North Texas is a very difficult place to grow edible crops.

“You mean I can’t just plant something in the ground and walk away?”

No, this isn’t Costa Rica.  The following items are, in no particular order, the problems that we face:

 

Soil.

We have this thick clay soil nicknamed “black gumbo”.  If you own a home in the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex chances are your property is nothing but this stuff.  It expands with water and shrinks when it’s dry causing all sorts of foundation issues.  Homes creak and pop all night long, new cracks randomly appear along door frames and ceilings.  If you try and shovel your back yard it is like digging through silly putty studded with rocks.  To make matters worse black gumbo is alkaline so few crops will grow.

 

Weather.

North Texas has a fairly harsh climate.  We have two seasons: Summer and Not Summer.  Not Summer lasts from November to February, is fairly mild, but we do get below freezing quite often and the occasional snow/sleet storm.  Just enough to prevent growing tropical plants outside.  March through May is in between Not Summer and Summer.  It is a nebulous time of year that is an excellent growing season very similar to the Mediterranean except we receive crazy downpours and crop demolishing hail storms.  Then summer comes along around mid-May, temperatures soar into the triple digits, and for a few months we wonder what rain looks like.  Then October rolls in a we get a few more weeks of Not Summer sprinkled with more hail storms and tornadoes.

 

Water.

North Texas usually receives deluges in March and April and then it is dry for several months during Summer.  It’s a feast or famine climate.  Because of this water restrictions are usually put into effect.  In 2013 and 2014 in particular all the lake levels (actually reservoirs) around DFW are really low.  Chances are you won’t be able to use that nice built in sprinkler system to water your thirsty lawn enough in August…so the lawn just dies.  Fortunately we’re turning our lawn into an edible garden and there’s a few tricks we can use to conserve water…

 

Bugs and plant diseases.

There’s a ton of bugs in North Texas, and most of them (or so it seems) are specifically designed to eat your plants.  Therefore a lot of people turn to chemical pesticides to kill the grub worms, grasshoppers, pill bugs, etc.  Plant diseases are also problematic.  This is usually an on going battle and the solution to keep plants healthy lies with organic fertilizers and pest control.

 

It’s just plain hot and your favorite plants won’t grow.

No you’re not going to get raspberries to grow and produce big juicy red berries.  Instead plant Texas hardy blackberries!  This is the general strategy for all crops in North Texas.  Get the proper root stock and pick varieties that require little water and are heat tolerant.

 

Squirrels, birds, and raccoons.

If you figure something out let us know…unless your name is Wile E. Coyote.

 

In the following weeks I will be addressing each of these issues in a separate blog post and how they can be solved with a little planning.  So stay tuned!

-K