Spring Season

The spring season for growing starts very early in Texas, especially in South Central Texas. The sun gets hot here quickly so it pays to start your tomatoes in the greenhouse now.

In most places in the United States, the snow melts and spring comes in mid March to mid April. It is safe to plant gardens back east in May and by the end of September, almost everything has been harvested, except for pumpkins and winter squash which are done before the end of October. At least that is how my family did it when I lived in upstate New York. There, the weather turns cold in November as the last of the leaves come off the trees and it begins to snow.

I have been there when Easter comes in April and a blizzard hits on Easter morning. If you have already planted your garden back there and this happens, you have to scrap everything and try again. So it is best to wait until May 1, when it is still a bit cool sometimes, to plant your spring garden.

The spring season for growing starts this month in South Central Texas. Start your tomatoes now in a greenhouse or in your home under a grow light or you won't get tomatoes. Most years, the sun gets way too hot before tomatoes ripen if you wait to plant until after the danger of frost is open. Once the sun is warming everything to 90° plus each day, everything stops growing.

So start your tomatoes now, not outdoors, but in a greenhouse with a heater. Get them growing so that when the danger of frost is past, usually mid March to early April, you can plant strong, healthy plants and get a jump on the season. By June, it is usually too hot for the tomatoes to grow and ripen if you put seeds in the ground on April 1.

Spring Season - January 17-January 23, 2022

Monday, January 17, 2022

We have a lot of home canned food for sale in our store. The pickled beets are almost gone.

Happy Martin Luther King Day! Here at David's Garden Seeds®, we are open for business and our Farm Store is open from 9am to 5pm so come on by for some spring garden seeds!

I had a rough night and it was cold last night. When I got up, it was 32°. I keep not expecting it to freeze. It keeps on freezing. Fortunately, Matt just texted that he has already fed all of the animals so I can wait to go out in it until it warms up.

It is now almost 11am and the temperature has warmed up to 55°. Orders are being filled and I have been working to add more new seeds to our online store. I just realized that no orders will go out today even though they are being filled because it is a holiday; hence, the mailman will not come, just like he did not come all day long on Saturday. He did come sometime after 5pm on Saturday or sometime on Sunday.

As I said on last week's page, I checked the mailbox after 5pm on Saturday and there was nothing. I checked the mailbox yesterday at 4pm and it was loaded. Anyway, if you are expecting a seed order from last week, it is delayed because he did not show up and because today is a holiday.

I went to lunch at 11am and then the customers, four sets so far, have started pouring in.

Later in the day, more customers came. I wrote the payroll but we did not give out the checks since today is a holiday. There are so many filled orders waiting to go out for tomorrow that we may have to take them to the post office ourselves.

Spring Season In Texas Starts In January For Tomatoes

Because we are in Texas, this could be our early spring season or, like February of 2021, this could be the wait before winter. We had a once in a hundred year February storm last year that I have named Snowpocalypse and it was bad!

The spring season starts early for growing because of the strong and hot summer sun we get. As soon as the sun heats up to 90° plus each day and does not cool down each evening, everything pretty much stops growing here. This is why it is time to plant your tomatoes in your greenhouse now (with a heater, of course.) If you don't have a greenhouse in Texas, then find a suitable spot indoors using a heating mat until the tomatoes germinate. Once they germinate, you need to place the seedlings under a grow light. Light from a window is not enough.

Spring Season Planting In February

In February, start your peppers and cucumbers indoors, in a greenhouse if you have one. That way, you get a jump start in your spring season planting in March and April when you transplant them before the sun scorches them.

Tuesday, January 18, 2022

Here I am at the podiatry office, ready to have part of my toenail permanently removed since it continues to be ingrown. Fun times.

My toe procedure is finished and I am all set to go home.

Good morning. This morning I have to go into San Antonio for some toenail surgery and I am not happy about it.

It looks like we may get some sort of ice/sleet tomorrow evening into Thursday based on a weather report I just saw on Facebook. I sure hope not. We had enough of that in February 2021.

It is now 11:30am and we are back home on the farm. I am in my home office and the numbness on my right big toe is starting to wear off. I did get the lateral side of the nail bed permanently removed because it kept getting ingrown. I had the left big toe done last June, I believe. I was supposed to have the right toe done in October but my father-in-law got ill so I had to cancel the procedure. Then he passed away, the holidays came, I got sick twice and finally, we had time in the schedule to get it done. The doctor wants to see me back in two weeks for a post op visit.

