Fall Gardening in Satan’s Armpit: When August Says No, We Improvise!

There is a special kind of optimism required to be a gardener in North Texas.

The calendar says, It’s time to start the fall garden! The thermometer says, Absolutely not.

We are currently living in what can only be described as Satan’s armpit, where 100 degrees apparently counts as a cool front and 105 has become less of a temperature and more of a lifestyle.

And yet, according to the gardening calendar, it is time.

That’s the tricky thing about fall gardening in North Texas. You can’t necessarily wait for fall weather to start a fall garden. If I wait until Mother Nature decides to turn the oven off, I may push everything so far into winter that I don’t have enough growing time to get a decent harvest.

So what do we do?

We improvise and get creative.

And this year, that means my dining room has temporarily become a nursery.

The Great Onion Experiment

I have grown onions for years, but I’ve always started with onion plants or sets. I usually pick them up at the farmers market, a big-box garden center, or, if I’m lucky, from one of my country sources.

And I’ve done okay. Not terrible. Not behold my magnificent onion empire, either.

For several years, though, I’ve read that one of the secrets to growing really good onions is starting them yourself from seed. You have more control over the varieties, you can get them started at the right time, and you aren't limited to whatever happens to show up at the garden center.

So this year, I decided to try it. But because apparently simply planting onion seeds in a tray wasn't interesting enough for me, I also decided to try something completely new: Seed snails.

Enter: A Random Piece of Fabric I Refused to Throw Away

A few years ago, I rescued a remnant piece of fabric from the curb.

Was it enough fabric to actually make anything? No.

Did I know what I was going to do with it? Also no.

Did that stop me from hauling it home because surely this will be useful someday?

Of course not.

You know that I do not casually throw away perfectly good fabric just because we have absolutely no idea what its purpose might be.

Today, that little scrap finally fulfilled its destiny.

I cut the fabric into strips about 6 inches wide.. These long strips became the foundation for my seed snails.

Next came the soil. I made a loose, fluffy seed-starting mixture using what I already had:

• Raised-bed garden soil

• Vermiculite

• Perlite

• Earthworm castings

• Coco coir

I thoroughly wet everything and tossed it together until the mixture was evenly moist but not sopping wet. Think damp chocolate cake, not swamp.

Then the fun began.

Making the Seed Snail

First, I soaked my fabric strip in a bucket of water so the entire thing was thoroughly damp. Then I laid it out flat and spread approximately ½ inch of my soil mixture over the fabric.

Now came the tiny onion seeds. And when I say tiny, I mean the kind of tiny that makes you question your eyesight, your dexterity and possibly your decision to garden at all.

I gently sprinkled the seeds as evenly as I could along the top third of the soil-covered strip. This part matters. Once you decide which edge is the top, that edge has to remain the top. When the snail is rolled up and eventually stood upright, you want all those seeds sitting near the top where they can germinate and grow upward and the roots have plenty of room to grow down.

Then I slowly rolled the fabric and soil into a spiral. You want the roll snug, but not strangled.

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Too loose and your carefully prepared dirt comes tumbling out the bottom when you stand it up. Too tight and you've essentially made an onion burrito under extreme compression.

There really isn't an exact measurement for this part. You can feel it as you're rolling. Snug enough to hold everything together, but loose enough that the soil and future roots still have some breathing room.

Once the whole thing was rolled, I put a rubber band around the upper third and another around the lower third.

Then...Stand up your snail.

And suddenly this six-foot strip of old curbside fabric, dirt, and impossibly tiny seeds becomes a wonderfully compact little seed-starting tower.

My Favorite Cheap Gardening Hack

The snails need something underneath them that can hold a little water, and I've gotten into the habit of using disposable aluminum pans for projects like this. They're inexpensive, lightweight, hold water, and best of all, when I'm not using them, they nest together and take up almost no room.

Gardening does not always require expensive specialty equipment. Sometimes the perfect gardening supply is sitting next to the disposable roasting pans at the big box store.

Meanwhile, the Rest of the Fall Garden Is Beginning

The onions weren't my only victims...I mean, seedlings.

I also planted chives in a clear plastic fruit container I'd saved. Those containers are practically begging to become seed trays because many already have holes in the bottom for drainage.

Free mini greenhouse? Yes, please.

I also started Brussels sprouts, celery, cabbage, kale and collard greens in small square containers.

And, in a shocking departure from my normal gardening philosophy...I labeled everything.

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Please take a moment to appreciate the significance of this.

Normally, I garden with a large amount of reckless abandon. What variety is that? No idea. When did I plant it? Couldn’t tell you. Is that a cabbage or a Brussels sprout? Time will reveal all things.

I like to think of it as adventure gardening.

But this year I'm trying several varieties of collard greens and a downright ridiculous number of onion varieties, and I actually want to know which ones thrive in my garden.

So labels it is.

Personal growth comes in many forms. Sometimes it is emotional maturity. Sometimes it is putting a garden label in a pot.

And Now...We Wait. Inside.

Normally, I would love to tell you that all these little pots and snails are sitting happily in the greenhouse soaking up the late-summer sunshine.

They are not.

Because it is 105 degrees outside. Again. And again. And apparently again next week and the week after that.

That kind of heat is simply too much for many of the cool-season seeds I'm trying to germinate. So instead of fighting the weather, I'm working around it.

My entire little fall garden has moved indoors.

At the moment, the floor of my dining room in front of the window is covered with seed snails, repurposed fruit containers and little pots filled with the promise of cooler days. It is not particularly elegant, but gardening rarely is.

That's one of the things I love most about it. Gardening teaches you very quickly that you are not actually in charge.

You can study planting calendars. You can make beautiful garden plans. You can buy the seeds, amend the soil, build the trellises and carefully mark the dates on the calendar.

And then North Texas says: “How about 105 degrees? Indefinitely.”

So you adapt. You bring the garden inside. You turn curbside fabric into seed-starting equipment. You turn fruit containers into miniature greenhouses. You put disposable roasting pans underneath your onions.

And you trust that eventually, despite all current evidence to the contrary, fall really is coming.