How can my family start a fall garden in hot Central Texas?

Question:

Fellow homeschooling Catholic mama here! I found your website when looking for seeds and saw that your website was named after St. Clare so that intrigued me and I looked around more! My daughters and I are wanting to start a fall garden. We live in Central Texas so it is hot here and we are hoping that trying a fall garden will be successful when the temperatures cool down somewhat. Plus we are more likely to spend time outdoors taking care of the garden when it’s not scorching. However we are very new to gardening and also not wanting to spend a lot of money to get a garden up and running in case it fails for whatever reason. I was just wondering if maybe you wouldn’t mind offering some tips/help for how to start a garden inexpensively. We don’t want to dig up the ground so we are thinking containers or raised waist height planter beds.

We would like to try carrots, potatoes, arugula (maybe another lettuce or spinach), tomatoes (if we can grow them in fall – I was looking up the homestead seed when I found your site), peas, jalapeños (if they can grow in fall), and Basil. Maybe parsnips.

I found a couple of resin raised planters from Lowe’s that say they are made from a food safe material. Do you recommend resin based containers?

Can this be done successfully on a small budget? I see all kinds of things about the types of soil and potting mix and fertilizer etc and it just seems to add up quickly.

Thank you for any help you can give! Definitely plan to support your business if/when we order seeds!

Answer:

So nice to hear from y’all! Love hearing from fellow Catholics and homeschoolers. 🙂 That sounds like a wonderful project for you and your daughters! A fall garden in Central Texas can be very successful, especially since cooler weather makes it easier to garden and many vegetables actually grow better in fall than in the peak summer heat. We’re going to address your questions below, with tips on raised beds and various tips on keeping expenses down.

1. Containers and Raised Beds

• Resin planters: Yes, resin (plastic-type) raised beds are safe if they’re labeled food safe and are very durable. They won’t rot like wood, and they’re light enough to move around if needed. They also retain moisture well, which is important in Texas heat.
• Other cheap options: You don’t have to buy fancy beds right away. Five-gallon buckets (drill drainage holes), storage totes, or livestock feed tubs make excellent planters. Just make sure they drain.
• Waist-high beds: Convenient for comfort, but they can get expensive to fill with soil. A trick is to fill the bottom with logs, sticks, leaves, or even cardboard, then only add good soil to the top foot (this is called hugelkultur and saves money). For more on this see the extra section of helpful info after this tips section(it’s so cool to see in action if you have Instagram!).
  

2. Soil and Fertilizer on a Budget

This is where costs can add up, but there are affordable approaches:

• Base mix: Start with cheap bulk garden soil or topsoil as the base, then mix in a smaller bag of quality compost or potting mix. That stretches the good stuff without breaking the bank.
• Compost: If possible, grab a bag of compost (from a nursery, Lowe’s, or even municipal sources). Mixing compost with inexpensive soil will give you good results.
• Fertilizer: Instead of expensive blends, start with something simple like fish emulsion, composted manure, or an organic fertilizer made for vegetables. A little goes a long way.

3. What Will Grow in a Central Texas Fall Garden

• Easy cool-weather crops: Carrots, parsnips, arugula, lettuce, spinach, peas — all excellent for fall. They like cooler nights and will thrive once the scorching days ease.
• Tomatoes and peppers (jalapeños): These are warm-season crops. You can grow them in fall if you start with established plants from a nursery (not seeds) and plant them in August–September so they set fruit before frost.
• Potatoes: Generally planted in early spring in Texas. Fall isn’t ideal since they need cool weather to grow but not a hard frost.
• Basil: Loves warmth but is frost-sensitive. You could grow it early in the fall, but it will die at the first frost. Might be better to treat it as a bonus herb rather than a main crop.

4. Cost-Saving Tips

• Start small. A couple of containers with salad greens and carrots can be just as rewarding as a big garden.
• Buy seeds, not plants, for leafy greens and root crops (cheaper, and they germinate quickly).
• Reuse what you have: old pots, buckets, or even cardboard boxes lined with a trash bag and holes poked in the bottom can work.
• Water wisely. A cheap soaker hose or even a watering can is enough — consistency is more important than fancy systems.

5. Getting Started

Here’s a simple plan:

1. Buy one or two resin planters (or buckets/tubs if you want to save more).
2. Fill with bulk soil + compost mix.
3. Plant carrots, arugula, spinach, and peas directly from seed.
4. If you want tomatoes or jalapeños, buy starter plants now and tuck them in.
5. Water daily until seedlings sprout, then water deeply 2–3 times per week depending on weather.

Yes, this can absolutely be done on a small budget. With just a couple of planters, a bag of soil, a bag of compost, and some seeds, you’ll be gardening for under $50–$75 to start. Then you can expand next season if you enjoy it.

Bonus section of info on raised beds that is super cool and help do raised beds on a budget: 

For raised beds we recently came across a great idea on filling raised beds that is more economical, as well as making good soil, in case this interests you:

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DG81Pq8yNST/?igsh=ZGUzMzM3NWJiOQ%3D%3D

Here is the text for it, in case you don’t have access to opening Instagram videos:

one of the most cost effective ways to fill a raised bed is by using different materials. bags of soil can be expensive & we want to add more variety to our soil!

+ cardboard – suppresses weeds
+ sticks – helps to add space between all the material to aerate the soil & will break down over time
+ leaves/clippings – another great free resource that will break down into organic material in your bed
+ compost – helps to improve texture & drainage & replenish nutrients
+ mulch – regulates soil temperature, suppresses weeds & conserves moisture
+ fertilizer – give your plants extra support by adding this in now

Some Tips:

When gathering cardboard, make sure to take off any tape or stickers and try to save boxes with as little ink as necessary.

Instead of raking & bagging leaves to throw out, save your leaves to add to your bed.

Take advantage when we have windy days to gather sticks that may fall into your yard or collect stick on your next walk.

microlife all purpose fertilizer is my favorite to use – you can’t find it in a lot of places, but comment below and i’ll text you where i get it

wood type matters, likely no pine, definitely no black walnut. Don’t want it from a diseased trees, either.

Some more helpful comments came across:

I use cardboard, twigs, sticks, any chunky and awkward organic matter really to fill up the bottom half to 2/3 then the top 20-40cm is a combo of cheap potting mix and enriched with manure and compost. Over time the bottom stuff breaks down and the garden beds will settle and you can top them up with more compost.

We hops this all proves helpful. Thank you for your patronage. If you have any further questions feel free to write. God bless!