The spring season seed orders keep coming in so it is wonderful. Matt took over many boxes of orders to the post office this morning so the seeds are finally on their way to you, with more going out when (if) the mailman comes today.

I passed all of the paychecks out this morning before going into San Antonio. We are planning to have tacos since it is Taco Tuesday for lunch. Tomorrow, we are having a company potluck here. Friday, we will be having our luncheon so the store will be closed from 10:30am to about 2pm.

Our rabbit cages were falling today. The "galvanized" wire we bought was not galvanized. We had to rehang them with new wire. We will have to find something stronger than the fake galvanized wire sold in the stores. Unbelievable.

We are supposed to get a cold wintry mix of sleet this Wednesday night into Thursday and they are saying it will be in the 20s. It is 79° right now at 3pm and will get down to 56° overnight.

Matt and Forrest are cleaning the algae and oak twigs and leaves from the pond. Nacho and Ryan are putting shadecloth up around the farm store.

A little while ago, I had four separate families in the farm store buying their spring season seeds as well as some of home canned food. Three of them saw our TV commercial and one heard our Pleasanton radio commercial. This morning, Linda had four separate groups of customers as well. She has taken the rest of the day off from noon on. My toe is waking up from being numb but so far I am doing okay.

Our pond loves to grow algae, plus all of the debris is still in from the oak tree next door after Saturday's high winds. Matt is cleaning it out.

Shadecloth up on the store porch and roof to keep the sun off of the plants that will soon be out here.

Spring Season Planting In Mid March

In March, you can direct sow your spinach, radishes, and lettuce varieties once the danger of frost is past and the ground is warm enough. Most years, that is mid-March here in South Central Texas. You do not have to start these in small pots first.

Wednesday, January 19, 2022

Happy Wednesday! It is 1pm and I just finished having a really good potluck put on by the David's Garden Seeds® team. I am uncomfortably stuffed out of my mind right now. This morning, I got up late. I had a rough night trying to sleep with my bandaged toe. It kept getting stuck on the sheet on the bed and on the light blanket on the couch as I moved back and forth. I finally fell asleep before 6am on the bed and did not wake up until 7:20am. Most days I am dressed and outside feeding animals at that time.

I had to feed the indoor animals and then shower since my doctor did not want me to get my toe wet until this morning. Once the shower was over, I had to soak my foot in Epsom salts and that is where the pain came on strong. I barely kept my aching toe in the Epsom salts for ten minutes because it was hurting so bad!

Once that was over, I put antibiotic ointment and a Bandaid on my toe and the pain was still strong. Then I took some Ibuprofen and the pain went down quite a bit. I got ready and came over to the store. The employment agency owner that we use for some of our help came over for money. It was my first time to meet her. Normally I deal with her assistant who is sick. Then the pest control guy came over and sprayed and I paid him. While he was here, a couple who drove up from Houston came by to see us. She bought a good amount of seeds and then we had our potluck.

In between, I have been learning more about Shopify and I was finally able to find where in the Shopify Admin section to change something that David has wanted changed for a while. I was so happy when I finally hit upon it and I don't know if I will ever be able to do it again.

This morning started out cloudy and grey. My Alexa said there was a dense fog advisory but it was clear as a bell. Devine had some fog. The icy, wintry mix we were supposed to get tonight has now been postponed until tomorrow night. It is a warm day, 76° right now. Hopefully, our housekeeper will be able to make it out tomorrow. She has not been out in four weeks because I have been sick and did not want her to get sick. I texted her earlier today and she said she will be fine to come out.

Our 2 pound bags of rabbit poop are a steal at just $4.95. I looked online and some is being sold at $20 for one pound! Rabbit manure does not burn your plants.

This afternoon, we got bunny rabbit manure in our store from our rabbits in the back. We are selling two pound bags of freshly dried rabbit poop for $4.95. Bunny poop is high in nitrogen and it will not burn your garden. You can apply it directly to your garden with the plants already in there and your plants will thrive. We have had it for a while but never bagged it up before. This is an in-store only purchase so we cannot ship it, but if you would like to come to the Farm Store and get some, it is here for the buying!

Look at the beautiful ears of corn that were harvested from our field today. This is just a sampling that was put in my spring season and summer season garden hod.

We got a nice looking corn harvest from out in the back forty. These are different varieties of dent corn. The sweet corn was already picked.

Here is another large bucket of unshucked corn out of the back forty from today's harvest.

Matthew cleaned out my chicken coop today and did a nice job. The chickens approved.

One of my Barred Rock hens approves of her cage being clean!

