night of cold weather. One rain away from a bumper crop. This year some was my fault due to being busy with more important things. Still enjoy gardening and always try to remember the things that went right.
I may have won the battle against the mice that were stealing my eggplants. I'm hoping I got them all. I've already got so many flowers coming back with eggplants growing now that they're gone 🤞
If my memory is correct, the Porter tomato was developed by a seed company out of Stephenville, Texas. It went out of business before the internet (seems like the 80's), but since Porter was open pollinated it has survived. My parents used to plant that variety every year since it produced so heavily. Been a while since I have grown it. Hope your back gets to feeling better.
@@growyourownfood7814 I knew Porter was a Texas variety, but I didn’t know the whole history. Cool! Thanks! It’s better than it was yesterday for sure.
Really hard to think of things to exclude this early. However, I did cut down all of my Jujube trees. Did not like the taste and those thorns are brutal. And blue berries tomato will not make the planting list. It was productive, pretty, and vigorous but the taste was kind of bland. Usually I grow what I like best and plant till I run out of room. I may have too much room.
3 originals, 3 prequels, 3 sequels. If you don't grow Rebel Starfighter Prime with the other 2, the trilogy is incomplete. Are you sure you're a fan?😁 Uh-oh, only growing 2 ! There are always 2, no more, no less, a master and an apprentice. You're a Sith !! I also want to grow it all, including things I don't like the taste of, I'll find someone that does. I like tomatoes and recently found out there are over 10,000 varieties. I'm gonna need a bigger yard.
Video did get me to thinking if a salt shaker would work for planting carrots. Some have pretty big holes, and carrot seeds are very small. I may have to look and give it a try. Chaos planting in the spring should extend the harvest of the carrots. I am surprised how long carrots will survive when planted in the spring. They will not grow bigger, but can last well into the summer if give some protection. Enjoyed the video.
@@littlesaltyhomesteader Well, I went ahead and bought a salt shaker that looks like a little mason jar. We will see how it works. The holes are big enough to let the seeds through, hopefully not to big or too little.
Insane Pepper stalk! Our Jalapenos do excellent. Like zero care besides the odd watering growing out from the chicken coop. I made the mistake of not labeling any pepper. So taste testing was a roulette. I do not handle heat well. We planted tons of brassicas and lettuce. 3 Days of Rain so the ion nitro charged droplets are doing amazing things for all our germination. We're banking on the long season to help us grow some squash. Our 3 candy roaster plants are getting very big. Looks promising. Look for a commenter Katharinefaye <- I watch her as well. Glad to see her here! You're both amazing gardners!
Glad you got some of your carrots up. Mine came up pretty good, but the fire ants decided to eat them down. They did it in the past but it was during the winter. They do it at night so you do not see them unless you go out at night. Birds have got my vining cow peas in the past, but they stole them from the pods. I would have a good long pod that had every pea eaten out. It seems everything tries to get our hard earned produce. Your brassicas are looking good.
@@growyourownfood7814 whatever is getting my cow peas is eating the peas and leaving the pods behind! It’s so weird! If these brassicas come to fruition, I’ll have a ton of food! I didn’t know fire ants ate carrots 😳
@@littlesaltyhomesteader If it is birds the pods will remain on the plant and only the peas will be gone. They shell them on the plant. I was really surprised the fire ants ate the carrots. They did it last year and the only way I knew was going out at night and they were covered with fire ants.
OH Christi! This is Katharine! <- She Grows Epically in Maine! Another channel I watch ( Get to know her! ) You're Both on my favorite and watch list! Also Brampton Gardener ( Rachelle), Bethany of The Chicago Gardener, The Cottage Peach.
