Jaune Desprez Rose. Photo by Kyla DeHaven.

Valentine’s Day is next Tuesday.  You usually get one of two responses to this celebration.  You either get someone who just loves it and is looking forward to doing something special for those he/she loves.  Or, you get a groan accompanied with resentment for a day where he/she feels obligated to do something special for those he/she loves.  Regardless of how you feel about February 14th, Valentine’s Day is not just a day to celebrate love.  For homesteaders in my area, it is a day that signals it is time to get to work outside.

Valentine’s Day signals it is time to prune your rose bushes.  If you are not quite sure how to do it, then watch a short instructional video I posted last year on an article entitled, “Roses on Valentine’s Day.”  If your honey sweeps you away for a romantic outing, don’t refuse him/her.  Go, have fun.  Then tend your rose bushes another day.  It is not the specific day that is important; it is just an easy day to remember mid-February.

Valentine’s Day also signals it is time to get your potatoes in the ground.  Weather conditions do apply, however.  You don’t want your soil too saturated because your seed potatoes will rot, which is one of the reasons that I am posting this article today.  If you are wanting to plant potatoes, then you need to prepare for the big day.  Till your soil and let it rest for a few days.  This process also allows the soil to dry out.

We have had so much rain lately that our ground is well-saturated.  A reader wrote me the other day to tell me how her tiller got stuck in their garden.  It happens to the best of us.  Ironically since winter set in here in Southeast Texas, the skies opened up as well.  Don’t get me wrong, I am not complaining in the least, but the soil does need to be loosened and worked before you plant this year.

You also need to purchase your seed potatoes.  Decide on your variety.  Make sure the potatoes are covered in eyes.  A day or two before your designated plant day, you can cut them leaving at least one eye on each section.  I like to leave two eyes.  I spread them out on boards and allow them to air dry until I am ready to put in the ground.  If you do it too far in advance, the potatoes will shrivel up and get soft.  If you do cut them up as you plant, you risk them rotting in the soil from being too wet.

If you are looking for gift ideas, what woman does not like to receive flowers?  Roses are the most popular flower to be given on February 14th.  In fact, I found a statistic that 110 million roses are sold and/or delivered in one year for Valentine’s Day.  That is a lot of roses!  The majority of those given are red.

Why not give a rose bush as a gift?  It is the gift that keeps giving.  Why give roses once a year when you can have them throughout the  year at your home?  In fact I cut beautiful pink roses for my Thanksgiving dinner table this past November.

Growing roses bushes are not difficult.  I have about ten rose bushes in my front yard.  There are so many varieties and colors from which to choose.  My favorite is the Jaune Desprez rose bush I purchased from the Antique Rose Emporium in Independence, Texas.  They are beautiful peach-colored roses with an amazing fragrance.  If you have never been to the Antique Rose Emporium and are relatively close to Independence, then you need to plan a day trip in the spring.  Until then, prune the rose bushes you already have and get those potatoes started in the garden.

The most important thing to consider is finding varieties that are suited to your climate.  The National Gardening Association has a great map of the United States with the different zones clearly laid out.  Locating your zone should be simple enough; you just type in your zip code.  Memorize it so that while you are flipping through seed catalogs or perusing the labels on trees for sale you order the appropriate plants with confidence.  If you are like me, you don’t want to waste your money and time with the wrong varieties.

My husband might love coconut, but we don’t exactly live in a tropical paradise.  My mom sent him a coconut tree from Hawaii and he planted it in a huge pot.  It grew slowly, and was doing alright during the summer.  He forgot to bring it in during the night one evening during the early fall.  The cold night air zapped it and it died.  Luckily, we did not have any money tied up in this project.  It was more an experiment than anything else, but lesson learned.

This might seem silly, but it is still an important part of the process.  Pick varieties that your family likes to eat.  If you hate the seeds in berries, don’t plant raspberries or blackberries.  If you hate your yard littered with nuts and hulls, don’t plant pecan trees in your yard.  You want to be blessed with fruit and/or nuts, not cursed by them.

Do some research.  Does your fruit tree self-pollinate?  Or, does it need another tree or another variety with which to pollinate?  You don’t want to have a beautiful tree that cannot bear any fruit.  Years ago, I planted a pear tree knowing that my neighbors had several just across the dirt road.  Therefore I am able to have pears with only one tree in my yard.

Plant according to the directions that come with the plant/tree/vine.  Most trees need to be staked until they grow strong enough to withstand the winds.  Vines like grapes or berries will need a support on which to grow.  A strong perimeter fence does nicely for berries.  I find the fruit is much easier to pick when grown on a fence or support than left to spread out over the ground.

