Books about building or gardening in the HOT SOUTH??

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Does anyone know of books or resources dealing with house construction in the heart of Dixie as well as trying to grow fruit trees and vegetables without taking shares in the chemical industry??? I know of the book, "Growing Fruits and Nuts in the South" but it is of course out of print and not located in my usual out of print sources as it isn't really that old. HELP!

-- Sonya (clb@watervalley.net), October 24, 2000

Answers

Sonya, I can sympathise. I lived in east texas most of my life and there is definately a shortage of books on gardening in the south. I still haven't found any good ones. Seems like most authors assume that since we have such a long growing season that we don't have any problems....just pop the seed in the ground and sip lemonade till harvest time. I gardened organically in Tx and had good luck. My only method of bug control was hand picking and then crushing the little dickens (satisfying too). The best source of information I found was my local agricultural extension agent. They normally have lots of printouts and booklets on gardening in your particular area. I love a good aggie joke as well as the next person but in general they know their stuff when it comes to agriculture. Do a web search on Texas A&M for gardening and that ought to get you all kinds of information.

-- Amanda S (aseley@townsqr.com), October 24, 2000.

Sonya, what I do is garden with deep deep mulch everywhere. I have a dozen raised rows going downhill (so they don't rot), they are 3 feet wide, and mulched deep with straw, hay, grass clippings, stuff from the barns, at least 6 inches at all times. Even the walkways in between are covered in hay, no mud. It really keeps the moisture in and the worms very happy. You can uncover a bit in the hot summer and feel the cool dirt underneath. The dirt does not dry out near as fast. I pour buckets of water right on the plant bases, and keep the beds moist. I have a garden after all the others have wilted and died. Our fruit trees are mulched deep too. Everything is, flowers and all. Grass clippings are fantastic for this.

For bugs, plant flowers with tiny tiny blossems on them in the garden to attract the good bugs. I did not even have to soap/water spray even once this year, the good bugs took care of it all. Zinnias are good, and they come back each year. Horn worms with those tiny white eggs on their backs are good, leave them there. The little wasps will take care of all the horn worms for you!

There are dozens of things you can do, just ask us questions here and we will help. I don't use any chemicals at all. And you will find that by using deep mulch you will have thousands of volunteer vegetable and flower plants in the spring! Remember, Organic Gardeners plant alttle extra for the bugs!

-- Cindy in Ky (solidrockranch@msn.com), October 24, 2000.


You could check out Howard Garret's dirtdoctor.com. He has several books on Texas organic gardening. I own a couple of them. I don't think any one book will offer a panacea to the problems, but there are a lot of good suggestions in many that can be very helpful.

-- Doreen (animalwaitress@yahoo.com), October 24, 2000.

I can't believe Growing Fruits and Nuts in the South is out of print-- I bought a copy about a year ago at Bookstop. If it's any consolation to you, I didn't think the book was all that swift. My mother and I have been talking about writing a book for years, but as we aren't grads of A&M I doubt we'd be taken seriously! By the way, I live just north of Houston. I also have not had good luck with extension agents. They'll send you a generic list of varieties of fruits, nuts, vegetables, grasses, etc., that is pretty helpful, but for example, I was told by an agent about five years ago that raspberries would not grow here. Well, I invited him to come look at my row of Dorman Red and Southland raspberries (which would make me a liar right now because they croaked in the abnormal heat we had this summer!!!) Anyway, the extension agent is somewhat helpful. If you can, order a catalog from Ison's, I believe if you put "Ison's" in your search engine you'll find their address. They are a nursery in Georgia, and while they have a lot of stuff for the upper south, they also have lots of stuff for the lower south and Gulf Coast, zones 8a and b and zones 9 and 10. Willhite Seeds is a TX-based company and offers lots of good seeds for TX. My mother and I have spent several years experimenting with things to find out exactly what will and will not grow here, and I think ultimately, that might be what you have to do. No fun, and too long term, but unless something else turns up...... I"m going to go look at the site the person before me suggested. Hope this helps!

-- Hannah Maria Holly (hannahholly@hotmail.com), October 24, 2000.

Sonya,

Check out this link and visit those Dixie state's extension services. They might not have all the answers (does anyone..?) but they've been helping folks grow things for quite a while.

Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service

http://www.reeusda.gov/1700/statepartners/usa.htm

Best of Luck.

jd

-- j (jw_hsv@yahoo.com), October 24, 2000.



Sonya of all the information that we have used the plain ole magazine Texas Gardner has always been the best. Perhaps they also put out a magazine for your state? I read mine at the local library. Vicki

-- Vicki TX (vickilonesomedoe@hotmail.com), October 24, 2000.

Sonya, the book you are looking for is available in hardback at www.half.com for $11.89. They had some other books by the same author about gardening in the south available also. Luck.

-- John in S. IN (jsmengel@hotmail.com), October 24, 2000.

Yes, mercy sakes, yes, Sonya, there does seem to be just the slightest little bit of anti Southern bias in Countryside. One author I can recommend to you is Barbara Pleasant: she has written several books on gardening(available through Amazon.com) and she writes a monthly column in the ALFA news magazine. She used to write a regional column in the old Organic Gardening magazine.

As to house building, that depends on what sort of house you want to build. Building houses in the South isn't particularly different from building them anywhere else. I built my own house here and I think I have made every possible mistake at least twice.

-- Rags in Alabama (RaggedReb@aol.com), October 26, 2000.


Sonya, I found some leaflets on the subjects at our county extension office. Auburn has put out about 4 new farm & garden leaflets also.

-- Jay Blair (jayblair678@yahoo.com), October 26, 2000.

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