Your peppers look amazing! They’re so healthy and the leaves are HUGE. Do touch have any tips? I’ve struggled with my sweet peppers this year. Hot peppers did great but I’ve only gotten 3 tiny bell peppers
@@opraha1113 for the sweet peppers - they are in some pretty decent soil. I fertilize with Neptune’s Harvest liquid fish emulsion, organic granulated fertilizer, and earthworm castings. Straw mulch to help retain moisture and that’s basically all. I don’t have a regular fertilizing schedule because I’m mega forgetful, but I’ll throw something on them when I notice they are looking sad. I would say ensuring your soil is healthy would be the best tip for peppers.
@@littlesaltyhomesteader yeah I definitely need to work on my soil. I’ve been adding lots of compost and fruit scraps as I’m cleaning out the summer stuff so hopefully next year will be better.
You should really like the Sungold cherry tomato. It is one of the first to produce and is usually considered the best tasting of the sweet tomatoes, my wife's favorite. Red snapper is a good producer with very good disease resistance. Will be growing both of those next year.
Great haul! Can you tell me more about the seed swap? I need to look into something like that because I have seeds that I don’t really want anymore and would love to see what’s out there
@@opraha1113 sure! This one is for a group on FB related to another YT channel I watch. The group does a swap 2x per year and I usually end up with 15-20 new varieties to try.
So I know it has been a bit, I've been a silent lurker for a while. Just wanted to say how excited I am to see you grow some of these. Also curious to see how your onion growing adventure turns out.
@@thegardnersgarden aww, well I’m glad you commented! I know you’re in a season of overwhelm, so I appreciate you 💕. I’m excited about the onions, too! You inspired me!
Plan on planting my second round of transplants in trays in the next couple of days. Did not get a good germ on some of my plants. Micro tomatoes are doing well, hope for tomatoes in the winter.
We seeded Black Simpson , Ruby Red and butter Crunch. I did put some a spattering of Kale ( Russian ) but avoided curly leaf types ( not a huge kale fan yet...). Someone SUPER COOL send us Swiss Chard! I still have to edit a video on spinach but it'll give me time as we have to scrape up soil for spinach ( bloomsdale and I forget...) our beets are Detroit reds and a colored mixed bag. I just finished the 2nd wave of corn. Asparagus beans and cucumbers (marketmore / double yield ). Broccoli are sprinkled around in the flower bed as it dies back along with all those beets. I may also throw down a handful of Rutabaga. Things we do not plant are onions, shallots and garlic. I do not have room this year YET! Maybe next year. I have a few squashes in and will try pumpkins due to are stupid long grow season deep into the 2nd week of January. <- Tn is Cool like that. Later Gator! Good luck to us both!
So a small horn worm = a bulk egg hatching. Keep your eyes peeled for the next two weeks. You and I did well on peppers this year. I am NOT a pepper grower! I've tried Okra again and I just cannot like it. 😝 We sowed in beets, chard ( Obv ) corn, squash varieties , lettuce and spinach. Fingers crossed we'll have a better fall garden. This summer was a doozie!
@@TheWickerShireProject good luck! I haven’t had too many horn worms this year. I had a ton of basil growing, and the numbers this year were much less than previous years when I had less basil. Companion planting works!
Your garden is looking good. Not sure if we are through the hot temperatures. Never know. My Dad once took the last week of September off work to build fence. It was over 100 degrees every day. My parents live near Waco.
@@growyourownfood7814 you just never know with Texas! I took the shade cloth down while I had the time and bandwidth to do it - but it’s definitely a gamble until the first frost, which could be November or February 😂.
@@littlesaltyhomesteader I think it was a good idea to take it down. Days are getting shorter, and plants want more sun. Just seems like we will get more hot weather, but we were also supposed to have a very active hurricane season. Maybe our luck will hold out.
I'd never grown basil before but in May I was given some Sweet Basil plants. When I got them they were pot bound and almost dead but started growing and looking great once planted. By the middle of June they were putting on flowers every few days. I got tired of cutting the flowers off so often and just let them flower and die. Watching your channel and others mine seemed to try to flower unusually often. Any ideas why, maybe I wasn't giving enough water, I'm bad about that.
