How to Start a Vegetable Garden in North Texas

Growing my own food is one of the great joys of my life. My backyard garden supplies me with fresh vegetables year-round, so I can cook healthy meals for the people I love. If you’ve been dreaming of starting your own vegetable garden this year, good news: You’re in the right place!

The Dallas Garden School is the best resource for learning how to grow garden-fresh vegetables and fruit in North Texas.

Follow this guide, and set up a vegetable garden that thrives in our challenging North Texas climate. Learn to grow edible plants from seed to harvest!

What you need to know about gardening in our region

Hi, I’m Callie! 👋 I founded The Dallas Garden School to meet the need for accessible, hyper-regional gardening education that reflects modern trends like growing food and cut flowers. Out with the boring focus on lawn care and shrubbery, and in with gardening that brings us joy and fulfillment.

I also offer an antidote to the generic gardening advice on big, ad-stuffed websites. Much of it doesn’t apply to our area, and a surprising amount of it is simply wrong. (Looking at you, Farmer’s Almanac.)

The next time you see gardening advice on Instagram that treats all gardeners the same, try asking: “How does this apply to North Texas?”

It’s not you, it’s the climate

Growing a vegetable garden in North Texas is challenging because we have extremely hot summers. When the rest of the country is starting to harvest vegetables, our gardens are starting to dry up thanks to triple-digit temperatures. Luckily, there is an easy fix for this.

To successfully grow vegetables in North Texas, we must focus our efforts on the spring and fall seasons. That’s right, we have TWO vegetable growing seasons here in North Texas, but most people never tell you that!

Planting at the right time is crucial

Here in North Texas, if we plant vegetables at the same time as the rest of the country, we are unlikely to harvest a single thing. That’s because once temps rise above 95 degrees, pollen loses viability. No pollen, no veggies.

To guarantee success when you’re starting a vegetable garden, vegetables need planted as soon as possible in the spring. For example, tomatoes must be planted before the end of March. Otherwise, plants don’t have enough time to grow and fruit before the heat arrives.

Planting at the right time is extremely effective. It can take a garden from “meh” to magnificent in a single season.

We value proper timing here at The Dallas Garden School so much that we created an annual garden planner to keep North Texas gardeners on track.

Now that you understand why planting timing matters, you’re already ahead of most vegetable gardeners.

Choosing the best location for your garden

To start a vegetable garden in North Texas, selecting the best location for your garden is important. It may seem insignificant, but a well-situated garden can mean the difference between healthy plants and suffering plants.

Full sun

Vegetables need as much sun as possible to develop and produce properly. Lack of light can result in weak plants that don’t grow as expected.

The ideal location for your garden is a place that gets at least six hours of unobstructed sunlight per day. Ideally, this area receives the majority of sun from morning to midday.

If your garden only receives end-of-day sun, it doubles the stress your plants are already under. Over time, plant health declines.

Water source

Vegetables grow best in soil that stays evenly moist. To maintain adequate soil moisture levels when rain is scarce, vegetable gardens need extra water through irrigation.

Options for irrigating vegetable gardens include:

• Sprinkler irrigation (worst choice because it contributes to problems with disease)
• Hand-watering using a hose
• Drip irrigation (the best form of irrigation)

Hand-watering and self-installed drip systems require proximity to a water faucet. Set up your garden in an area that can be reached with a hose.

If you have an existing sprinkler system, locate sprinkler heads and situate your garden where it gets enough coverage. You can also hire a company to convert a zone or add a zone for drip irrigation.

Building an in-ground vegetable garden

Now that you have identified a location for your garden, it’s time to dig in. Literally!

Most of my garden beds are “in-ground”. This means that I don’t have a physical structure supporting the garden bed. (Think farmer’s fields.)

Raised beds are one way to combat challenging soil, but they are not absolutely necessary.

The benefits of an in-ground bed are:

• No construction required
• Ground soil stays cooler in the summer than soil in raised beds
• You can change the size of the bed if necessary

I recently created two new in-ground beds in my landscape, and I did it over the course of three days. With two or more people helping, you could easily build a large, in-ground bed in just one day.

Here are the important steps for building an in-ground bed:

Step 1: Remove grass.

It is very important to remove all grass from the area before building your in-ground vegetable garden. If you don’t, the grass will grow into your garden and crowd out the plants.

Ways to remove grass in order of effectiveness:

1. Use a sod cutter. (You can rent from a home improvement store)
   
2. Use a garden fork to dig out the grass.
   
3. Cover area with several layers of cardboard then soil and mulch on top. Let area sit for six months before planting.

I demonstrate this entire process inside the “Step-By-Step Building a Garden from Scratch” course. This course is available on-demand to all enrolled students. Learn more about enrollment here.

Step 2: Amend soil

You can improve the health and texture of your soil by mixing in some beneficial ingredients before planting. This is called “amending”.

In North Texas, the predominant soil type is black clay. A few areas have sandy soil. Both soil types benefit from amending before planting.

To amend black clay soil: Mix high-quality compost from a nursery (not a home improvement store) and a granular organic fertilizer into the top 6-8 inches of soil. I also recommend mixing in a product called expanded shale at the same time. This product helps to break up the clay.

