Travis County Extension Programs Blog - Page 2 of 14

Mountain Laurel Mirid

Posted on April 15, 2024 by sheryl.williams

Mountain laurel mirids, Lopidea major, are relatively small insects that reach a little over ¼” as adults. Nymphs, or immatures, look like adults, but don’t have fully developed wings and are smaller in size. These mirids are a type of plant bug that is red and black in color. Bodies and front part of the wings are red while the head, antennae, legs, and back part of the wings are black.

They have piercing-sucking mouthparts and use them to puncture foliage of plants. Feeding can lead to deformation of leaves, but doesn’t cause long term damage to the tree, so treatment is optional.

An easy way to decrease populations of mountain laurel mirids is to spray the tree with a jet of water. It probably won’t eradicate the population, but it can help to decrease it while conserving the beneficial insect population. If plant size allows, mirids can be hand-picked and either smashed or dropped in a bucket of soapy water or you can tap them into a jar with rubbing alcohol or soapy water. If you want to look at pesticidal options, look at insecticidal soap, horticultural oils, or botanicals. When using any pesticide product, be sure to read and follow all label instructions.

For more information or help with identification, contact Wizzie Brown, Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service Program Specialist.

This work is supported in part by the Crop Protection and Pest Management, Extension Implementation Program [award no. 2021- 70006-35347/project accession no. 1027036] from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) National Institute of Food and Agriculture.

The information given herein is for educational purposes only. Reference to commercial products or trade names is made with the understanding that no discrimination is intended and no endorsement by Texas AgriLife Extension Service or the Texas AgriLife Research is implied.

Additional Resources

About Wizzie

Wizzie Brown
County Extension Program Specialist – Integrated Pest Management
Email:EBrown@ag.tamu.edu
Wizzie has been with Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service since 2002 and has been playing with insects since she was a toddler. She is an Extension Program Specialist with the Integrated Pest Management (IPM) program. Wizzie holds a B.S. in entomology from The Ohio State University and a M.S. in entomology from Texas A&M University. The integrated pest management program provides identification, biological and management information to whomever needs help. Wizzie’s research focuses on imported fire ants, including community wide fire ant management. Wizzie also is happy to provide programs to area groups on a variety of arthropod-related topics. You can find insect and other arthropod information on Wizzie’s blog.

Inside Austin Gardens Tour Set For May 11

Posted on April 8, 2024 by sheryl.williams

Inside Austin Gardens Tour

The Travis County Master Gardeners Association has set Saturday, May 11, 2024, 9:00 am-3:00 pm, for their popular Inside Austin Gardens Tour (IAGT). The tour provides a rare look inside four private gardens that demonstrate realistic, sustainable gardening practices for Central Texas that will inform and inspire.

Featured Gardens Showcase Diverse Settings

The tour’s theme is “For Gardeners. By Gardeners”, focusing on the vast variety and practical beauty of native and well-adapted plants in the garden. In turn, each garden has a theme that highlights a particular set of characteristics Central Texas gardeners are likely to encounter in their own gardens. Those themes are:

The Suburban Farm – 35 garden spaces, 5 chickens and 2 miniature donkeys on three acres
The Woodland Escape – Shade of 65+ oaks, garden rooms nestled into natural areas, sculpture
The Elevated Garden – Berms, stock tanks, fruits, veggies, bee hives, succulents, a 20-lb. tortoise
The Work-In-Progress – On-going suburban experiments, successes and not

Three of the gardens are at the home of Travis County Master Gardeners, and the fourth, The Work-In-Progress garden, features the home landscape of Travis County Extension Horticulturist Daphne Richards, who also appears weekly on Austin PBS’ widely loved and respected “Central Texas Gardener” television segment.

Gardens For Gardeners

JoAnna Benko, TCMGA President, described the unique nature of the tour this way: “This really is a garden tour for gardeners, by gardeners. These distinctive private gardens have never been open to the general public before. The featured gardens are not a product of landscape architects, garden designers or excavation contractors. Rather, they are the result of the individual gardener’s vision and their own handiwork. Our aim is to educate and enthuse. Interested visitors can experience a wide array of ideas, learn the details from the Master Gardeners that created the gardens, and know how to execute those ideas successfully in their own gardens.”

Manda Rash, Co-Chair of IAGT added: “Native and well-adapted plants require less water and less maintenance. They survive the Central Texas environment which includes erratic swings in temperatures, high summer heat both day and night, drought, flood, clay soil, and rocky soil. And, they are remarkably varied in style and structure. Natives provide food for animals, birds and insects while establishing a beautiful, unique sense of place. They are the foundation of all the sites on the Inside Austin Gardens Tour.”

More complete information on the participating gardens and ticket purchases may be found at www.InsideAustinGardens.org

What’s Happening in the Austin April Vegetable Garden

Posted on April 1, 2024 by sheryl.williams

Rain gauge placed in an april vegetable garden

Example of a Rain Gauge in an Austin Vegetable Garden

Enjoy the April Vegetable Garden!

All warm weather vegetables can be planted during the month of April. Remember to choose vegetable varieties that grow in Central Texas.

Seeds or Transplants?

You can find almost all vegetables available to purchase as transplants for the April vegetable garden. However, you can save money by planting seeds when possible. Some vegetables like tomatoes, eggplant, and peppers need to be transplanted instead of planting seeds to allow the crops to mature before hot weather sets in and extends the productive period of many vegetable crops.

