Gardening 101: When North Texans Should Plant What Vegetables In Their Gardens

FORT WORTH (CBSDFW.COM) - There are three growing seasons in North Texas.

When I moved here in 2011, I can't tell you how ambitious that made my green thumb.

Three seasons, three different planting times, harvest times and all sorts of different things to grow.

There is the early cool season (root crops and greens), the summer season (melons and squash) and the fall cool season (much the same as the early).

Here is the go-to planting guide issued by the great people at Texas Agri-life, one for spring and one for fall.

The hard truth of North Texas is that it gets brutal hot here in the summer.

A string of dry, 100° days limits to what you can grow here.

You quickly learn to grow around the edges of the summer heat.

Cold season vegetables like greens and root crops actually need to get started in the last third of winter if they are going to have a chance to produce a crop before the heat of summer brings them to end.

RELATED: Gardening 101: More Cool Season Gardening Tips

The start of February is time is start root crops. One of key exceptions to this is garlic, which you plant in the fall for a crop in the next year. But early February is the best time to start potatoes and onions.

I visited the backyard of Daniel Cunningham of Rooted In, a.k.a. "The Texas Plant Guy."

He actually starts his potatoes in January, quartering up store bought potatoes (small purple or brown ones) that have started to sprout.

He cuts an inch cube out of each sprout point on the surface of the potato. He then puts them in a paper sack for about two weeks to let the cut wound seal over.

Daniel showed me how to plant these for the maximum crop.

Dig a trench about 8" inches deep and plant the cubes just a few inches deep in the bottom of the trough.

As the plants start to come out of the ground and gets just three or four layers of leaves up the stem, clip of the lowest leaves and mound some dirt against the stem.

Keep doing this until the trough you dug is filled and even go a few inches above that.

For every pair of leaves you clipped off a root will now grow that will produce potatoes.

By the time you get to the end of Spring and the start of summer, you'll have a small basket of potatoes under every plant. When the summer heat wilts the plant, harvest your potatoes.

They will store in a cool, dark place in your kitchen or garage for several months. Buy your onions in sets, just above every nursery is selling them in late winter.

The trick he showed me about planting these is to plant very shallow, just enough of the tip to keep the plant from getting pushed over by the wind.

This makes for a bigger onion by June. By the way, feel free to take about half of stalk greens of the onion as they are growing. Use them as you would use scallions, they are great in cooking and on salads.