December 2022 Wimberley Gardening Blog

Tim's Garden Center Notes

Garden Blog by Tim Thompson - Your Hometown Garden Guy

It’s easy to let the shopping and plans of the holiday season take our attention from the things that matter the most in our lives. The love we hold for one another is what gives real meaning and importance to our lives. Take a moment today to show someone that you care about them and strike a victory for human kindness.

The weather this season has been uncommonly seasonal- cool, with a fair amount of rain. The long-range forecasts are widely varied, so we’ll likely just have to follow the forecasts week by week. Storing soil moisture during the winter can make a real difference in the growing season next year, so, we are hoping for plenty of soothing, replenishing rains.

December Tender Plant Care

For the most tender plants in your garden, be sure to give them a little extra care. Water them well before especially cold spells, and cover the most susceptible with frost cloth, floating row cover, cloches, or wrap them in sheets or blankets. Remember that covering them alone might not be enough in extreme cold. For very cold temperatures, provide them with a heat source, such as a light bulb, heat tape, or a heater under their covering.

Fruit Trees For Sale In Wimberley, Texas

At the King Feed Garden Center you can find fruit trees and bushes year-round, but this is the traditional time to plant them. Planting now gives them the longest possible time to develop a strong root system before they must rely on it to get through their first Texas summer. We have a full selection of the best-adapted varieties for the Hill Country, all of which can thrive and be productive here. We carry only well-rooted container-grown specimens that are grafted onto the hardiest of rootstocks for Texas. They are grown for us by several local growers. Come by and let us help you choose from our peaches, apples, plums, pears, nectarines, figs, grapes, blackberries, and more!

December Vegetables For Sale In The Garden Center

Winter vegetable gardening continues this month as we begin planting bulb onion plants. There is no rush because the recommended planting date for onion plants is January and February here, but planting now, with the right weather conditions, can produce extra good crops. The short-day varieties constitute the best-adapted family for growing here in the Wimberley valley. This includes Texas Grano Supersweet 1015Y and its new, improved version, the Texas Legend, which are still the top favorites here. Texas Yellow Granex (grown in Georgia as the Vidalia onion) and Southern Belle Red are longtime favorites, and we’ll have a plentiful supply through mid-February. Several other well-adapted varieties are sometimes available as well, and all do well here. Cool weather and short days at the beginning of our onion-growing season stimulate lots of leaf growth, which in turn, produces large bulbs as the days lengthen and the weather warms next spring. Pick up a free Tim’s Tips planting guide for bulb onions. They’re easy to plant, fun to grow, nutritious, sweet, and delicious!

We won’t have certified seed potatoes available until next month, but now is the time to begin to prepare their planting beds. They do best in well-drained beds raised slightly above grade and enriched with lots of decomposed organic material, including an extra source of phosphorus, like bone meal or rock phosphate. Mix it up now and let the nutrients age for the best results in January and February.

One of the first things I learned in gardening was helping my dad spray our fruit trees, ornamentals, and shade trees with dormant oil. It is perhaps the easiest, cheapest, and most environmentally friendly way to control pest problems. Spray the trunk, branches, and twigs of woody tissue deciduous plants after the leaves have fallen with dormant spray, also called by many other names like Volck oil and horticultural oil spray. Insect egg cases and fungal spores will be encapsulated and rendered powerless in your garden. One treatment is all that’s needed. It’s as simple as that!

Few things of beauty in our lives last as long as a majestic spreading shade tree or a distinctive and colorful ornamental tree. All the Texas oaks: live, burr, red, Monterey, Sierra, chinquapin, and lacey, as well as cedar elms, make wonderful shade for generations to come. Our Texas mountain laurels, Anacacho orchid trees, Mexican plums, Texas redbuds, crape myrtles, and desert willows all make strong, lasting ornamental statements. If you are looking for a lasting, meaningful gift, a tree is a constant reminder of the person who gives it.

Speaking of gifts, we have lots of ideas for the gardener in your life. Please feel free to ask any of us in the nursery. We are gardeners as well as nursery professionals, and we’d be happy to share with you some of the things that make gardening easier and even more fun!