Monitor Irrigation

Remember to give your newly planted transplants or seeds enough water to wet the soil to a depth of at least 6 inches. You can stick your finger or a popsicle stick into the soil to make sure its moist. Water your newly planted vegetables daily for approximately the first two weeks to help the plants establish roots. After that, most gardens require about 1 inch of rain or irrigation per week during the growing season. You can place a measure cup in your garden where your irrigation releases water or leave a rain gauge in your garden to measure how much water enters your garden.

Use Mulch

Once your plants are established, it is recommended to always use mulch. Mulch limits weed growth, regulates soil temperature, and conserves moisture in the soil.

April Vegetable Garden Checklist for Austin

Examine your garden often to keep ahead of potential problems. April is one of the most fun months for gardeners because most of the summer pests are not out yet and the weather is tolerable. So have fun!

FERTILIZE

Spring is Austin’s rainy season and it will wash out liquid fertilizers; switch to granules unless the weather is dry.
Fertilize corn when it is one to two feet tall toward the end of the month.
Apply fertilizer to tomatoes and other flowering vegetables when the fruit first appear. Continue to fertilize every 3-4 weeks until the plant stops producing in the heat. Start with granules then switch to water-soluable fertilizer as the heat arrives.
The amount and timing of fertilizer needed for non-fruiting vegetables varies according to the type of vegetable planted for the April vegetable garden. If you don’t have soil test results to follow, get specific recommendations from the Easy Gardening series. In general, most should only be fertilized at the beginning of the growing season. If you are growing cut-and-come again plants like salad greens, collards, or spinach, you can fertilize after you harvest. Others, like sweet corn, require more nutrition. Too much fertilizer leads to salt build up and drought stress.
For more information on fertilizer, check out this fact sheet.

WATER

Make sure you have audited your irrigation system. If you are using a drip system, confirm that all the emitters are working. If they seem to be plugged, replace the emitter or the drip line. It’s really hard to get them unplugged and functioning properly.
Use the TexasETNetwork site to determine irrigation needs. Click on the Crop Calculator to select individual crops and their growth stage for irrigation recommendations based on actual weather data.
When you irrigate, water deeply. Dig down into the soil 6” to see if the soil is moist. If not, adjust your irrigation schedule to water longer or more frequently for your soil type.
With water restrictions already in place throughout the county, click here to read more tips on efficient irrigation.

PLANTING SCHEDULE FOR APRIL VEGETABLE GARDEN

Seeds

- Beans, snap and lima
- Beets
- Corn
- Cantaloupe
- Cucumber
- Greens, warm season
- Okra
- Peas, Southern
- Pumpkin
- Squash, summer
- Squash, winter
- Watermelon

Seeds or Transplants

- Swiss Chard
- Tomatoes

Transplants

- Eggplant
- Peppers
- Potato, sweet (slips)

HERBS

Add Thai, African Blue, or Holy basil to your vegetable beds and let them flower. They help attract pollinators and beneficial insects.

SOIL

Mix in compost to the top layers of soil
Mulch well around your established vegetable plants. Mulch will help retain moisture, regulate soil temperatures as it starts to get hot, and over time, will turn to compost.
Be careful not to bury plants with mulch because you still need to get water to the root zone. Pull away the mulch if you are hand watering, then replace when done. If drip irrigating, put the emitters under the mulch or pull mulch away from the drip zone.

Harlequin and Praying Mantis on ruffled kale leaf

Two Harlequin Bugs and a Praying Mantis on Kale.

DISEASES/PESTS TO LOOK FOR

Watch for aphids on tender new growth. Wash them off with water or use insecticidal soap.
Harlequin bugs (Murgantia histrionica) will appear on mustard, collards, kale, arugula, and other brassica crops as the temperatures warm. Rather than spraying, cut plants at soil level then compost the tops since they are at the end of their harvesting season.
Sooty mold, black spot, and powdery mildew may also start to appear. Consult the Grow Green FAQ sheets for least toxic solutions.
Watch out for fire ants, they become more active after a rain and love to move into vegetable beds. If they aren’t in an area that will cause harm to people, you can leave them alone and enjoy their soil aeration work.
Caterpillars are out; treat only those plants are not larval hosts to our native pollinators. You can see a list of Austin butterfly plants here.
Snails can be a problem in the April vegetable garden. or if you are over irrigating. The best stratgegy is to pick them off by hand. Keeping garden beds weed free helps to eliminate hiding places.

MAINTENANCE

Gather oak leaves and tassels that have dropped from trees onto your driveway or patios. It will all come in handy as mulch and they are relatively free of weed seeds if gathered from hardscapes.
Cultivate around plants to control weeds, break up crusty soil and provide aeration.
As tomatoes grow, place stems inside of cages. It’s much easier to do when they are small and flexible.
Thin transplants and seedlings as they grow. Adequate root development and plenty of air circulation helps plants fend off disease. It’s also easier to spot pests.
Keep your potatoes mulched or hilled with soil to protect the tubers from sunlight and to encourage the lower portion of the plants to develop tubers laterally along the stem.
Don’t worry if your potatoes start to bloom – it doesn’t impact tuber development.
Hill up the soil or mulch around corn to help stabilize it and keep it from blowing over.
Maintain mulch around your garlic and onions to preserve moisture. Make sure you are irrigating the soil and not the mulch. The bulbs are rapidly developing and need plenty of water.
Let your cool season herbs like cilantro, dill, and parsley bolt and flower. They are a favorite pollen source for beneficial insects.
Clean your garden tools after each use. Try not to cross contaminate by using tools in different gardens or on different plants.
Take inventory of your pesticides and liquid amendments. Most of these products need to be stored at temperatures below 90° F. Make note and use up what you safely can if summer heat is going to be an issue in your shed or garage.
Keep notes and records on garden activities; keep a calendar so you know when things were planted, when things were last watered/ when it rained, when bugs appear in your garden (to prepare for next year), and when vegetables are expected to fruit according to the seed packet or plant label.

