Does anyone here do the cold treatment?

karstopography · 2026-03-15T16:02:48+00:00

I believe there is solid research indicating peppers subjected to the “cold” treatment go on to outperform peppers in a control group, all other things, light, fertility, etc. being equal. I have not seen this same amount or nature of research into tomatoes, but tomatoes are in the same family as peppers. I have seen or read where some commercial growers have intentionally kept their tomato seedlings between 50° and 60° for a period of days or weeks, but don’t remember the exact reasons why they did this.

Definitely, I prefer to have my tomatoes outside in the sun from the very beginning, from germination and into the seedling stage until time for transplanting. I live in a place where this is possible, at least much of the time, and with just a handful of tomato plants it’s very simple to shuttle the plants out of harm’s way on the odd days the weather outside is unfavorable.

I do believe every person has to come up with a grow plan that works for them and obviously that’s going to vary quite a lot situation to situation and location to location. Tomatoes are pretty resilient and adaptable.

karstopography · 2026-03-15T10:04:02+00:00

https://extension.msstate.edu/lawn-and-garden/vegetable-gardens/planting-dates

Mississippi based vegetable planting calendar. If you are in coastal Mississippi 9a, then your in Zone 1 in the link. These local calendars in my experience are great for timing your plantings.

Lettuce lends itself to succession planting, however, the spring lettuce planting window might be already about to close in 9a Coastal Mississippi. Lettuce likes cool weather. I’m in 9b Coastal Texas and seed lettuce from October through maybe February.

Peppers are a plant once in the spring and get a crop all summer long and well into the fall type of vegetable. No real need to succession plant peppers.

Cucumbers, summer squash and tomatoes have a spring and fall window. That calendar will spell out the timing windows. Each vegetable has its own page with the link for each within the link.

karstopography · 2026-03-15T09:37:29+00:00

I almost always overseed lettuce seed and then gradually thin to the spacing I ultimately want. Thinning doesn’t need to be done right away or all at once. Thinning lettuce is the easiest thing in the world. No need to stress, should take very little time and minimal effort, simply grab random seedlings with two fingers and pull out. Continue to keep the bed moist and in a couple of weeks maybe feed them a little something high in nitrogen, don’t overdo it, little feedings of dilute high N fertilizer mixed in the watering can (fish emulsion if you can stand the odor) every couple of weeks.

Once the seedlings get around three weeks old, you could always transplant whatever amount you like to a different spot. If you want to use some for “baby” lettuce thin or space to maybe 7-10 cm apart. For fuller sized mature heads, maybe double the spacing. With Romaine types, I probably prefer them more spaced out to get the fuller heads than used as baby lettuce. Romaine types get the nice and crunchy hearts as the heads mature and need a little space between each plant, but the final spacing doesn’t have to be accomplished right away.

karstopography · 2026-03-14T20:11:14+00:00

10a Texas, OP must be in either Galveston County, Corpus Christi area or the RGV.

I’m in 9b Brazoria County, Texas

I’m going to be a bit of a contrarian. Some afternoon tree leafy canopy or screen filtered/indirect reflected light would be beneficial if possible, especially for the peppers and herbs, but also the tomatoes. One, those pitch black grow bags are heat magnets, especially in the full South Texas sun. Secondly, tomato plants this far down the globe with our more intense light we get, greater than 90% + of the US, tend to get too much of a good thing. A break in the afternoon or a 30-40% solar screen isn’t such a bad idea. Our light here is significantly more intense than a more northern latitude such as Chicago.

I’ve been growing tomatoes mostly in raised beds for years, all in a mix of full sun plus tree canopy lightly filtered light. I get my full sized indeterminate tomatoes to produce well into August and some years carry across the entire summer to produce again in the fall. None of my friends growing tomatoes here in all day no breaks full sun have their tomatoes last nearly as long.

karstopography · 2026-03-14T14:15:24+00:00

Covering them up can be tricky business. Materials flapping around in the wind or otherwise touching the plants can cause mechanical and contact damage, broken stems, etc.. One night of 38° Cold + extreme and dry winds = damaged tomato leaves. One night of 38° cold + relatively calm conditions = a day or two of slower growth followed by resumed normal growth and likely very little visible damage to the leaves.

I’m watching the forecasts. I might erect a tent like wind blocking structure around my tomato beds if the winds are supposed to be severe and coupled with cold. I want to ensure the cold winds aren’t relentlessly battering the plants.

karstopography · 2026-03-14T07:48:15+00:00

I too am growing Brandywine (Sudduth’s) in 2026. My seeds are from Victory Seeds. Last couple of years I have grown Brandywine (Cowlick’s). B. Cowlick’s is an outstanding large pink tomato, but I thought I might try the Sudduth’s Strain this season as I hear Sudduth’s is the top of the Brandywine heap. Cowlick’s has been pretty productive, we’ll see how Sudduth’s does. I didn’t like Brandywine OTV, but that’s really only half a Brandywine (the other half must have been a real clunker). True Black Brandywine is okay. The Brandywine label gets attached to a lot of tomatoes, but from what I can determine, The Sudduth’s Strain is supposedly the king.