Our climate does well for pears, some varieties of apples, limes, some oranges, berries, grapes, plums, some peaches, and plums.  Of these, grapes, dewberries, and blackberries grow rampant in the wild.  They are very hearty, as are pears.  Pear trees are usually the only remnant left from an old homestead.  The family left long ago and the house might even be gone, but the pear tree still bears fruit.  Therefore, I would recommend any of these hearty fruit vines/trees to the beginner.  In my opinion, the peach is the most finicky.  I just don’t know anyone that has had a great success with peaches in my area.

So, are you ready to realize your dream of raising your own fruit or nuts?  Now is the time.  Let me know what you are planting and/or what you already have established on your place.

The spinach was resilient and is almost ready to beginning giving us leaves as well as some beets.  Eventually the broccoli plants sprang back and gave us a nice broccoli harvest, but the other plants were so severely damaged that they yielded nothing.  If it wasn’t for our chickens, goats, and the summer drought, we would of had a great year-round garden.  As my husband says, “it is what it is.”

We are now planning to put a fence around our garden plot to hopefully keep animals out of it.  How we do it and which materials we decide to use is still up in the air.  I am glad that we have produce available and are not completely reliant on our own to survive because this would have been a slim year.

But like most homesteaders, we are learning from our mistakes and planning for our future garden.  Believe it or not, but in our area it is time to begin planting many vegetables.  We have an average frost date from November 28th to March 5th.

The following list are vegetables that you can plant this week (approximately January 20th):

asparagus*
beets
broccoli*
cabbage*
carrot
garlic
kale*
kohlrabi
leaf lettuce
spinach
mustard greens
turnip greens
bulb onions*
english pea
radish

*do not plant with seeds, but with bulbs, crowns, or transplants.

Planting this early gives you a head start for your spring garden. We typically do not have hard freezes.  However, you risk losing your crops to an unexpected frost if you are not careful.  You must be diligent in watching the weather and planning to protect your young and vulnerable plants.  We like to use old hay as mulch to cover the leaves of the plants at night.  Then you have to uncover them during the day so that they can soak up the sun’s rays.

You can plant most of the aforementioned vegetables through the beginning of March.  The longer you wait, the less likely you will be affected by a sudden frost or hard freeze.  It is a decision you have to weigh carefully.  There are pros and cons either way.  Fortunately, gardening is about the biggest gamble we take as a family and the stakes are not high.  Seeds and plants are inexpensive and the rewards of gardening are priceless.

Raising fresh, organic produce is cost-effective for our family.  It is a rewarding experience.  Gardening teaches science in a gentle way.  Parables in the Bible like that of the sower make more sense as you learn the importance of having good soil in your own garden.  Working together as a family is also a worthy experience.  Knowing that your children are learning an important skill such as raising their own food is enough to start breaking soil for me.

The DeHaven family is not running out on the 20th to plant the entire list of vegetables.  We are going to plant some 1015 onion sets and garlic.  Then we are going to plant carrots, lettuce, and spinach.  We have decided to wait a little while before planting cabbage and broccoli.

The one thing that we really want this time of the year is a nice salad at dinner.  It will be great to have fresh lettuce and spinach leaves.  Since our system is to only pick the largest leaves on each plant so that the plant will continue making, we should have fresh salad until it gets too hot in the summer and the plants bolt.

I received many tips and advice from readers and I thank them for taking the time to shoot me an email.  This is our chosen course of action.  I waited until the plants were well established.  Trying to weed around the tender seedlings was almost impossible without damaging the young vegetable plants.  So I patiently watched as both the weeds, grass, and vegetable plants grew together.

When I thought the plants were well established, I began weeding very carefully around the plants.  Once the plants were clear, my husband used his weed eater to clean the paths.  He then raked up the cut grass.  Our young boys filled their red wagon with the grass and fed it to our goats.  The goats were excited to get mouthfuls of fresh, green grass.

Hay is in such high demand right now and in such short supply that we have not had any hay with which to mulch our garden.  My husband found three moldy square bales from last year’s supply that we are using.  It won’t be enough, but it will be better than nothing.

In our area we really don’t have leaves, we have an abundance of pine needles, which are tend to make the soil too acidic.  I wanted to use the grass clippings, but my husband vetoed that idea.  He wanted to feed the goats instead.  So, I am still looking for a way to mulch the rest of the garden.  Mulching will help control the weeds as well as help the soil retain moisture.