An immature squash develops at the base of the female bloom on the left.

HARVEST

Winter Garden

Continue to harvest the remains of your winter garden before temperatures get too hot for them (cabbage, broccoli, Brussel Sprouts, kale, collards, spinach, lettuce). You can eat the leaves on all of these plants or freeze them for soups and smoothies.

Green Beans

Green beans should be coming on fast and furious this month and you may need to pick them daily.

Onions:

Harvest if you are within the window of the time guideline on your seed packet. It is a good habit to keep garden notes, keep a garden calendar, or make a note on the plant label in your garden.
When the tops begin to turn yellow and fall over.
Onions do not have to be a certain size unless you plan on storing them. Pick them as you need them.

Carrots:

Carrot greens above the ground are approximately 10-12 inches tall (Carrot greens are edible.)
When carrots are exposed to sunlight, they can develop a green pigment and become bitter. Keep them covered and harvest any that are 3/4 to 1-inch in diameter.

Beets:

Clear the soil around the base of one or two of your beets and without uprooting the plants, take two fingers and make a circle around the base of the beet plant, exposing the top third of the plant. If the beet is wide and large enough for your preference, then you can pull it out. If it is too small for harvest, gently push some soil and/ or compost back on top of the beet and give it a little watering. Wait a few weeks before testing them again.
Beet greens are edible. Use scissors to snip off a few to add to salads or stir-frys. Harvesting just a few leaves has minimal impact on root growth.

Radishes

What is growing above the soil usually mimics what is growing below the soil so when your radish greens start growing above 6 inches, take that as a sign that the radish below soil is also growing and reaching maturity. (Radish greens are edible.)
Radishes do not grow much more once the top of the root pops up above the soil.

Squash

If you are growing squash or zucchini, you can harvest the flowers and have squash blossom quesadillas, fried squash blossoms stuffed with cheese and herbs, or sautéed squash blossoms with pasta and olive oil. You can eat both male and female flowers.
Leave enough female flowers on the plant to produce the amount of fruit you desire, or pick the female flower once the fruit has formed.
Always leave a few male flowers for pollination. Male flowers have a thing straight stem and the female flowers have miniature fruit just below the flower petals.

Additional Resources

Weather Strategies for Austin Gardens

Watch the Vegetable Gardening in Central Texas Webinar

Vegetable Planting Calendar (Español, 繁体中文)

Vegetable Seed Sources

Easy Gardening Series Detailed tips from Texas A&M University AgriLife Extension on specific crops and practices.

Vegetable Gardening in Austin Resource hub for all things vegetables for Travis County

Plant Rotations, Successions and Intercropping

Monthly Gardening Calendar for Austin and Central Texas

Sustainable Food Center Farmers Markets

Texas Farmers Markets

Tool Maintenance

About Paula Wolfel

Paula Wolfel joined the Travis County Master Gardener program in 2022 and has taken extra training to become a vegetable specialist. She grew up in the suburbs of Chicago learning how to garden from both her father—a Sicilian vegetable and fruit tree gardener—and both her grandmothers, and then spent years in Virginia gardening. Paula loves gardening because she finds it to be a grounding force- it gets her out of her head and into the present. She loves the pride that comes with cooking a meal for her family with every ingredient coming from her garden… and then the humility she feels when she loses an entire crop because of Mother Nature. She finds gardening to be wisdom, lessons, best practices passed down generation to generation, season to season and hopes to share that with you.

Texas Tough Plants Featured in 2024 Webinar series

Posted on March 21, 2024 by sheryl.williams

Texas Tough Plants for Austin

These past couple of years have been especially hard on our landscapes. The extreme cold and summer droughts have left gaping holes in many of our yards, and it’s hard to know which plants should be chosen as replacements. Help is on the way!

Webinar Series Focused on Plant Selection

Travis County Texas A&M AgriLife will be hosting several programs in 2024 to help Austin area gardeners be more successful. Topics range from native landscapes to container gardening. The program features experts from Texas A&M AgriLife Extension, Travis County Master Gardeners, and the City of Austin.

Watch Native & Adapted Plants for Central Texas

Skip Richter and Denise Delaney started the series on February 21st. Their topics were Native & Adapted Plants for Central Texas and Wild About Plants, respectively.

Skip Richter, Texas AgriLife Extension Service Horticulturist (retired) and host of GardenLine on KTRH 740 AM, will discuss some of the best native and adapted plants for creating a beautiful landscape in central Texas. It is important to select plants that are pest and disease resistant, thrive in local soil conditions, are drought resilient, and can tolerate extremes of heat and cold to build a Texas tough landscape. Denise Delaney, the City of Austin Watershed Protection Department’s Acting Education Program Manager, will finish up with “Wild About Plants”, an overview of the Grow Green program.

Watch Native Landscapes for Wildlife with John Davis

On March 20th John Davis, Conservation Program Coordinator with the Austin Parks and Recreation Department gave an excellent presentation on why and how to make our gardens more beneficial for wildlife.

John covers the aspects of wildlife habitat and how we can create them in our yards. He discussed wildlife-safe ways to provide food, water, and shelter. John placed a special focus on the value of native plants to provide food and shelter.

Watch: Trees: Your Landscape Legacy with Yvonne Schneider

Yvonne Schneider, Travis County Master Gardener and Advanced Master Gardener – Tree Care, was our featured speaker on April 10th.

Yvonne explores the many benefits that trees provide for your personal property as well as the general environment. She shares tips on choosing the right tree for your area. This includes selecting trees that are well-suited to our local climate and soil conditions.