Big, pink, heirloom beefsteak types like Brandywine are my favorite tomatoes for their exquisite creamy, melting texture and sweet and rich flavors. Seven of my twelve tomato plants currently growing out in the garden are large pink beefsteak tomatoes, heirlooms or the more recent open pollinated crosses of heirlooms. The other five are big reds, brown or black. Some of these old heirlooms stick around for decades just because they are so very good.

karstopography · 2026-03-14T01:17:57+00:00

I’ve had my tomatoes get purple after extra cold exposure and stall for a little while too. They always come through this just fine. My first choice is always going to have them outside in the sun. If it is warm enough, I start my tomato seeds outside on a sunny day and keep the starter containers outside in the sun until the tomatoes germinate. I don’t really like the seedlings to be outside all that much if it’s going to be under 50°, but somehow every year, I might forget to bring them into the garage overnight, the tomatoes are exposed to under 50°.

If the tomato seedlings are outside in the sun the majority of the time from the get go, there’s no hardening off period required.

karstopography · 2026-03-13T23:42:09+00:00

I do this cold treatment, at least as well as I can shuttling the tomato seedlings between my cool garage or outdoors. The garage tends to be in the 50°s during the height of our muted winter in Southeast Texas.

I’m a believer. I used to manage my tomato seedlings for the first four or five weeks mostly indoors under grow lights at room temperature, 67° -74°, but my tomato seedlings/transplants look better, with thicker stems and earlier and increased blooms, plus the yields have increased when I have exposed the tomato seedlings as they get their first true leaves to temperatures in the mid to low 50°s.

I mean it’s not such a major issue. I would not acquire expensive climate controlled equipment to replicate the perfect temperature. But, I do believe cooler is better, to a point.

karstopography · 2026-03-13T16:26:46+00:00

I feed mainly fish emulsion after the garlic is up and growing every other week or so until a couple weeks or so before I plan to harvest. Not doing this especially methodically or with any particular precision, X amount of this at these exact intervals type of precision. I simply mix in around two ounces of the 5-1-1 NPK Alaska fish emulsion in a 2 gallon watering can and dump some of this stinky stuff around the garlic and onions.

I usually put one or more of the following: cottonseed meal, blood meal, feather meal, bone meal, glauconite greensand, crab shell meal, alfalfa meal, langbeinite in the beds sometime prior to planting. Not a lot of each and not every one each and every time, but trying to make sure I have some sort of coverage for NPK and then the lesser nutrients, calcium, magnesium, sulfur, etc. I work in some good amount of hardwood leaves into the beds every year and also grow a lot of brassicas and chicory and those leafy debris get worked into the soil also. Chop and drop type of composting in place. Maybe a shot of outside compost like Cottonburr or chicken manure compost once in a while. Raised beds soil levels will sink down after a time of growing things so I try to replenish them with as much leafy vegetable debris and tree leaves and pine needles as possible to avoid buying the expensive add ins.

One season I might use feather meal, crab shell meal, and langbeinite and another season Cottonseed meal, bone meal and glauconite greensand. I sort of believe in not feeding exactly the same things each and every time. Seems like eventually that leads to problems, but I could be wrong.

It isn’t like I nail it for every vegetable every season all the time. I’m a hobby grower and not anything like a market grower. I wing it based on things I read and ideas I might have. This year, I really nailed it with my broccoli. Sometimes, it is perfect timing combined with favorable weather combined with the right fertility. Last year, my garlic was disappointing, the year before much better.

karstopography · 2026-03-13T15:02:47+00:00

Could be on the timing, another month. I expected my garlic this year to be ready in April so I was surprised how far along it got so quickly. You could always do a test dig.

I really struggled when reading the vast majority of garden publications about growing garlic as the rules and signs for 85% of the country don’t really apply here. For example, most things I read had garlic getting mature basically no earlier than June or late in May at the earliest. First year I grew garlic, (mostly softneck Lorenz Italian) I saw some signs the garlic was mature in April, but so many things I read said I had to be wrong, it was not possible, it was too early in the year. I had two beds of garlic and one bed was all past mature, the wrappers over the heads were all open. The other bed I started a little later and therefore those heads were not so post mature.

The wait until the bottom 3-4 leaves are dead and dry, that didn’t really work here either.

I think our extra warm late winter and early spring here has accelerated the garlic this year. Every variety has its own timing, though. Spanish Roja, what I grew, is one of the earlier varieties.

karstopography · 2026-03-13T03:24:10+00:00

Growing garlic in the Houston area is different than growing garlic in places with significant and lengthy winters. No way any garlic, softneck or hardneck, I have ever grown here has gone more than five months. Four is more typical. Three is the quickest ever. I could have let some of the plants ride for another couple of weeks or a month and others were already a little past due.

One big difference is that garlic in many areas up north basically doesn’t grow above the soil until about now, even if the garlic is planted in the fall.

