Gardening books again, 'pology

Doug Welsh's
Texas Garden Almanac

Very good! He knows his stuff, too. As a Texas transplant, I sometimes complain that people are always talking about this state like it's a separate country, magically isolated from the rest of the states and even the whole world. The world can go to heck, people say--because here in Texas we're safe from all those homos and hippies and en-vi-ron-mentals.

Obviously I think that attitude is crap, but in a gardening book, it's got its uses. Because the problem is that Texas is not "the southeast," although it can be awfully hot and humid at times, and it's not "the plains," but sometimes gets awfully icy in the winter, and definitely not "the desert southwest," but you wouldn't think so during an eight-week drought in late summer. Texas is some weird conglomeration of all of these areas with a few hills in the middle and a near-tropical rainforest in Houston.

You might think people in each area--northeast, west, hill country, and southwest--should simply pick up a gardening guide for their area. And maybe they can--but I, located a little north-east of center, would have to buy four books--and that's why I love this! Doug Welsh has done it for me.

He's organized all of the standard gardening topics into monthly-themed chapters along with a checklist for each month's activities. And frequently differentiates between the different climate zones. Here's an example--under August, he advises,

Grow pumpkins for Halloween. For the Panhandle and West Texas, seed should be planted in early July, but for the rest of the state early August will do. (Note: the panhandle is a major commercial producer of pumpkins for the nation.) Plant moderate-sized pumpkin varieties (e.g., 'Appalachin,' 'Connecticut Field', 'Small Sugar', 'Triple Treat');
See?  That's the kind of concrete advice I need. Plus a bonus:

If you fail to produce pumpkins but produce lots of foliage, then go to the grocery store and purchase pumpkins. Place them in your pumpkin patch, and the children will never know. It's magic!
I'm not sure the Great Pumpkin would deem that sufficiently sincere, but...what the heck. I'd do it.