Watch 6 D’s of Container Gardening Success with Kirk Walden

Not everyone has a yard or plot to garden in. Plant selection is just as important if you grow plants in containers. Kirk Walden, Travis County Master Gardener, was our final session on May 8th.

Kirk covers the major considerations and decisions that lead to gardening success – from design and soil to irrigation and sunlight. Webinar viewers will come away with a list of recommended plants and resources suitable for Central Texas.

Past Webinars

For a list of past webinar recordings and many other related resouces, please visit Our Favorite Gardening Resources for Austin and Travis County. If you have any gardening related questions after watching the webinars, please contact our Travis County Master Gardener Help Desk.

Genista Caterpillars Munch on Mountain Laurels and More!

Posted on March 7, 2024 by sheryl.williams

Caterpillars on your Mountain Laurel?

Spring seems to have arrived in Central Texas and my mountain laurels are putting on blooms. If you’re like me and enjoy going in for a good sniff of those grape candy smelling flowers, while you’re there take a look around for caterpillars that may be munching on foliage. Genista caterpillars can be quite common on mountain laurel but may also be found on crape myrtle and honeysuckle.

These caterpillars can grow up to one inch in length and are greenish yellow to orange in color with small black and white dots along their body. They have hairs that emerge along the body but are not densely covered. Genista caterpillars create webbing like that of webworms, but to a lesser degree. Larvae, or caterpillars, feed on leaves within webbing causing defoliation of the plant. Eggs are laid in overlapping clusters on the underside of leaves. Pupation occurs in a small, white silken cocoon that is attached to plants or structures. There are two generations per year.

Management Options

Normally genista caterpillars do not cause significant damage to trees, so no management is required. If you feel management is needed because of a large population, it can be rather simple. If plant size allows, caterpillars can be hand-picked and either smashed or dropped in a bucket of soapy water. Other options may include insecticidal soap, horticultural oils, botanicals, spinosad, or Bacillus thuringiensis var. kurstaki, also known as Bt. Bacillus thuringiensis var. kurstaki specifically targets caterpillars but does not distinguish between “good” and “bad” caterpillars, so be careful where you apply it and be aware of drift that may occur. When using spinosad or Bt, good coverage of plant foliage is essential since the caterpillars need to consume a lethal dose. When using any pesticide product, be sure to read and follow all label instructions.

For more information or help with identification, contact Wizzie Brown, Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service Program Specialist.

Additional Resources

About Wizzie

What’s Happening in the Austin March Vegetable Garden

Posted on March 4, 2024 by sheryl.williams

The March Vegetable Garden Checklist by Paula Wolfel

Small plants in pots and wagon hardening off for transplanting into the March vegetable garden

Hardening off tomato and pepper seedlings in preparation for their mid-March transplant to the garden.

March is the month that Austin gardeners wait for all year. In much of Travis County, you can plant your vegetable garden in mid to late March. An important step before planting your garden is to prepare your soil for its new occupants. Also, this month, you can start hardening off seedlings that were grown indoors to gradually expose the tender plants to the wind and sun, and acclimate to outdoor conditions. Finally, although warm temperatures seem to be here to stay, continue to keep an eye on any temperatures that fall below 50 degrees and cover your plants for the duration of that “drop” in temperature.

Soil Preparation an Essential First Step

Know your soil and of do everything you can to make sure your plants live in the healthiest and best soil possible. I have seen gardens where every condition is near perfect but because no time and attention went towards soil preparation, the plants (and the gardener) suffered the entire growing season. One of the reasons for this is that plants feed themselves with nutrients found in the soil. If your soil is depleted of nutrients, then your plants are not receiving what they need to grow and produce food. Depletion can be due to the type of soil or because you are using soil that has been used in your garden throughout the last year and is therefore lacking nutrients that the previous plants used.

What nutrients are important to plants?

Kale leaves that should be green are purple likely due to Phosphorus deficiency in soil.

Nitrogen is a key ingredient for photosynthesis. It is important for good stem and leaf growth. If there is too much nitrogen in the soil, the plant will focus on growing leaves and neglect forming fruit.

Phosphorus is key for root development and seed formation, and increases water use efficiency and the movement of nutrients throughout the plant. It also aids in forming flowers and fruit. This nutrient enables a plant to convert sunlight to carbohydrates.

Potassium aids plants in temperature regulation and the movement of water, nutrients, and carbohydrates in plant tissue.

Test your soil every 3 years unless your soil-management practices change. Testing determines what nutrients your soil might be lacking. You can get that done through the AgriLife Extension Soil, Water, and Forage Testing Laboratory at Texas A&M University.

What about water?

Nutrients that are dissolved in water enter a plant through the roots and transports where needed through the plant.

Don’t forget Organic Material

A key to successful gardening in Texas is incorporating organic materials into the soil, always being mindful of their nutrient content. Organic material also affects a soil’s structure. Under favorable temperatures and moisture conditions, bacteria, earthworms, fungi, insects, and other organisms consume organic material and break it down into inorganic nutrients.

Decomposing organic material also improves the relationship between air and water in the soil. In sandy soils, organic material increases the soil’s water-holding capacity. And in clay soils, the organic material provides aeration for excess water to drain faster and oxygen to move into the soil more easily. Compost is the product that nature creates when it breaks down what once were living organisms and transforms them into a crumbly, dark-brown materials.

To add organic material to your soil, simply put 2-4 inches of organic material on the existing soil. With your hands or cultivating tool, work the organic material into approximately the top 8 inches of your soil. During the growing season you can add more compost as a top dressing where needed.