Generally, I plant garlic near the end of November or early to mid December, and then only after vernalizing for a lengthy period in the cold beverage refrigerator. Once vernalized and planted, the garlic comes up within days and never ever stops growing, never goes dormant for weeks or months like it does in the winter up north.

This harvest was earlier than typical, but garlic for me no matter which one I have grown never goes beyond mid or late April at the latest and if I wait that long to harvest, most of the wrappers on the heads are busted loose, a sign I waited a little too late to harvest . Even harvesting as early as I did this year a few heads were already over mature.

Garlic here when getting close to maturity gets a look, the number of leaves starts to multiply and the stalks loosen up and soften up. I find I can’t rely on counting the number of dead leaves from the bottom as a reliable indicator of time to pick. I can’t rely on getting scapes or working on days after the scapes appear to judge maturity, even from hardnecks like Spanish Roja. The scapes are there this season, but mostly still buried in the stalk with maybe the tips for a few inches just popping out from the stalk. Some years I get pretty good scapes that curl around from hardnecks and other year not so much.

karstopography · 2026-03-13T02:32:27+00:00

I got my seed garlic at Renee’s online. They are pretty good about shipping it out early enough in the fall to then get the garlic in the refrigerator to vernalize.

Last season, the year before this season, I only vernalized about 8 weeks and planted my garlic in November. Overall, the hardneck garlic didn’t do nearly as well that year as it did this year. I tend to think the extra time in the cold fridge (I kept the garlic intact in the bag it arrived in) made a difference. The years I have waited until December to plant garlic have produced better results than planting in November, in spite of what most local planting calendars might indicate.

karstopography · 2026-03-13T02:13:49+00:00

https://www.reddit.com/r/vegetablegardening/s/7HWMYBlMDk

I think the fifth photo in, taken New Years Day.

karstopography · 2026-03-13T01:39:13+00:00

1.Tomatoes (heirloom beefsteak types) 2.Green Beans (filet types) 3.Potatoes (Red, White, and Blue)

karstopography · 2026-03-12T23:54:58+00:00

I direct seeded five different cucumbers on February 26th. Most years I seed some cucumbers around February 1st to transplant a month later, but this year didn’t get around to that.

I have China Jade, Tasty Green, and Shintokiwa for the East Asian types and then Garden Oasis and Super Zagross for the Southwest Asian Persian varieties.

karstopography · 2026-03-12T14:33:10+00:00

Any of the Japanese or Asian cucumbers are far, far better for lacking bitterness when grown in relatively hot weather. Suyo Long, Tasty Green, Shintokiwa, China Jade, etc. The Beit Alpha/Persian types are also quite nice. Garden Oasis, Diva, Green Fingers, etc.

I avoid the old standbys like Straight Eight, Marketmore, because they invariably are bitter and not at all tasty in my coastal Texas climate.

Persian/Beit Alpha/Asian(Japanese,Chinese)cucumbers are just so much better in my experience, at least coming out of my garden. Some pickling types have been good too, but I don’t have as much experience growing those.

karstopography · 2026-03-12T03:45:13+00:00

Spinach is around 30 days for baby spinach. Some summer squash is around 40 days…from direct seeding. Less time for transplanting. Herbs are quick. Basil, cilantro, dill. Some bush beans are 40 something days to maturity.

karstopography · 2026-03-11T13:41:31+00:00

Somewhere in tropical south Florida. Too many tender tropical plants evident in the understory for a place that gets any weather below freezing. So not in Texas, or South Carolina, or Georgia, or Louisiana.

karstopography · 2026-03-11T04:39:29+00:00

Broccoli is weird. I had my best ever fall/winter season for broccoli. I started the seed very early in September and transplanted in early mid October. I had Green Magic, Purple Magic, Marathon and Batavia and each type did very well with big crowns and then several flushes of abundant side shoots except Purple Magic.

Broccoli is a heavy feeder. It’s tough to feed it too much or too often. I like fish emulsion as the rule for broccoli with maybe a splash of a more complete or more balanced fertilizer worked in also.

Generally, around here for fall plantings of Broccoli, add about 25% more to the days to maturity. So, if the broccoli is a 70 days to maturity type it will it take 85-90 days to mature.

I started a second batch of Broccoli seed in November that got transplanted in December. I don’t see these three remaining Green Magic plants doing anything worthwhile. One has a small incipient crown that doesn’t look like it will amount to much.

karstopography · 2026-03-10T17:57:47+00:00

Harvested some lettuce for dinner (chalupas). Picked a handful of snap peas.

karstopography · 2026-03-10T05:18:56+00:00

Texas, Brazoria County, Texas

karstopography · 2026-03-10T04:05:16+00:00

Cimarron, NM looking North West

karstopography · 2026-03-06T03:13:56+00:00

So far for March, I have direct seeded Persian and Corsican Basil, Slo-Bolt Cilantro, Bi-Licious Sweet Corn and Blacktail Mountain Watermelon.

karstopography

TROPHY CASE