Fall gardening, fresher food

When we say it's starting to get cooler in Houston, Texas, take those words with a grain of salt. I grew up in Indiana and this time of year was always much cooler than summer. Now I live in Texas and "fall" means temps in the low 90s instead of the mid to upper 90s.

But still, the temperature is heading down and those of us who like to garden are getting out our seed packets, trowels and planting away. This fall I'm going to put out tomatoes, lettuce, peppers, onions and some gourds.

Some I'm growing from seed and some I'm starting with plants purchased at a local nursery. This (above) is a bell pepper plant and it's already sprouting small peppers. Sure, they're a long way from being ready for harvest, but I've got plenty of jalapeno peppers (below) to eat now. What I really need to do is get out the jalapeno pepper jelly recipe I have (courtesy of the sister of my good friend Shane Richolson) and make some jelly.

Yeah, I know, I need to pull some weeds.

What I'm really waiting for is for the temperature to drop just a little more so I can put out my lettuce seeds. Most of summer is just too hot for the cool-weather vegetables, so I don't even try. But I planted some back in February and we ate fresh lettuce all spring from two small-ish pots filled with lettuce. It was so great to come home from work, grab some shears and a bowl and head to the garden. I can't wait to put out more so that we can eat super-fresh salads all winter.