March Vegetable Garden Checklist

Here is the list of to-dos in the March vegetable garden.

FERTILIZE

If the garden soil has not been tested, use 2 to 3 pounds of granular fertilizer for every 100 square feet of garden area. Spread the fertilizer evenly over the garden and mix with the soil to a depth of 3 to 4 inches before rows or beds are made. Alternatively, use a liquid fertilizer that is applied once the seedlings have at least two sets of true leaves. Read more about fertilizer application here.

WATER

Monitor your soil moisture using a meter or by digging into the soil and feeling with your hands. Soil should feel moist but not wet.
Irrigate newly transplanted plants every day for the first two weeks as needed. Depending on the weather (the high daily temperature, the amount of rain, and the strength of the sun on your garden) water every 2-3 days for the first 12-weeks.

PLANTING

Seeds

Beets (all month)
Carrots (early month)
Radish (all month)
Turnips (all month)

Transplants

Eggplant (mid-late month)
Peppers (late month)
Tomatoes (all month but cover them if the temperature drops)

Seed or Transplants

Beans, snap or lima (all month)
Cantaloupe and Honeydew (mid-late month)
Chard, Swiss (all month)
Corn (all month)
Cucumber (all month)
Greens, cool season (early-mid month)
Green, warm season (all month)
Kohlrabi (early month)
Lettuce (early month)
Mustard (early- mid month)
Peas, southern (late month)
Pumpkin (all month)
Squash, summer (all month)
Squash, winter (all month)
Watermelon (mid-late month)

SOIL

Use mild days to turn compost and add organic material to your soil
Keep soil covered with mulch even if the garden is empty to protect the nutrients in your soil and maintain soil moisture; once plants are in the soil, makes sure to use mulch but do not place mulch up against the stem of a plant

DISEASES/PESTS TO LOOK FOR

Aphid infestation on collards.

Aphids are out already. But alongside the aphids, their predators have also been spotted. So when trying to rid your garden of the aphids, be mindful of the beneficial insects and their eggs and larvae:
1. Lady Beetles (eggs are yellowish orange ovals that stand on end)
2. Hover Flies (eggs look like grains of rice and larva look like maggots, slugs or worms)
3. Parasitic Wasps (they lay their eggs in the aphids)
4. Lacewings (have not seen in the garden yet.)
5. Aphid Midge (have not seen in the garden yet)
6. Damsel Bug (have not seen in the garden yet)

MAINTENANCE

Check to make sure your irrigation system is ready for spring.
Clean and sharpen your tools.

HARVEST

Harvest the remaining brassicas (cauliflower, Brussel sprouts, cabbage, broccoli, kale) before the temperatures get too hot for them. Use them in salads and slaws accompanied with mango, avocado, and nuts for a springtime freshness; sauté with miso butter or olive oil and garlic; ferment them; or freeze them for soups and smoothies throughout the summer.
Keep an eye on onions, garlic, carrots, beets, and radishes that were planted in the ground in late fall and will be ready for harvest within the next month or so.

Additional Resources

Weather Strategies for Austin Gardens

Watch the Vegetable Gardening in Central Texas Webinar

Vegetable Planting Calendar (Español, 繁体中文)

Vegetable Seed Sources

Easy Gardening Series Detailed tips from Texas A&M University AgriLife Extension on specific crops and practices.

Vegetable Gardening in Austin Resource hub for all things vegetables for Travis County

Plant Rotations, Successions and Intercropping

Monthly Gardening Calendar for Austin and Central Texas

Sustainable Food Center Farmers Markets

Texas Farmers Markets

Tool Maintenance

About Paula Wolfel

Paula Wolfel joined the Travis County Master Gardener program in 2022, but has been gardening in Austin, Texas since 2017. She grew up in the suburbs of Chicago learning how to garden from both her father—a Sicilian vegetable and fruit tree gardener—and both her grandmothers, and then spent years in Virginia gardening. Paula loves gardening because she finds it to be a grounding force- it gets her out of her head and into the present. She loves the pride that comes with cooking a meal for her family with every ingredient coming from her garden… and then the humility she feels when she loses an entire crop because of Mother Nature. She finds gardening to be wisdom, lessons, best practices passed down generation to generation, season to season and hopes to share that with you.

Leafcutting Ants

Posted on February 9, 2024 by sheryl.williams

Large Mounds Made by Leafcutting Ants Too

Texas leafcutting ants, Atta texana, are fascinating ants native to Texas, Louisiana, and parts of Mexico. Leafcutting ants create large, extensive colonies, often with multiple mounds clustered in a single area. Mounds are volcano or crater-shaped with a centralized opening and may be mistaken for fire ant mounds, but fire ant mounds do NOT have a centralized opening.

Usually, worker ants of this species, who forage for food, are the most commonly seen leafcutting ants, but in spring it is possible to see reproductive ants, or swarmers. Workers are relatively large ants, reddish-brown in color with three pairs of spines on the thorax and one pair of spines on the back of the head. Workers come in various sizes but can be up to ½ an inch long. Reproductives look similar to worker ants but are much larger in size, with female swarmers being over an inch long. Mated queens have a special area within their mouth to carry fungal spores used to create a fungus garden in the newly founded nest.

Leafcutter Ants Gather for Their Own Garden

Leafcutting ants typically forage when temperatures are cooler, such as at night or in the morning. They can sometimes cause complete defoliation of plants or small trees overnight. These ants remove leaves and buds from plants in the landscape which they chew and get some nutrition from sap, but mainly place chewed leaves in an underground garden within their colony and use it as a base to grow fungus that they eat. Leafcutting ants tend a particular species of fungus and weed out any other fungus from their garden.

