Weekend Warrior Gardening

Weekend Warrior Gardening I am a garden consultant in the Baytown area and I help people start their backyard gardens and keep them going season after season.

09/17/2026

🌱 Teaching Thursday: How do you transition a garden from summer to fall?

You don’t have to tear everything out and start over.

If your summer crops are still healthy and producing — leave them! My okra is still looking great and giving me a harvest, so it has earned its spot in the garden a little longer.

Instead, transition your garden a little at a time:

🌿 Leave what’s healthy and producing.
✂️ Remove what’s dead, finished or no longer productive.
🌱 Use the newly opened spaces to start planting your next season.

That’s exactly what I’m doing in these school garden beds. Some summer plants are staying, some are coming out, and the empty spaces are becoming home to our next round of crops.

One season doesn’t have to end before the next one begins.

By overlapping your seasons, your garden gradually transitions from summer → fall instead of going from a productive garden → an empty garden → waiting weeks for another harvest.

That gives you faster production between seasons.

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09/16/2026

🥬 Wellness Wednesday: Want to eat more greens? Grow more greens.

We hear “eat more greens” all the time — but I’ve found the easiest way to actually DO it is to have them growing right outside my back door. 🌱

No special meal planning. No extra grocery-store trip. Just walk outside, harvest what I need, and add it to dinner.

And can we talk about the OPTIONS?! Kale after kale after kale… plus Swiss chard, mustard greens, cabbage and more. 💚

Your garden doesn’t have to grow what someone else says you should eat. Grow the greens you actually enjoy eating — and make the healthy choice the convenient choice.

🥬 Kale?
🌱 Swiss chard?
💚 Mustard greens?
🥗 Something else entirely?

What’s your favorite leafy green to grow? Tell me below!

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09/14/2026

🥒 QUICK WIN MONDAY: Don’t plant ONE cucumber!

Can one cucumber plant give you cucumbers? Absolutely.

But why not increase your odds? 🎲

Cucumber plants produce separate male and female flowers, and successful pollination requires getting that pollen from the male flower to the female flower.

With one vine, you’re counting on the right flowers being open at the right time.

Plant 2, 3, 4, 5 — heck, plant the whole tray! 😂 — and suddenly you’ve multiplied the number of flowers and the opportunities for successful pollination.

Think of it like bingo or a trip to the casino: the more chances you have to hit the right combination, the better your odds. 🎰🥒

And better pollination can mean better production from your fall cucumber garden.

🌱 Today’s Quick Win: Don’t make pollination a one-plant operation. Stack the odds in your favor and plant cucumbers in multiples.

Minimal maintenance. Maximum output. 💙

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09/08/2026

Southern gardeners, we get a second chance! 🍅🥒

Fall doesn’t mean we have to jump straight from summer vegetables into cool-season crops.

As those brutal summer temperatures finally start to break, we get another short warm-season growing window — and tomatoes and cucumbers are two crops worth giving another shot.

🌡️ Wait until those temperatures are consistently getting below 90°F.

⏰ But don’t wait too long! We’re gardening in the window between summer heat and our first real cold weather, and we don’t know exactly how long Mother Nature is going to give us.

So for today’s Plant & Pair Tuesday, we’re not talking traditional companion planting. We’re pairing two crops that deserve a second chance:

🍅 Tomatoes
🥒 Cucumbers

Plant for the season you’re actually in — not just the date on the calendar. 🌱

Who’s trying for a second round of tomatoes or cucumbers this fall?

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🍂 The calendar says September… but does your garden actually know that?One of the easiest mistakes a new gardener can ma...
09/03/2026

🍂 The calendar says September… but does your garden actually know that?

One of the easiest mistakes a new gardener can make is choosing plants based on the month instead of the temperature.

September in one part of the country can mean jackets and cool-season vegetables. Here in the Houston area, September can still mean 85°F+ and summer-like growing conditions. ☀️

That’s why I teach gardening in three simple temperature-based seasons:

❄️ COOL: 45–65°F
🌱 WARM: 65–85°F
☀️ HOT: 85°F+

Before you put a plant in the ground, ask yourself two questions:

🌱 What temperatures does this plant prefer?
🌡️ What temperatures am I actually having?

Because just because it’s September—or because the nursery has a plant sitting on the shelf—doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the right time to plant it in your garden.

Your plants don’t know what month it is.

They know whether they’re comfortable. 🌱

So if you’re struggling with a plant, check the season first.

Save this carousel as a quick reference the next time you’re trying to decide what belongs in your garden!

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09/01/2026

🌱 PLANT & PAIR TUESDAY: Okra + Yard Long Beans

Earlier this summer, I recommended pairing okra with yard long beans when you don’t have a trellis available.

Now we get to see how it turned out! 👀

The idea is simple:

🌿 Okra grows tall with a strong, sturdy stem.
🌱 Yard long beans grow on thin, vigorous vines that need something to climb.

Put them together and that sturdy okra can provide some of the vertical support the bean vine is looking for.

And judging by the beautiful beans hanging from the okra in this school garden, I’d say the pairing understood the assignment. 🙌

Do you need to grow them this way? Absolutely not. If you’ve got an arch, trellis or another support structure, use it!

But that’s one of the things I love about companion-style planting: sometimes we can make the plants already growing in the garden do double duty.

Don’t just think about what you’re planting—think about how the plants can work together.

And I especially love getting to circle back at the end of summer and show you what happened to something we talked about months ago. 🌱➡️🫘

What did YOU plant together this summer? Did your pairing work the way you expected? Tell me below!

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08/27/2026

🍂🌱 TEACHING THURSDAY: Summer garden ➡️ Fall garden

Ready for fall but your summer garden is still hanging on?

You don’t have to tear everything out at once! Today I’m working in one of my school gardens and breaking the transition down into 3 simple steps.

1️⃣ HARVEST

Before anything comes out, collect what’s still producing! For us, that’s plenty of okra. If a plant is healthy and productive, there’s no reason to end its season just because you’re preparing for the next one.

2️⃣ CLEAN UP

Pull the weeds and remove spent plants and loose garden debris.

Yes, plant material can be left to decompose and return organic matter to the soil. But during a seasonal reset, I prefer a cleaner bed. It removes some of the places pests can hide and gives me a much better look at what’s actually happening in the garden before I plant again.

3️⃣ REFRESH THE SOIL

Before the fall crops go in, I’m adding a fresh layer of compost. 🌱

After months of growing and surviving a Texas summer, this gives the beds fresh organic matter and nutrients as we head into another growing season.

And that’s it for today.

Harvest. Clean up. Refresh.

We don’t even have to plant yet.

Breaking a garden transition into small, manageable jobs makes the whole process a lot less overwhelming—and gives us a clean slate when it’s finally time to plant the fall garden.

What are you still harvesting from your summer garden?

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