Regional guide

Texas Home Vegetable Gardening Guide

Texas A&M AgriLife frost-relative home vegetable guide for spring/fall timing, transplant care, seed depth, watering, mulch, and pests.

Climate signals

• Texas A&M AgriLife says to plant your garden as early as possible in the spring and fall so vegetables grow and mature during ideal conditions.
• The vegetable planting table uses spring planting relative to frost-free date and fall planting relative to first freeze date, not one fixed statewide date.
• The guide includes Texas maps for average last spring frost and average first fall frost, so local frost timing should drive the calendar.
• Texas soils range from deep sands to fertile, well-drained soils to heavy, dark clays with caliche or hardpan layers.
• Long growing seasons with relatively mild winters can encourage large insect populations in Texas vegetable gardens.
• Cool, damp conditions are conducive to foliage diseases, so disease control is treated as prevention rather than eradication.

Planning notes

• Choose a site with full or nearly full sun, deep well-drained fertile soil, a nearby water supply, and distance from trees or shrubs that compete for light, water, and nutrients.
• Use garden size when choosing crops because Texas A&M AgriLife separates small-garden and large-garden crop choices in Table 1.
• Use partial shade mainly for leafy and root crops from Table 2 instead of warm fruiting crops.
• Group crops by maturity and rotate each finished space to an unrelated follow-up crop.
• Improve heavy clay soils with sand and organic matter, and do not work soil when it is too wet.
• Easily transplanted rows include Beet, Broccoli, Cabbage, Cauliflower, Chard, Lettuce, and Tomato; Onion is also listed but is not used as a bunching-onion priority link.
• Require care transplant rows include Carrot, Celery, Eggplant, Okra, Pepper, and Spinach.
• Very difficult without using containers rows include Bean, Cantaloupe, Cucumber, Pea, Squash, Sweet corn, Turnip, and Watermelon.
• When planting seeds, cover the seed two to three times as deep as its width; smaller seeds such as carrot, lettuce, and onion can be planted about one-quarter to one-half inch deep.
• Use Table 5 emergence ranges as a troubleshooting check: Radish 3-6 days, Parsley 15-21 days, Carrot 12-18 days, Pepper 9-14 days, and Tomato 6-12 days under good growing conditions.
• Water enough to wet soil to a depth of at least 6 inches; most gardens need about 1 inch of rain or irrigation per week during the growing season.
• Light, sandy soils usually need to be watered more often, and drip irrigation keeps water off foliage and uses water most efficiently.
• Mulching conserves moisture, prevents weed growth, regulates soil temperature, and lessens ground rot.
• Have soil tested every 2 to 3 years, thin when plants are small, avoid working when foliage and soil are wet, and do not cultivate so deeply that vegetable roots are injured.
• Beans, Beets, Broccoli, Brussels sprouts, Cabbage, Carrots, Cauliflower, Chard, Collards, Kale, Corn, Cucumber, Eggplant, Kohlrabi, Lettuce, Muskmelon, Mustard, Okra, Parsley, Peppers, Pumpkins, Radishes, Spinach, Winter squash, Tomatoes, Turnips, and Watermelons have conservative crop-row catalog examples.
• Asparagus, garlic, bulb onions, Irish potatoes, sweet potatoes, lima beans, southern peas, English peas, Chinese cabbage, celery, and summer squash are source rows without priority links.
• Use priority catalog links as crop-row examples, not Texas A&M cultivar recommendations.

Catalog crop examples

These catalog entries match crops covered by the regional timing source; variety-specific details remain tied to each seed entry's own source.

• Provider Bush Bean Vegetable · Warm · 50 days
• Detroit Dark Red Beet Vegetable · Cool · 58 days
• Waltham 29 Broccoli Vegetable · Cool · 74 days
• Long Island Improved Brussels Sprouts Vegetable · Cool · 100 days
• Golden Acre Cabbage Vegetable · Cool · 64 days
• Danvers 126 Carrot Vegetable · Shoulder · 70 days
• Snowball Y Cauliflower Vegetable · Cool · 70 days
• Bright Lights Swiss Chard Vegetable · Shoulder · 55 days
• Georgia Southern Collards Vegetable · Cool · 65 days
• Golden Bantam Sweet Corn Vegetable · Warm · 80 days
• Marketmore 76 Cucumber Vegetable · Warm · 58 days
• Black Beauty Eggplant Vegetable · Warm · 80 days
• Lacinato Kale Vegetable · Cool · 60 days
• Early White Vienna Kohlrabi Vegetable · Cool · 55 days
• Black Seeded Simpson Lettuce Vegetable · Cool · 45 days
• Hale's Best Jumbo Melon Vegetable · Warm · 85 days
• Southern Giant Curled Mustard Vegetable · Cool · 45 days
• Clemson Spineless Okra Vegetable · Warm · 56 days
• Italian Flat Leaf Parsley Herb · Shoulder · 75 days
• California Wonder Pepper Vegetable · Warm · 72 days
• Small Sugar Pumpkin Vegetable · Warm · 100 days
• French Breakfast Radish Vegetable · Cool · 28 days
• Bloomsdale Spinach Vegetable · Cool · 42 days
• Waltham Butternut Squash Vegetable · Warm · 95 days
• Roma Tomato Vegetable · Warm · 76 days
• Purple Top White Globe Turnip Vegetable · Cool · 55 days
• Sugar Baby Watermelon Vegetable · Warm · 80 days

Related regional guides

• Texas Fall Vegetable Garden A Texas fall vegetable guide for five AgriLife gardening regions, fall planting dates, transplants, and frost-tolerance grouping.
• Travis County Vegetable Planting Guide Texas A&M AgriLife Travis County 2025 planting guide for station frost averages, ideal/marginal timing, and crop-row examples.
• Harris County Vegetable Planting Dates Texas AgriLIFE Harris County chart for seed-unless-noted rows, ideal/marginal timing, freeze averages, and heat-shade cautions.
• Rockwall North Central Texas Vegetable Planting Guide Rockwall County Master Gardeners guide for North Central Texas dates, frost averages, soil-temperature checks, and crop rows.
• East Texas Vegetable Planting Guide Henderson County Master Gardeners East Texas guide for spring/fall dates, spacing, harvest days, yields, and variety examples.

Source: Texas A&M AgriLife Texas Home Vegetable Gardening Guide