Our outdoor team has been outside most of the day completing spring season gardening chores so I am grateful. That means there are less spring season chores for me to do. Speaking of our outdoor team, read the next paragraph.

David called us in late this afternoon to tell us that our brand new outdoor guy who worked for us for six days has already quit. He was doing a fine job but decided the work was not for him. We had offered him full time when he came on but he said he wanted three days a week only. So we gave him three days a week but it was too much for him. David said the guy was going to quit as soon as summer got here so he could go to Wisconsin to be a camp counselor for the summer. We hired him as a favor to his mother-in-law who wanted him to work.

This seems to happen each time we do someone a favor. We have hired a lot of relatives of people we know. They tell us what a fine worker their family member is. Most have been either the worst workers or those who do not want to work and either they quit or hang around hoping they can get by with doing little to no work.

So now it is back to spring season work for one plus some of our indoor people who work part time outside when it is needed.

The cold front blew in tonight and I coughed my head off all evening.

Spring Season Planting In Late March

In late March, during the last week or so of the month, you can begin some more spring planting. You can direct sow your bush and pole beans, lima beans, mustard greens, squash and zucchini, cucumbers, and sweet corn just as soon as the ground is warm enough for each separate variety. A thermometer for the ground is a good thing because the air will always be warmer than the ground is. Also, remember that in spring, the air gets cooler at night which means the ground temperature may get too low for some of these at first.

Thursday, January 20, 2022

Matt is taking down some display racks and hanging them on another wall while Brendon is restocking the store. Linda is off on Thursdays. Too cold to do spring season outdoor work today.

Good Thursday morning. It is windy and cold at 37°. I coughed all night long. It is day 24 of me being ill. Will I ever get better? I have no idea.

David took the truck for an oil change and Matt will meet him in Devine and bring him back to the farm. Linda is off today so I have to be at the store all day. My housekeeper is coming after not being here for four weeks. I did not want her to come and get sick from me.

There certainly won't be any spring season work getting done today with the cold weather. Anytime it is cold like this, we pull our outdoor workers inside and let them pack seeds. We are under a wintry mix watch with icy temperatures through tomorrow morning. I just checked and there is nothing coming down outside so I am grateful.

It is now 9:30am, I am in the Farm Store, and it is definitely cold outside. Lucy is with David in his office. I have the other girls put away so the housekeeper can clean when she gets here.

Patricia got here around 10am to clean the house. So far, we have not had any customers. I cannot imagine anyone getting out in the cold wind today just to go shopping. It is painful just to run across the campus.

It is cold and windy out there today. Our high will be 42°. Right now at 10:30am it is 38°.

It is windy and cold as Old Glory and the Texas flag paint the breeze. On days like this, we long for the spring season to get here.

The temperature is beginning to plummet. We got a bit warmer at 40° but it is back down to 38° and it feels like 29° according to the weather channel. This is crazy. It is after 4pm and soon I will have to go out into the arctic and gather eggs and take care of animals. The fish have been sort of hibernating for the past few weeks, hardly coming up from the bottom at all. They no longer come up and nibble on the fresh food we give them. I guess it is a cold weather thing.

Remember that tomorrow we will be closed from 10:30am until around 2pm for our company birthday celebration so don't plan on making a trip out to the farm tomorrow unless it is after 2pm. Save your trip for Saturday when we will be open from 10am until 4pm.

Well, it sprinkled a few times today but it hit the ground as rain, nothing more. In San Antonio, schools were closed because we were supposed to get precipitation. Out here, school buses ran because David got stuck behind one this morning when he was taking his truck to be serviced. We had zero customers or visitors today and I am sure that is due to the cooler weather and the forecasts we have had all week saying the ground would be coated with a wintry mix. Guess what, folks? There was no wintry mix. It just got cold. It is 38° at 4:30pm and the low overnight will be 33°.

Kitty woke me up on the couch this evening after I fell asleep watching JAG. She just climbed up into my lap.

Spring Season Planting In April

If you have not yet planted the following, spring season planting in April should include:

Lima Beans
Mustard Greens
Peppers, both hot and sweet
Squash, both summer and winter, and zucchini
Tomatoes
Snap beans
Radishes
Cucumbers
Corn

In late April, plant:

Pumpkins
Southern Peas
Watermelon
Cantaloupe
Okra
Eggplant
Sweet Potatoes (We do not sell sweet potatoes but we love eating them.)

Friday, January 21, 2022

Look at these adorable bunnies all set for the spring season!

