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I hope you don't mind another "I'm thinking of moving to Huntsville" post; I know y'all get these often.
We currently live in Colorado Springs and we're thinking of moving. Colorado is getting more crowded and expensive all the time. They're predicting Colorado Springs will be as big as Denver in a couple of decades and I have never wanted to live in a big city. I need a little elbow room. I love that I can see Pike's Peak from my back door, but I can also see probably 50 neighbors and they can all see me! I want to be able to spend time outside without feeling so crowded and visible.
One thing I love is gardening. It's very hard to garden here. Vegetable gardens need to be watered two, three times a day. Plants mature very slowly at this altitude even with the best soil mixture. Our warm weather and our freezing weather has a huge overlap, you might get a 70 degree day and the next day it's snowing. Natives know it's not safe to plant outside until after Mother's Day, and you need to be prepared to cover your plants to protect them with hail until after July. Then of course the first freeze might hit again as early as September!
I'd like to learn about gardening in Alabama. Obviously you get plenty of rain! Is it pretty easy to have a nice flower garden or grow your own produce? Is it pleasant to spend time on your property managing your gardens or is it so hot, muggy, allergy-provoking, and bug ridden that realistically you're going to want to stay indoors mostly? What plants grow well here and are fairly low maintenance? As much as I love gardening I have health issues right now that cause a lot of fatigue, so I'm not able to do a lot of hard work regularly.
Thanks for brainstorming and dreaming with me. It's hard to know where you want to live without actually living there for awhile. We plan to visit over Labor Day weekend, with our three young children, and try to get a feel for the area.
If you love gardening, you'll love Huntsville. Backyard gardening is very easy to do and as you said, "God will provide the water" in Huntsville In addition to nature, there're many nurseries that you can go to and they're all friendly and willing to offer advice to be helpful. I think you'll really enjoy gardening in Huntsville.
When I lived in Madison, I had 2 raised bed gardens (4'X8' each). 4' wide is the most optimum width they say, as you reach the center from each sides. I "experimented" growing different vegetables including lettuces, cucumbers, beans, peas, and tomatoes. In addition, I planted fruit trees around my backyard, I had plums, peaches, and pears and container citrus fruit like limes & lemons. I had deer came into my backyard and ate my fruits! They came as close to my back door to eat my goji berry plant. In the front & side yards, I planted "specimen" trees, fast growing trees like crepe myrtles that grows as much as 4 feet per year (they don't grow fast in dry climates like California), as well as slow growing but great forms like Japanese Maples. The crepe myrtles flower from July to September and look great just outside your windows.
When you come visit, pay attention on sunny spots for each houses. Ideally, you'd want your garden faces south so to get year-round sun.
First, Huntsville itself will be too big for you and is only getting bigger at a crazy rate. If you want a smaller city or more country, then Rogersville, the area northwest of Athens, and Pulaski TN come to mind.
Gardening:
There are times when I wonder why some of the drought stricken California commercial growers don't pack up and move to the area. If you are intent to have a good garden, this is as easy a place as I've seen.
That said, mid-summer heat is brutal. You have to get up and out by 6am and stop by 10 am or work after about 6pm until dark to be comfortable, and use insect repellent.
Last frost is typically around Easter. Plants want to be started before that and in the ground around that time - especially cool weather crops such as spinach, which won't last into the summer. The growing season could extend into October, but most people just go for a single planting, as work in summer heat gets old.
Allergies: Many people develop allergies in the area. Combinations of factors make this a bad area for that. A couple things can help - saline nasal rinses religiously at night once inside, so that the pollens don't sit overnight, and allergy shots or compounds. A lot depends upon your own immune system. I'm not sure of the exact size of the allergy area, but it extends down at least to Birmingham.
Flower gardens are easy. Between pansies and petunias alone you can have flowers year round. A local nursery can guide you on what works well, and many houses have quite showy flowers at various times, especially in spring. I have zinnias and sunflowers for the butterflies and birds, both grow well with almost no care other than an occasional fertilizing.
Veggie gardens also grow very well, with the main issue often being deer or perhaps groundhogs. I used a 7' tall electric fence, but there are other ways. Low maintenance food crops would be turnips (both the tops and roots edible) blue lake green beans, black-eyed and field peas (English peas can be an iffy early season crop), carrots, okra (but there is an art to it), corn, winter and summer squashes, radishes. Tomatoes can be easy or a problem, depending on squirrels and cutworms. Collards and kale do well, spinach not so much. Potatoes and sweet potatoes can grow fine.