Colonies Can Get Large

several mounds indicating a leafcutting ant colony

Colonies may exist for years and can exceed over two million ants. It is not unusual for a single colony to cover an acre of land. Colonies are usually found in well drained, sandy or loamy soils and are more common in Central to East Texas than other parts of the state.

Unfortunately, leafcutting ants can be difficult to manage, and almost impossible to eradicate completely. Prized plants can be temporarily protected by using spray adhesives around the base of the plant, but adhesives need to be refreshed often when dirt or debris accumulates. Temporary protection can also be provided to prized plants by utilizing contact insecticidal sprays or dusts labeled for “ants”. These insecticidal products can also be used along foraging trails and openings where the ants go into the ground. If mounds are present, Amdro Ant Block, which is the only product labeled for use against leafcutting ants, can be broadcast with a hand-held spreader in the mound area. You do not want to use ant bait and residual dusts and sprays in the same area as pesticidal dusts and sprays can contaminate bait and cause the ants not to pick it up.

When managing leafcutting ants, set expectations at managing, not eradicating. Often when you treat, you’ll knock back a portion of the worker population, but the colony will remain.

For more information or help with identification, contact Wizzie Brown, Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service Program Specialist.

Additional Resources

About Wizzie

What’s Happening in the Austin February Vegetable Garden

Posted on February 1, 2024 by sheryl.williams

The Austin February Vegetable Garden Checklist by Paula Wolfel

garden bed with space for new plants as part of the Austin February vegetable garden checklist

A February Garden: remnants from the winter and space for the spring.

This month is filled with multi-tasking in the garden. For those who have a winter garden, you will spend this month cleaning up from last’s month’s freeze and continuing to be on the defense, protecting your garden from temperatures that drop below 32 degrees. Take advantage of the warm days and pull weeds and pick and discard any frozen/defrosted, dead leaves or plants. Early in the month, work 1-2” of compost into your soil and put a layer of fresh soil into beds if it is needed. Cover the compost and new soil with mulch to protect it and keep it fresh for your spring garden. Finally, there are a plentitude of cool season plants and seeds that can be put into the ground this month. And there are several seeds that can be started inside and transferred outside in March-April. Keep warm Austin!

The Importance of the Last and the First Frost Dates

How does frost affect plants? Plants absorb heat from the sun during the day. On cold nights, plants quickly lose this stored heat. As air temperature drops, moisture in the air condenses into dew, which then freezes on leaves and stems and turns to frost when the temperatures drop to 32 degrees. When temperatures drop below 32 degrees, ice crystals form inside plant cells and rupture them, killing plant tissue and sometimes the whole plant. Clouds trap heat so they insulate the atmosphere, therefore adding a layer of insulation to plants, potentially protecting them from freeze damage. Frost and freeze are therefore more likely to occur on cold, clear nights. Read more here.

When is the average last frost date in Austin?

brown dead swiss chard leaves from frost damage

Frost damaged chard leaves.

The average last frost date for the Austin area is February 25th. This date is important in determining when to plant frost-sensitive vegetables and when to move your indoor seedlings outside. In general, a frost will kill beans, cantaloupe, corn, cucumbers, eggplant, okra, peas, pepper, potatoes, sweet potatoes, squash, tomatoes, and watermelon. Colder temperatures (26-31) may burn foliage (symptoms will be shriveled, brown or black leaves) but will not kill broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, chard, lettuce, mustard, onion, radish turnip. Cold weather champs are beets, Brussel sprouts, carrots, collards, kale, parsley, spinach.

No Dawdling on Spring Planting!

The goal is to get plants into the ground before the summer heat sets in. The optimal growing season is from the last spring freeze through early summer. And then again in the fall, we have the option of getting more frost sensitive plants into the ground once the intense heat dissipates and before the first fall freeze. You can get a head start growing frost sensitive plants by growing seeds inside during the winter or purchasing larger transplants in the spring.

The USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map helps home gardeners navigate what plants can grow in your area. The zones indicate what the lowest winter temperatures will likely be in your area based on historical records. You can zoom into the map to get more precise location information. When buying plants and seeds, make sure you check the zone that plant can grow in.

Austin February Vegetable Garden Checklist

Here is what you can do in the garden this month:

Fertilize

Send in soil samples to get an analysis on what your soil may be lacking https://soiltesting.tamu.edu/soil-testing/
Feed vegetables with fish emulsion or other water-soluble fertilizers every two weeks

Water

Irrigate only if the soil is dry a few inches below the surface
Give your plants a good watering before a freeze- moist soil will be warmer and well-watered plants that are not stressed will be less susceptible to freeze damage

Planting

Seeds:

Carrots (all month)
Peas: English, snap and snow (early month)
Potatoes: Irish (all month)
Radishes (all month)
Turnips (all month)

Transplants:

Asparagus- crowns (all month)
Broccoli (all month)
Cabbage (all month)
Cauliflower (all month)
Onions, bulbing (first of month)

Seed or Transplants:

Arugula (all month)
Asian Greens (all month)
Beets (all month)
Chard, Swiss (all month)
Collards (all month)
Fennel (all month)
Greens-cool season- (all month)
Kale (all month)
Kohlrabi (all month)
Leeks (early month)
Lettuce, Head and Leaf (all month)
Mustard (all month)
Spinach (all month)

Indoor Seed Starting:

Cantaloupes
Cucumbers
Eggplants
Peppers
Tomatoes
Watermelon

Soil

Use mild days to turn compost and add organic material to your soil
Keep soil covered with mulch even if the garden is empty to protect the nutrients in your soil and maintain soil moisture

Diseases/Pests to Look for

With warmer weather coming, start making your garden an unwelcoming place for pests by taking out weeds and cleaning up debris.