To amend sandy soil: Mix high-quality compost and granular organic fertilizer into the top 6-8 inches of soil.

Step 3: Install edging

To keep grass out of your garden bed, you will need to install a barrier of some kind around the bed. You can use metal edging, composite edging, bricks or stones.

Building a raised bed vegetable garden

Installing a raised bed requires a bit more work than an in-ground garden, but it can be worth it.

Step 1: Remove grass.

It is very important to remove all grass from the area before building your in-ground garden. If you don’t, the grass will grow into your garden and crowd out the plants.

Ways to remove grass in order of effectiveness:

1. Use a sod cutter. (You can rent from a home improvement store)
2. Use a garden fork to dig out the grass.
3. Cover the ground at the bottom of the raised bed with several layers of cardboard, then fill bed with soil.

Step 2: Build the structure

There are many ways to construct a raised bed, but first you need to know the qualities of a good raised bed.

A good raised bed is:

• No more than 16 inches tall. Unless you have physical limitations, taller beds get hotter and drier in summer leading to stressed plants.
• Constructed of a porous material like wood, stone, brick or cinder blocks. Porous materials prevent waterlogged soil and can moderate thermal swings. Avoid metal raised beds as they can get too hot in the summer.
• 3 to 4 feet wide, with 4 feet wide being optimal. Wider beds make it harder to plant things without stepping into the bed and compacting the soil. Narrower beds result in crowded plants.

When I build raised beds for a home garden, I construct them of wood with a dimension of 4 feet by 8 feet.

Step 3: Fill bed with soil

A garden is only as healthy as its soil. What you fill your raised beds with is very important.

Never use raised bed soil mixes from a home improvement store. These mixes contain too much wood which robs nitrogen from plants.

The ideal soil mix for raised beds is 70-75% high-quality compost and 25-30% topsoil. Purchase both the compost and the topsoil from a local independent nursery for best quality.

You can also use soil mixes from bulk suppliers. Avoid mixes that contain expanded shale as it is unnecessary in a raised bed.

Container and patio gardens

If you don’t have space for building a garden bed, you can still start a vegetable garden.

Here are my top tips for growing vegetables in containers:

1. The bigger the container, the better. Vegetables need space for their roots. Always use containers with drainage holes.
   
2. Only use high-quality potting soil from a nursery.
   
3. Buy vegetable varieties that are meant for patio or container growing.
   
4. Water containers daily. In hot weather, twice daily watering could be necessary. Never let plants wilt or soil dry out too much.

What to grow

Remember that experimentation in the garden is part of what makes gardening fun. You are free to plant whatever you want! But if you want a better chance of success, stick to my recommendations.

My job is to provide you with what you need to be a successful gardener. If you want to grow something outside of my recommendations, adopt the mindset of experimentation and be okay if things don’t go as planned.

Easiest vegetables to grow in North Texas for a beginner:

Here is a list of the easiest vegetables to grow when you are starting a vegetable garden. By easy, I mean that they are more likely to succeed and require less work than more difficult vegetables.

1. Lettuce
2. Kale
3. Radishes
4. Tomatoes
5. Cucumbers
6. Squash
7. Eggplant
8. Peppers
9. Chinese (Napa) Cabbage
10. Onions
11. Garlic
12. Mustard greens

When to plant a vegetable garden

As we discussed earlier, planting things at the right time is very important when gardening in North Texas.

I’ve created several expert resources to help you know exactly when to plant which vegetables:

1. North Texas Planting Schedule
   
2. Free Spring Planting Plan
   
3. The North Texas Garden Planner book
   
4. Raised Bed Layouts, Season-by-Season for North Texas

How to keep your vegetable garden happy

Here in the DFW area, we need to keep our vegetables healthy and stress-free throughout the growing season. Stressed plants are more prone to insect and disease problems.

Three key ways to care for your vegetable garden:

1. Keep soil evenly moist at all times. When temperatures rise above 85 degrees, water vegetable gardens daily if hand-watering, every other day if using drip irrigation*.
   
2. Once plants are 4-6 inches tall, cover all exposed soil in your bed with 3 inches of shredded hardwood mulch. Replenish mulch as necessary to maintain 3-inch depth.
   
3. Fertilize regularly. Use an organic granular or water-soluble fertilizer and follow directions on the package for how much to use and how often to apply it. Fertilizer requires repeat applications throughout growing season for maximum effectiveness.

*Drip irrigation systems should be run for as long as it takes to wet soil six inches below the surface. This will take hours, not minutes. During cool seasons, you can run 3-4 days per week if there is no rain. During dry, hot seasons, run every other day.

When and how to harvest your vegetables

Always harvest vegetables first thing in the morning. This is when vegetables are fully hydrated. Fully hydrated vegetables have better flavor and texture and store longer in the fridge.

Harvest tomatoes as soon as they start to change color. Let fully ripen indoors out of direct sunlight.

Harvest cucumbers, eggplant, summer squash when they are young and tender. Vegetables left too long on the plant become bitter and tough.

Need more guidance? Help is available!

“Ask Callie”

Get unlimited messaging with an expert for 1-on-1 help with any gardening problem. Available exclusively to enrolled students. Learn more about enrollment here.