@@AProAmature all of my basil is flowering except my cardinal basil. But I cut that one back in July or August after it did flower. It flowers pretty quickly in the heat, but in my experience, doesn’t affect the flavor of the leaves much. Some folks say it gets bitter, but I haven’t personally experienced that 🤷🏻♀️. I just let it go nuts because the bees like it.
With the plant being stressed, they tend to flower out sooner than non stressed plants. But basil flowers pretty fast, and some people even plant in stages to get fresh non flowering plants. But like Christi, we just let them flower and still take off the leaves. They will usually reseed the next year if you let them seed out. Bees love the flowers.
We would listen to Neil Sperry on the way to church every Sunday Morning in the late 70's/early 80's. It took us 30 to 45 minutes to get to church. My carrots have germinated, so far so good. Might try beets as well. I have endive and mustard coming up volunteer in one of my trough container. Plan to plant a second round of broccoli next week.
@@growyourownfood7814 that’s awesome on the carrots! I have had one single carrot germinate 🤣. I think my seeds were too old, but it’s ok! I’ll get more next year and try again. These seeds were all from 2020/2021 so I knew it was a gamble.
This is very helpful! Thank you for sharing. This is my second season gardening in Dallas so I’m definitely still learning a lot. I already did most of the things you said but there are a few that I missed. I will get my garlic ordered ASAP!
@@littlesaltyhomesteader OH what Cabbage moths now? Pill bugs, Hornworms now cabbage moths? I'm getting my Propane flame thrower! If I cannot have a harvest NO-ONE CAN! 🔥🔥🔥 🚫
Shower Mode always. Messy One is like.... drenching soil. Long power thin is mostly a cheap power washer mode. Misting mode used behind a super strong industrial shop fan in a desert garage to produce swamp cooling. ( I've seen this done in Colorado when I was an ex-millionair.)
Don't knock it! You Could grow those radishes as big! Our neighbor Eric and Brit grew a 16 inch cucumber. <- That was from my seeds bank. I need the seeds from that Cuke! Cover crops will provide a micro climate, retain soil moisture, send carbon and sugars down to feed the microbes. Nice green manure to chop and drop and some people with bigger land fold into the soil adding more nitrogen , organic matter... then rinse repeat the process. I'm no farmer. I'd hate the responsibility of caring for massive tracks of land. Hard enough for us to maintain grow bags. Our seeds are popping up for the fall. we have 4 of 5 Candy roasters doing great. They sizzled in the heat+ drought this summer. I think we can make it!
@@TheWickerShireProject lol! If I end up with giant Daikon, I’m pickling them for some Asian recipes 😂. Otherwise, I’m using them to break up my hard clay! Good luck with your fall planting.
Good Morning Dr.Salty. I'll be working on the seeds shortly. Do another shout out vid. Thanks for providing us with content. I wish i had land set up to do cover cropping. For now its just chop and dropping weeds. I don't know what was worst. Your tatter bugs or my flea Beetles. I vote we send them to war against one another and the winners get a free dip in a bucket of water with a sealed lid!
I grew daikon radish last year in one of my garden plots. It did pretty well, was easy to terminate. May do it again this year, not sure. In the past I have grown the regular white flowered buckwheat. It grew well, was easy to terminate but did tend to reseed. Pollinators really liked it. I also tried a cover crop of annual ryegrass. Big mistake, since it is very hard to kill, even with a tiller. Good for winter pasture, just not for the garden. I plan on using red ripper pea next year, since you can eat it and it covers well. Those vines will grow everywhere.
@@growyourownfood7814 red ripper pea - is that a cow pea? Have you noticed that the cover crops help the condition of your garden? I know you’re a soil conservationist, so what’s your take on using them to help slow erosion?