Maintenance

Check to make sure your irrigation system is ready for spring. Annual inspections and adjustments are recommended to maintain the performance, check for leaks or burst pipes, and prevent the waste of water.
Clean and sharpen your tools.

Harvest

Keep an eye on the root vegetables that were planted late fall. I have been harvesting radishes the last few weeks.
Arugula, Kale, Chard, Spinach, Lettuces are ready to harvest as soon as there is a leaf! The younger, more tender leaves will be in the inside. Harvest some leaves with bunching onions, radishes, and herbs and make a fresh salad.
Harvest the leaves of mustard greens and Asian greens and make a stir fry.
Harvest cabbage, bunching onions, and radishes and ferment them into kimchi or beets and cabbage and ferment into sauerkraut
Finally, broccoli and cauliflower can be eaten raw with ranch dip, steamed and tossed with olive oil and fresh lemon, or cooked alongside other vegetables into soup.

vegetables on counter ready to be processed

February Harvest: cabbage and onions ready for kimchi and brassicas ready for soup.

Additional Resources

Weather Strategies for Austin Gardens

Watch the Vegetable Gardening in Central Texas Webinar

Vegetable Planting Calendar (Español, 繁体中文)

Vegetable Seed Sources

Easy Gardening Series Detailed tips from Texas A&M University AgriLife Extension on specific crops and practices.

Vegetable Gardening in Austin Resource hub for all things vegetables for Travis County

Plant Rotations, Successions and Intercropping

Monthly Gardening Calendar for Austin and Central Texas

Sustainable Food Center Farmers Markets

Texas Farmers Markets

Tool Maintenance

About Paula Wolfel

Exoskeletons – The Part That Goes Crunch

Posted on January 10, 2024 by sheryl.williams

green cicada on top of it's brown exoskeleton

Cicada on it’s discarded exoskeleton

Why Insects Crunch by Wizzie Brown

Insects and other arthropods have an exoskeleton, which means their “bones” are on the outside of their body. The exoskeleton serves as a protective covering, helps prevent desiccation, allows muscles to attach to it from the inside for movement, and provides sensory information.

Four Layers

The exoskeleton is made up of four layers: epicuticle, procuticle, epidermis and basement membrane. The most outer layer, the epicuticle, serves as a barrier to the outside environment and helps the insect avoid desiccation. If you have ever used diatomaceous earth for insect management, you are hoping to abrade the epicuticle of the insect with the diatomaceous earth and cause enough water loss for the insect to die.

The next layer, the procuticle, is for strength. The procuticle is made of chitin, which is secreted by the underlying third layer, the epidermis. The cuticle is soft when it is first secreted, but undergoes a process called sclerotization, which allows for hardening and darkening of the exoskeleton. The procuticle is divided into two components, the exocuticle and endocuticle. The endocuticle is tough, but flexible while the exocuticle is where thickening occurs to provide a more rigid, armored structure. With soft-bodied insects, such as termites, aphids, or caterpillars, the exocuticle layer is greatly reduced.

The epidermis is a layer of living cells that secrete chitin that is used to create the layer above, the procuticle. Any sensory hairs, called setae, that an insect has on its body originate in the epidermis and sensory information travels through the hair on the outside of the insect’s body to nerves found in the epidermis.

The innermost layer is the basement membrane which is a support for the epidermis and a separation from the insect body cavity.

Plate Structure Allows for Movement

All these layers together make up the insect exoskeleton. The exoskeleton is comprised of hardened plates called sclerites. The composition of plate structure allows the insect to have segmented joints and bodies which allows for movement. Each segment has various thickness of sclerites related to the movement and/ or protection required in that given area of the body. Furthermore, the exoskeleton has various areas that are folded inward, called apodemes, allowing for more surface area of the exoskeleton in that particular region and creating a strengthened area where muscles can attach on the inside of the body.

For more information or help with identification, contact Wizzie Brown, Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service Program Specialist at 512.854.9600.

Additional Resources

About Wizzie

What’s Happening in the Austin January Vegetable Garden

Posted on January 1, 2024 by sheryl.williams

The Austin January Vegetable Garden Checklist by Paula Wolfel

A selection of cool season, mustard, and Asian greens, collards, kale, chard, lettuces and arugula, and Chinese cabbage.

Many in Austin saw at least one freeze by early December. With that occurrence, I picked the last of my summer eggplants and made Pasta alla Norma and Eggplant Parmigiana (both can be stored in the freezer if you have a lot of eggplant) and I pickled my jalepenos. And with that is the end of my summer garden—except my chard—and magically space in the garden is free for more winter vegetables like greens, lettuces, brassicas (broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, etc.), carrots, radishes, beets, or onions.

If you grow your vegetable plants by seed, then this is a great time to get your tomato, eggplant, and pepper plants started indoors for a March transplant into the outdoor garden. Also, keep an eye on the weather for low temperatures and make sure you protect any tender plants and take necessary steps to prevent irrigation pipes from freezing. This time of year you can reduce irrigation, especially if rain or snow is in the forecast. With lower temperatures and less hours of sun, the winter garden does not need as much water.

Finally, take advantage of the winter lull to take care of your tools.

Indoor Seed Starting

Growing transplants indoors allows you to experiement with diverse vegetable varieties.

Starting your seeds indoors gives you more control over your plants’ growing conditions and an opportunity to experiment with different vegetable varieties not sold as transplants in the local garden centers. It also gives you a head start on the planting season, especially for plants like tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants, which need to be put in the ground as transplants once it is warm enough—late February through March—and yet before high summer temperatures force them to bolt or stop setting fruit.

