There is an astonishing amount of gardening information on the internet. Some of it is excellent. Some of it was written for somebody growing tomatoes in Pennsylvania and is about as useful during an Austin August as a snow shovel.
These are resources I use and trust for gardening in Central Texas, identifying the creatures that show up in the garden, understanding what’s happening in the soil, and occasionally figuring out what went wrong.
This isn’t meant to be an exhaustive directory. It’s a collection of places worth knowing about.
Planting & Growing in Central Texas
Gardening advice gets considerably more useful when it was written for somewhere that occasionally tries to cook you alive.
For local planting dates, vegetable varieties, and general growing guidance, these are some of the resources I come back to:
Travis County Vegetable Planting Calendar
My starting point for figuring out what can go into the garden and when. It includes ideal and marginal planting windows specifically for Travis County, along with local frost-date information.
Vegetable Gardening in Austin
A larger collection of Central Texas gardening information from Texas A&M AgriLife Extension, including recommended vegetable varieties, crop-specific growing information, harvesting guidance, and other resources for growing food in the Austin area.
Texas Home Vegetable Gardening Guide
A broader Texas reference covering garden planning, crop selection, soil preparation, planting, fertilizing, watering, pest management, and other vegetable-gardening fundamentals.
Bugs, Pests & Beneficial Insects
Sometimes the first question isn’t how to get rid of a bug. It’s whether you should get rid of it at all.
These resources can help identify the insects and other tiny creatures hanging around the garden – and figure out which ones are eating your plants, which ones are eating the things eating your plants, and which ones are just minding their own business.
Field Guide to Common Texas Insects
Texas A&M AgriLife’s guide to insects found in Texas, with photos and information about identification, life cycles, feeding habits, and whether an insect is considered a pest or a beneficial part of the garden.
This is a particularly useful place to start when you already have some idea what you’re looking at and want to know whether you should intervene or leave the little weirdo alone.
BugGuide
A huge photographic reference for insects, spiders, and their relatives in the United States and Canada. You can browse by type, compare photographs, or submit your own photo for help with identification.
It can send you down an impressive insect-identification rabbit hole, but when you’re staring at something you’ve never seen before, that can be exactly what you need.
Ask a Travis County Master Gardener
Sometimes you’ve compared seventeen pictures of bugs on the internet and still have absolutely no idea what’s living on your tomato.
Travis County Master Gardeners provide free, research-based gardening help to Austin-area gardeners. You can send photos and questions about insects, plant problems, diseases, weeds, and other garden mysteries. If your insect problem requires more specialized expertise, they can also refer questions to Texas A&M AgriLife’s local entomology and Integrated Pest Management specialist. Texas A&M AgriLife Extension – Travis County
When internet detective work isn’t getting you anywhere, your local Extension office is an actual resource. Texas A&M AgriLife Extension provides horticultural expertise and can help Central Texas gardeners find reliable information about insects, plant problems, and other things happening in the garden.
Soil, Compost & Plant Health
Healthy plants start below the surface. Soil isn’t just something that holds a plant upright – it stores water and nutrients, supports an enormous community of living organisms, and has a lot to say about what will and won’t thrive in your garden.
And in Central Texas, the soil comes with opinions.
Soils and Composting for Austin
A good starting point for understanding what you may actually be working with in the Austin area. This Texas A&M AgriLife resource covers our local soil types, alkaline conditions, organic matter, soil depth, compost, and ways to improve soil for growing.
Texas A&M Soil Testing Laboratory
Sometimes guessing what your soil needs is considerably less useful than asking the soil.
Texas A&M’s Soil, Water and Forage Testing Laboratory offers soil testing for home gardens and other small growing areas. A soil test can provide information about pH and nutrient levels and give you recommendations based on what you’re actually working with rather than what you assume your soil needs.
Compost Brings Life and Healthy Soil
Compost does considerably more than add nutrients. It adds organic matter, supports soil organisms, improves soil structure and helps soil manage water – all particularly useful qualities when you’re gardening through Central Texas heat.
This Texas A&M AgriLife resource is a good introduction to what compost is actually doing below the surface and why building healthier soil is about more than reaching for a bag of fertilizer.
Seeds & Local Plants
There are a lot of places willing to sell you seeds and plants. These are a few of the places I actually use—or resources worth knowing when you’re deciding what to grow here.
Seeds
Johnny’s is usually my first stop when I’m looking for a specific variety or something a little more specialized. Their selection is extensive, and their growing information is useful well beyond the point of clicking “add to cart.”
Another regular source for my garden, particularly for home-garden quantities. Their seed packets also contain genuinely useful growing information, which I appreciate considerably more than a packet that essentially says, “Here are some seeds. Good luck.”
Give the Natives Some Love
Not everything in the garden needs to produce something for us to eat.
Native plants are producing plenty of their own. They provide food and habitat for pollinators, beneficial insects, birds, and other wildlife – and help create the kind of garden where those creatures actually want to stick around.
If you’re looking to tuck flowers, grasses, shrubs, or other plants around the vegetables, these are good places to start.
City of Austin Grow Green Plant Guide
A searchable guide to native and adapted plants suited to the Austin area. You can narrow the list by local ecoregion, sunlight, water needs, plant type, and other growing conditions instead of falling in love with something at the nursery and discovering later that it wants absolutely nothing to do with your yard.
Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center
The Wildflower Center’s native-plant resources are an excellent place to learn what grows naturally in this part of the country and find plants suited to your conditions while supporting the wildlife that depends on them.