Big on encouragement, small on details

Texas
Fruit & Vegetable Gardening

This picture looks just like the peppers in my garden!

It was good to read this:

Many beginning Texas gardeners make huge mistake by trying to grow all the things they'd like to eat without finding out whether they even grow here. Some plants are virtually impossible to produce here, such as rhubarb, raspberries, and apricots. Don't waste money and time on plants that are doomed to failure.

That was useful, along with warnings such as:

I can assure you the seed companies have never printed a catalog or a seed pack with an ugly picture that says, "This won't grow in Texas." 

He also points out that just because you see plants for sale in the nurseries that doesn't mean its a good time to plant them. Don't I know it!  It's almost June and Home Depot still has tomato transplants for sale.

So I enjoyed the advice and got a lot out of the book, but not everything I was looking for.  I wanted guidelines for a fall garden.  He says that:

...you can basically grow all the same crops in the fall that you do in the spring; you must plant them in reverse order.

Helpful, but I want more.  And in his detailed plant-by-plant description, almost every plant says,

   ... a second fall crop can be planted around September in the northern half of Texas, and in October in the southern half of Texas.

But...I wanted to know how the heck you're supposed to sow seeds in the scorching dry heat of September and have them germinate?  Do you start things indoors?  Lettuce, for one, won't germinate if the temperature is above 80. What things can you overwinter or grow in a cold frame?

Not enough information.