To start, gather your seed starting supplies: seeds, seed starting pots or cell trays (you can repurpose egg cartons, yogurt cups, old plastic plant pots from previous transplants-just make sure you wash them), plant markers, seed starting mix (homemade or store-bought), a seed tray with a humidity dome, and a spray bottle or squirt bottle filled with water.

Step One: Moisten your starting mix.

Dump your seed starting mix into a large bucket and add water. Stir so the mix is uniformly damp—you want it to be damp like wet sand but not soppy wet.

Step Two: Plant your seeds.

Next, fill your seedling pots with the pre-moistened seed starting mix. Then, place 1-2 seeds on the surface and gently press the seeds down to the depth recommended on the seed packet. Label each pot. And mist your seeds with water.

Step Three: Place in seed tray.

Assemble the pots in a seed tray (or a baking sheet) and cover with a humidity dome (or plastic wrap). Make sure the seeds are placed somewhere that is warm or on a seed starting heat mat. Mist your seeds whenever the soil feels dried out.

Step Four: Grow the seedlings.

Once the seeds germinate, and your seedlings start to emerge, they no longer need the humidity dome but they will need consistent light. Move the seedlings to the sunniest window in the house, preferably a south-facing window, or place your seedlings under grow lights. Continue to keep the mix moist, but not overly wet. They should be watered once a day or every other day, depending how much light and heat they get. Spray bottles or squirt bottles are great because they provide a gentle stream of water.

Step Five: Transplant into Larger Container

After your seedlings develop their first “true leaves,” they are ready to be transplanted. If you planted more than one seed, and more than one sprouted, choose the strongest one. Transplant the seedling into a larger container filled with potting mix. Be careful of the tender roots. Give the seedling plenty of access to grow lights or sunlight each day, preferably 12-16 hours.

Step Six: Harden off Seedlings

When you are about 2 weeks out from transplanting your plant into the ground, start prepping your seedling for the outside world, or harden off the seedling. First move it outside under diffused light for a few hours, bringing it back inside at night. Over the last week, move it from diffused sunlight to partial sun to full sun, and for longer periods of time, until its finally kept outside all night. After the hardening off period, you can transplant the vegetable to its permanent home, whether in a bed or a larger outdoor pot. At this point, you can give it liquid fertilizer like liquid seaweed with its first watering. Remember to water transplants daily for about the first two weeks in its permanent home to help establish strong roots. And finally, enjoy the fruits of your labor!

January Vegetable Garden Checklist

Here is what you can do in the garden this month:

FERTILIZE	Fertilize established plantings of vegetables toward the beginning of the month by scratching in a solid fertilizer along the side of the plants. Be sure to water in. Alternatively, use a liquid formulation. Repeat in about two weeks.
WATER	Irrigate only if the soil is dry a few inches below the surface, or in newly established seedbeds, or if you are not getting adequate rainfall. Plants use less water in cool weather so be careful not to overwater. Watch the weather forecast and water deeply before freezes because dry plants are more likely to suffer freeze damage than well-watered ones.
PLANTING (with frost protection)	Seeds: Beets (middle to late month) Carrots (middle to late month) Fava Beans (all month) Greens, cool season (all month) Peas, English/now/snap (middle to late month) Radishes (all month) Turnips (middle to late month) Transplants: Artichokes (all month) Asparagus crowns (all month) Broccoli (middle to late month) Cabbage (middle to late month) Cauliflower (middle to late month) Leeks (middle to late month) Onions, bulbing (all month) Seeds or Transplants: Asian Greens (all month) Chard (middle to late month) Collards (all month) Kale (all month) Kohlrabi (all month) Lettuce (middle to late January) Mustard greens (all month) Spinach (middle to all month) Swiss Chard (all month) Indoors: Start tomato and pepper seeds indoor. I usually start transplanting mine in mid- to- late March. Potatoes get planted in mid-February but they need to be cut and set out to dry beforehand. Start shopping seeds for the February planting season.
SOIL	If you’ve had a vegetable garden for a few years now, have a soil test done (forms available here). It’ll help you determine which amendments to add and what to avoid. Add 1-2 inches of organic matter like compost or aged manure, fallen leaves and pine straw to your empty beds so there is time for it to break down before spring planting.
DISEASES/PESTS TO LOOK FOR	Cabbage loopers, aphids, snails/slugs, and some beetles can remain active all winter (control methods can be found here in the Grow Green Guides) You can hand pick them off and either squish or put into a cup of soapy water. Alternatively, Bt (Bacillus thuringiensis) is a safe way of eliminating the worms- just spray on the underside of the leaves where the moth lays the eggs.
MAINTENANCE	Monitor weather forecasts for freeze warnings and protect tender vegetables by covering with row cover, sheets, or even a box. Be sure to remove each day when temperatures are above freezing. Keep up with weeds while they are young and before they have a chance to put down roots. Take advantage of mild winter days to tidy up your shed and greenhouse, and take care of tools. Keep up with the mulch (pine bark, hardwood mulch, pine straw, etc.)
HARVEST	Keep your vegetable consumption high this winter as you continue to harvest Swiss chard, kale, collards and lettuce. Use a “cut and come again” strategy. You’ll be surprised how fast everything grows. Cut or twist the leafy tops off of turnips, beets, radishes and carrots before storing, and don’t overlook the culinary potential of those leafy greens. They are totally edible and nutritious, especially when harvested fresh from the garden. Their flavor is transformed when chopped up and incorporated into soups, casseroles, vegetable sautés, or dips. Carrot tops make a tasty pesto for adventurous eaters.