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Central Texas Fall Planting Guide I know this is discouraging for the consumer who is used to finding transplants in the spring or fall, but all is not lost. Direct seeding is becoming more and more popular because you can enjoy a bigger variety of vegetables at an even lower cost. It's easy to get transplants started. Just get a bag of potting mix-not potting soil-and put it in small paper cups with a hole punched in the bottom for drainage. Put only one or two seeds in each cup. The reason you use separate containers for each seed is so bacteria that causes rot of young seedlings can't spread to the entire crop such as when you start seeds in a tray. Follow instructions on the seed packages as to the correct depth that each seed should be planted. Some seeds will only sprout when the weather and soil temperatures cool and some will only sprout when it's warm. You can buy an inexpensive heating pad for seed starting at most good vegetable seeds suppliers. Do not use a standard heating pad like the one you use for your arthritis. If it gets wet you will have a lot more to worry about than your arthritis. Or maybe you won't. Anyway, You still have about another week or so to direct seed snap bush beans, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, cucumber, kohlrabi, summer squash and winter squash. Potatoes should be put directly in the ground or containers. You can put your seed sprouting containers on a porch or under a tree out of the hot sun to get the seeds started. Don't put them on the ground where they can be attacked by bugs. In October you can seed beets, collards, Swiss chard, leaf lettuce, parsley, and put garlic cloves in the ground. I usually just spread my lettuce seed over the ground and eat what I thin out. However, for the biggest heads you should space at least 6 inches apart. November is the time to seed carrots, mustard onion and turnips, as well as radish and spinach. Carrots can be direct seeded in the garden as early as late October because they take so long to come up. Onion seed is tricky. 1015 onions should be planted in the middle of October and other onion seed by November 1. You must thin onions and you can eat the sprouts, of course. Spinach needs slightly alkaline soil in the range of 6.9 to 7.5. It will stunt and become yellow in soil with a Ph lower than 6.9. If the weather is really warm like last winter, you may have stunted plants no matter what you do. Here are a couple of great sources for vegetable seed: www.johnnyseeds.com 877 564 6697 and www.Harrisseeds.com 800 514 4441. Even if you don't have the Internet, these companies will send you a great catalog that you will receive in just a few days.
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It seems like fall vegetable transplants are becoming more difficult to find. One of the reasons is that many small wholesale nurseries that supply vegetable transplants are getting out of the business because it's hard to make a profit. Retail nurseries don't want to pay the right price to the wholesalers because the public balks at a price over a dollar a six-pack and the cost to a nursery can be much higher. In addition, the big department stores sell vegetable transplants at a loss to bring in business and make it difficult for the smaller retail nursery as well. Most small nurseries sell vegetable transplants as a courtesy to their customers because they know they can't make a profit on them. It is now at a point where most nurseries don't want to take the time and energy to keep transplants alive in tiny six-pack containers, when they can use their shelf space for something more profitable.