@@littlesaltyhomesteader Red ripper pea is a vining cow pea that can get several feet long. Think of it like a pole bean on steroids. Cover crops do help soil health since you keep something on the soil instead of bare ground. They definitely reduce erosion since bare soil erodes pretty quickly. The rain hitting the bare soil puts the soil into suspension and leaves the area with the rain runoff. Some things like buckwheat make quickly(45 to 60 days) and fills the gap between garden crops. Grows well in summer when nothing much will grow. FYI you can also spread radish seed into your backyard bermuagrass lawn and they will come up and make you some radishes. Work of caution just make sure you know how you are going to terminate the cover crop or it can also become a weed. Some things like sun hemp are hard to get rid of without the right equipment.
@@littlesaltyhomesteader I watched your gf chicken & dumplings video. Since it is under a gmo video, I will share a little told story. In 1996 monsanto and the fda approved genitically modified (round-up ready) crops, corn, soybean and wheat. Your gluten intolerance (not celiac, I have no experience,) may be an alergy to glyphosate, the main ingredient in round-up. I have started buying "herritage flour," from Hayden flour mills, there are other brands but I've personally never tried them. My husbands reaction wasn't debilitating so I bought a bag and made cookies. No reaction. He still must order gf when out, but at home he eats gluten bread, pie, cake, pasta, pizza. I have yet to master a chocolate croissant. I don't know if this will help you, but a stranger shared it with me and it changed our way of life, so I try to share it too.
@@NiobiumThyme I have noticed that the quality of flour makes a difference in how I react to it! I told my husband I wanted to experiment with various flours to find “the one” but so far sourdough is helping me with my bread cravings 😂
I buy the big elephant garlic from HEB and plant the cloves from them. I have had pretty good success. They do well in the south, although they are not a true garlic. The odd pepper looked a little like a mini bell. If you bite into one and it is hot, I will admit I am wrong. I would go ahead and take down the okra . They may attract more nematodes the longer they grow. Okra really attracts nematodes.
@@growyourownfood7814 I did a lot of research for garlic before ordering, so I feel pretty good about it. The pepper does look a bit like a bell, but also not. It’s a weird one! I’m just gonna let it grow and see what happens. I haven’t had any nematode issues, but I do have some earwigs 🙄. Rude little insects!
@@littlesaltyhomesteader I know you can grow regular garlic in Texas. There was a man in San Antonio about 20 years ago that grew enough garlic to sell for "seed" stock. Not sure what happened to him. I even bought some cloves of several different kinds. Did not have much luck. One thing I have discovered is garlic does not like to be crowded. Does not compete well with other plants.
I hear comments help with the algorithm, so... The way those Sun Flowers are staring into the green house makes me wonder what's going on in there.😁 I don't like okra(for eating, like the flowers though) so I'd vote to remove and replace them. Are they to old to branch if cut back, say in half. An experiment maybe.
@@opraha1113 my husband said he hit a little on the way home from downtown yesterday. But we have 5 days of rain in the forecast - hope you get some of it!
nice! I'm in Plano and my tomato plants haven't made any in months due to the heat... I'm really hoping they start producing again soon as it cools off. Did the shade cloth help your tomatoes produce?
@@MikeDawson1 by the time I got the shade cloth on, they had already finished their initial run. They are slowly starting to set more fruits now, especially since we are under 100 degrees for the moment. My friend down the street is still getting cherry tomatoes with no shade cloth, but all mine got sick so I pulled them early. And I’m sort of close to you - I’m near Wylie 💕
Well, just remember if they do not come up, I have plenty of Kuroda carrot seed to go around. I think this is going to work. If not I can always plant at the regular time in October. I got my green beans planted yesterday. Three fifty foot rows.
Thank you! I found this after watching a documentary on GMO, especially tomatoes. Modified for longer shelf life but now tasteless and confirmed lower nutritional value, so is the case with all tested GMO crops. It's a trade off between long shelf life, yield, resilience, nutrition... Oh and less nutritious = less taste. So that may be a health side effect of the GMO since some of the tested veggies had 25% - 50% deficiency in some vitamins and minerals.
