Greetings fellow gardeners! This video is a follow up to my July garden tour showcasing my backyard and front yard garden beds in Austin Texas. I made this video to share my experience of becoming a home owner, some things I’ve learned during my first year gardening, and general tips for urban gardening in central Texas (Zone 8B). I bought my home in February 2020, and before then, I wasn’t into gardening, but after moving in, gardening has become one of my favorite hobbies!
I’m working with a smaller backyard, and a smaller lot in general. My home is on a 4400 square foot lot, and my backyard is 40’x16′ which is 640 square feet. In my backyard, I’ve built an in-ground bed, where I’m growing pumpkins, peaches, strawberries, habaneros, cilantro/coriander, and basil. I’ve also got a circular raised bed that I built with limestone, which contains my larger peach tree.
I’m also doing some container gardening using paint buckets and terracotta pots. I’m currently growing pineapple crowns, avocado saplings, sweet potatoes, and habaneros.
As my wife and I prepare to sell our house, we’ve taken out the front yard veggie bed, and replaced it with petunias and black mulch. It was sad pulling up our tomatoes, onions, and all our wildflowers, but we cant take everything with us anyway. I’ve gotten so much joy out of my olive, apple, and fig trees, and even though we wont see those same trees in the future, I will definitely be trying to grow olives, apples, and figs again!
Gardening in Austin Texas is super fun! Working with smaller urban spaces like mine can be difficult, but its rewarding, and I’ve had success with all kinds of fruits and veggies.
Video Chapter Timestamps –
0:00 We’re Selling Our House!
2:04 Container Gardening with Avocados, Pineapple, Sweet Potatoes, and Habaneros
5:44 Growing Pumpkins, Strawberries, and a Peach Tree in the In-Ground Garden Bed
12:29 Our Big Peach Tree
14:11 Discussing my Fig, Apple, and Olive Trees – Giving The Front Yard Some Curbside Appeal and Why I Dislike Black Wood Chip Mulch
18:08 Closing Thoughts on What the Future May Hold
Thanks again for watching Austin Texas Gardening!
#AustinTexas #Gardening #Horticulture #Zone8B #urbangardening
8 Comments
Congrats on finding a buyer. I hope your next place has a yard large enough for a proper 200 square foot garden & 200+ square foot orchard. Don't forget to check the new land using FEMA & USDA maps. An example: my land has 6-15 inches of soil above the water table but my neighbors 300ft away have 0 inches of soil above the water table.
Avocados are apparently naturally an understory plant, so you can give it too much sun. Above 90 degrees the stomata close and you can start burning leaves (googled that cause i had one). The grower told me that after 5 years in the customer's landscape, it could do full TX sun. I had to build a shade cloth for mine because the leaves were burning. Post polar vortex, I have given up.
Well I hope that yall are able to find property that accommodates both the house size and land that is desired! The way I see gardening is that it's a food provider and food security so I see them both as important but might lean a taaaaad more to the gardening side lol.
And you can start over with all the knowledge gained over your time there, so that sounds like a better start to me.
When you said you were moving I laughed…only because I'm thinking about selling and I think we have the same house. I bought an Allegro but in the east Austin location and just a couple of weeks ago I saw how your neighborhood appreciate in value similar to mine. Congrats to you and your wife.
Congrats on selling the house and can't wait to see where you end up next!
Ahhhhh your small peach tree .. yea it’s not coming back. when you start over make sure the area you plant the peach tree is well draining.. as root rot likely killed your peach tree due to to wet conditions were it’s planted.
Oh you should dig up the bananas and take them with you!
Alternative title: last backyard orchard tour until new house!