Planning Your 2024 Vegetable Garden

Extension agent Cary W. Sims plans one possible scenario for an annual garden

PUBLISHED ON January 3, 2024

ANGELINA CO., Texas – With Christmas behind us and a new year ahead, my mind is making plans for the next garden. Now I’m not one to make resolutions, but I like to look back and then make plans for the future.

I have a smaller garden that fits what my wife and I need. But I let it go. That rich soil is currently growing a beautiful patch of Bermuda grass. A gardening expert I follow said that you should never leave any part of your garden unattended after a crop is complete. Even if it ends in late summer, you can plant any number of fall and winter crops to build up the soil and keep unwanted weeds at bay. I let mine go during the drought last summer and fall and am planning a good year ahead.

Let’s go through a possible scenario for the whole year garden.

Early season vegetables such as onions and potatoes will be followed by traditional spring crops such as peppers, tomatoes and squash.

As the spring plants play into the hot mid-summer months, my goal is to plant heat tolerant peas and okra. Although I did not harvest all the okra, I had flowers to enjoy. What should really focus on the cowpeas. Called locally by their varietal name, “purple peas,” they are plants that fix nitrogen in the soil and actually improve soil nitrogen levels.

Finally, as autumn sets in, it will be time to plant the greens and cool season crops to carry me through the winter.

Now if you think this plan is a little too simplistic, I agree. But at least this scenario gives you an idea of ​​where to start. Sit down and study the plant varieties you want to have in your garden. Even with certain vegetables, you will find shorter and longer “seed to harvest” varieties available.

Also, some plants can be left to extend the season. I know quite a gardener who plants a six pack of tomatoes as early as possible in the spring and harvests from those plants throughout our growing season in the fall. Others insist that replanting a second fall tomato crop is the best option.

A fun challenge for fall tomato growers is to see how long they can pick and consume their tomatoes. Harvesting all green/unripe tomatoes just before the first frost of winter can allow you to eat your homegrown tomatoes in winter. In years where we had a late first frost, I have known some to eat the tomatoes from their garden on Christmas Day.

Building my land is another big goal I have for mine garden. I suppose I could get a dump truck load of compost, but I’m more of a do-it-yourself kind of guy. We have an abundance of oak trees at my house and therefore an abundance of oak leaves.

My goal is to use as many leaves as I can down the middle of my rows. This will serve two roles. First, rows covered with coarse leaves keep mud at bay when the soil is wet. Second, the leaves in those mediums should decompose slowly over the year of growth to be later covered.

In the rows and hills where I plant, I want to add as much composted manure as possible for me. Bagged, composted manures are available at best garden stores and make the task of adding to the garden much easier. If you know someone who regularly cleans their manure from horse stalls, cow sheds, chicken coops, or from under rabbit cages, you may be able to get a lot of “product” for a lot of shoveling and little expense.

Be sure to let any manure age before adding it to your soil. I’m not so much worried about it being too hot, as some say, but sickly. As much as I am in favor of manure as fertilizer, there is a very real and present disease factor when the manure is not properly aged.

It’s a bright sunny day as I write this. I can’t wait to put something in the ground in 2024. I think I’ll start with onions.

Cary Sims is the County Extension Agent for agriculture and natural resources for Angelina County. His email address is cw-sims@tamu.edu.

The educational programs of the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service are open to all persons without regard to race, color, sex, disability, religion, age, national origin, genetic information or veteran status. The Texas A&M University System, the United States Department of Agriculture, and the Texas Cooperating County Commissioners Courts.

-Cary W. Sims, Extension Agent
Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Angelina County