It is 3pm right now and only 49°. The sky is blue and the sun is shining. Tree pollen is high so I keep coughing.

We got back from having our birthday celebration at Salt Grass Steak House in San Antonio about 2pm. Since then, the mailman came and took two huge USPS bags full of orders as well as a USPS box. The accountant brought our W2s so if you did work for us in 2021, they are in the mail. I mailed out 12 W2s to former employees today. We had two customers this afternoon so far since we have been back from our luncheon.

Back to the birthdays, today we celebrated Matt, Rock, Aaron, and Joshua P. as well as our guests Stephanie Coronado and Kevin Green. Below are a few photos from our delicious meal.

Rock, Jay, Matt, Josh P, David, and Kevin are in this photo from left to right. Rock, Matt, Josh P and Kevin all have birthdays this month.

This pina colada cake was the hit of the party. We had a chocolate cake too, but this was da bomb!

Me with most of the crew. A selfie is usually the only way I am in photos these days.

Another shot of this part of the table without me. On the left in the black cowboy hat is Nacho who builds a lot of our wooden projects, the gazebo with pond, animal coops...

Aaron is our other birthday boy. Linda is my assistant and she invited her sister, Laura. Next to her is Cathrine, our newest employee.

Stephanie has a birthday this month so we were happy to have her with us as well as her husband, Nacho, and one of their 3 sons, Hunter.

Adorable Mina, Brendon, and Shayleigh. Mina is our youngest future employee.

Here we have Caleb who manages our Fulfillment building and Cathy, then Laura, Linda, and Aaron.

Orders are still being filled. We got in a huge shipment of envelopes this afternoon. Thank you for your orders. It is our privilege to fill them for you for spring planting.

Don't forget that we will be open tomorrow from 10am until 4pm so you can shop for your spring seeds. Come on by the Farm Store tomorrow. 5029 FM 2504, just outside of Poteet, Texas. We would love to meet you.

Spring Season Planting In May

You will want to finish up your spring season planting in May with:

More Watermelon
Cantaloupe
Black-eyed and Southern Peas
Cucumber
Squash, both winter and summer
Sweet Corn
Sweet Potato
Eggplant
Green Beans, both bush and pole beans
Okra
Peppers

Saturday, January 22, 2022

It was a pretty sunrise this morning but it was cold! No spring season garden work will get done today.

Good afternoon! Today was the busiest Saturday in the life of David's Garden Seeds®! I had 20 sales. At times, we had four to six families in the store at once. It was overwhelming, yet awesome as I was by myself. One time, I got David to come watch the store after a group left. I really had to go potty. So I ran to the house and heated some spaghetti for lunch. I should have eaten before I went back. I took the hot food with me and someone drove up as I got there right after 12pm. I finally got to wolf my spaghetti down at 3pm and then we had two more families. David gave one farm tour to about ten people from different families. The store had customers in it until about the last 20 minutes that it was open.

Eighteen of the families saw the TV commercial, one heard a radio commercial, and one found us on a garden Facebook group. It really was awesome but my feet hurt. I was on them most of the day and I wore my cowboy boots, instead of my Crocs.

The mailman finally showed up after 3pm but he did not come to the store so he did not see the two boxes of orders that we had ready for him to take to the post office. He went around back to our home. We did not see him because I was busy with two sets of customers and David was in a different building. It is very disappointing that for the second Saturday in a row, we could not ship out our order. Our post office closes at 10am on Saturdays so we could not take the orders.

I came in, got the dishes and laundry going, fed the indoor and outdoor animals, collected and washed the eggs and now my feet are going up. Dinner is coming from Church's Chicken tonight so I don't have to worry about cooking. My feet are having spasms. I am not used to standing for that long.

It started at 33° this morning and it is currently 54° but there was no sun today. A whole lot of people came in planning for the spring season and even more planned for their spring season of gardening online. The orders are pouring in. I want to thank all of the nice folks who came out to the farm store today and all of you who placed orders with us. We appreciate your business so much!

I had to water all of the plants in the greenhouse this evening as the heater is drying everything out.

Svengoolie was a fun movie with Earth VS the Flying Saucers, one we had never seen before.

Sunday, January 23, 2022

This morning the field looked stark and our parking lot was empty, unlike Saturday!

This morning started out a 44° and it is now 55° at 2:30pm. We went to church and then got some groceries. David made a quick lunch, I cleaned up and now we are watching JAG in the den while we work. No spring season work will be done again today outside.

The orders continue to pour in and again, thank you all so much!

Return from Spring Season to Business Growth

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