Some of the plants like carrots and beets are too intertwined with the grass.  They will be pulled out along with the grass.  So I am trimming the grass instead.

It is taking a long time, but I have not given up.  I am thankful for my husband’s help and the help of Isaac and Andrew.  These two boys don’t even know that they are working.  They drive their dump trucks up to where I am working.  I fill the trucks with the grass and they drive them out of the garden.  Working together I always have a truck waiting to be filled.  I enjoy their funny conversations along the way.  It makes my work much more fun.

Butternut squash, yellow squash, and zucchini are already beginning to make.  I cannot wait until I can harvest some fresh vegetables.  Since we cannot have potatoes, I make what I call “Sweet Fries” out of butternut squash.

Sweet Fries

Butternut squash
Olive oil
Salt and pepper

Cut the ends off of the butternut squash.  Clean out the seeds.  (My chickens love these.) Peel the tough outside skin.  Then slice the squash like french fries.  Spray a cookie sheet with olive oil.  Lay the squash on the pan.  Pour about 3 Tablespoons of olive oil on top of them and season with salt and pepper.  Bake at 450 degrees for about 20-25 minutes or until tender and slightly browned.

Serve by themselves or with homemade ketchup.

Weeds and grass is growing beside them at a much faster rate.  It is like the grass and weed seeds have been lying in wait for any moisture at all with which to sprout with a vengeance.  I have tried hoeing, but you cannot get anywhere near the vegetable plants without damaging their tender shoots.  I have resorted to back-breaking weeding by hand.  It is definitely the most effective; however, in spite of my efforts, I am still accidentally uprooting some of the plants.  As I am bent over the rows, all I can think about is the Parable of the Tares.

Jesus likened the kingdom of heaven to a planted field in Matthew 13:24-30.   Without analyzing this parable at all and taking it at face value, a farmer plants wheat, but someone else throws out weed seeds.  Both grow together.  The servants want to know if the farmer wants them to pull the weeds, but he decides not to for the sake of the wheat.  At harvest time, they will pull the weeds first and then harvest the wheat.

My garden reminds me exactly of this wheat field.  Do I take the advice of the farmer in the parable and allow them to all grow together until harvest?  Do I continue trying to fight the weeds and grass at the expense of some vegetable plants?  Do I till it up and start over but this time with raised rows?  Is there another option that I am missing?

The exceptional drought that we are experiencing in Texas has so greatly effected our area.  It looks like fall has come early with all the color in the woods, but the trees are dying from lack of water.  Or, large wooded areas are completely orange from the two wildfires we have experienced since June.  Ranchers are selling off their herds because of the high price of hay and feed as well as the fact that watering holes are drying up; therefore, many pastures around here are empty.

I guess you expect those consequences during a severe drought.  However, I did not expect my garden to be affected in this way.  I did not anticipate seeds being desperate for any moisture.  In my well-established garden plot, I did not anticipate having to fight nature.  It is as if I decided to break ground on virgin soil.

If you have any ideas on how to save my garden, please let me know.

I usually plant in raised rows.  They are easy to see.  Walkways are naturally created and my little boys can tell where there little feet can go and where they cannot step.  Since we usually get a good amount of rainfall throughout the year, the raised rows allow for good drainage.  Your seeds/plants don’t drown.

This fall I decided plant in straight lines in the tilled up soil of the garden.  I built one row for carrots in order to give them more room to grow long.  I made small mounds for my squashes.  For all my other vegetables, I simply dug a small trench with the handle of a hoe into the ground.  Consequently, the garden took less time to plant.  I have staked out each row at both ends to give me an idea where I planted.  When the seeds begin sprouting, it will be easy to see where I planted, but now it all looks the same.

I have instructed my children to stay out of the garden area until the plants come up.  Then hopefully they will be able to tell where to step.  For my littlest one, that is even doubtful until the plants mature into a good size.

We are watering like crazy in the evenings because 25% of your water is evaporated during the daytime.  We have a timer on one of our sprinklers so that we can go to sleep and not worry about remembering to turn off the water.  So far, it is working out well.

I planted All-Seasons cabbage, Early Snap Peas, Black Beauty Eggplant, Broccoli, Cauliflower, Summer Squash, Zucchini, Butternut Squash, Bibb lettuce, Black Seeded Simpson lettuce, Spinach, Carrots, and Kohlrabi.  Hopefully, all of the vegetables will produce well for our large family’s needs.

If you have any other ideas about gardening in an exceptional drought, please let me know.  We are willing and ready to adapt our tried and true methods.