Veggie gardens work or don't work because of siting. If there isn't enough sun, and especially if there are walnut or pecan trees nearby, they may not work. They need additional water, usually starting sometime in July. Most years the regular rain ends and the late summer dry season begins around that time. Beware that some places have only a very thin layer of soil, meaning topsoil will have to be brought in or raised beds used.
You didn't mention it, but the summer humidity here will knock you for a loop until you get used to it, and then it will only be incredibly annoying. As dry as the air in Colorado is, this area of Alabama can be a steam bath, beaten only by parts of Louisiana, Mississippi, and spots like Savannah Georgia. The Everglades can be less humid at times.
Be also aware that church and conservative values are strong. The West and the southeast are VERY different that way.
We’ve had great success gardening in Madison. We love it and our kids enjoy it. We currently have two raised beds but are going to expand to four. Tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, strawberries, peppers, greens, carrots, basil, and okra. We coat okra with olive oil and tajin and grill it. Really good.
We plant right after Easter. Humidity doesn’t kick in until June and lasts until late September. This year we didn’t really see consistent 90+ temps until this week. Back to 80s next week. But other summers are hotter. Nice thing is you can get 70s in January. It can get cold for sure but certainly relative compared to Colorado Springs.
You can still find a good amount of land in Madison and if you have kids, schools are amazing.
If you love gardening, you'll love Huntsville. Backyard gardening is very easy to do and as you said, "God will provide the water" in Huntsville In addition to nature, there're many nurseries that you can go to and they're all friendly and willing to offer advice to be helpful. I think you'll really enjoy gardening in Huntsville.
When I lived in Madison, I had 2 raised bed gardens (4'X8' each). 4' wide is the most optimum width they say, as you reach the center from each sides. I "experimented" growing different vegetables including lettuces, cucumbers, beans, peas, and tomatoes. In addition, I planted fruit trees around my backyard, I had plums, peaches, and pears and container citrus fruit like limes & lemons. I had deer came into my backyard and ate my fruits! They came as close to my back door to eat my goji berry plant. In the front & side yards, I planted "specimen" trees, fast growing trees like crepe myrtles that grows as much as 4 feet per year (they don't grow fast in dry climates like California), as well as slow growing but great forms like Japanese Maples. The crepe myrtles flower from July to September and look great just outside your windows.
When you come visit, pay attention on sunny spots for each houses. Ideally, you'd want your garden faces south so to get year-round sun.
Enjoy!
This is all very helpful and encouraging, thank you! I will be revisiting your post for all of these excellent tips. I adore crepe myrtles. When we lived in Houston for a couple of years, I had never seen crepe myrtles before and I fell in love. I had no idea they grow so fast; that's fabulous news.
First, Huntsville itself will be too big for you and is only getting bigger at a crazy rate. If you want a smaller city or more country, then Rogersville, the area northwest of Athens, and Pulaski TN come to mind.
Gardening:
There are times when I wonder why some of the drought stricken California commercial growers don't pack up and move to the area. If you are intent to have a good garden, this is as easy a place as I've seen.
That said, mid-summer heat is brutal. You have to get up and out by 6am and stop by 10 am or work after about 6pm until dark to be comfortable, and use insect repellent.
Last frost is typically around Easter. Plants want to be started before that and in the ground around that time - especially cool weather crops such as spinach, which won't last into the summer. The growing season could extend into October, but most people just go for a single planting, as work in summer heat gets old.
Allergies: Many people develop allergies in the area. Combinations of factors make this a bad area for that. A couple things can help - saline nasal rinses religiously at night once inside, so that the pollens don't sit overnight, and allergy shots or compounds. A lot depends upon your own immune system. I'm not sure of the exact size of the allergy area, but it extends down at least to Birmingham.
Flower gardens are easy. Between pansies and petunias alone you can have flowers year round. A local nursery can guide you on what works well, and many houses have quite showy flowers at various times, especially in spring. I have zinnias and sunflowers for the butterflies and birds, both grow well with almost no care other than an occasional fertilizing.
Veggie gardens also grow very well, with the main issue often being deer or perhaps groundhogs. I used a 7' tall electric fence, but there are other ways. Low maintenance food crops would be turnips (both the tops and roots edible) blue lake green beans, black-eyed and field peas (English peas can be an iffy early season crop), carrots, okra (but there is an art to it), corn, winter and summer squashes, radishes. Tomatoes can be easy or a problem, depending on squirrels and cutworms. Collards and kale do well, spinach not so much. Potatoes and sweet potatoes can grow fine.
Veggie gardens work or don't work because of siting. If there isn't enough sun, and especially if there are walnut or pecan trees nearby, they may not work. They need additional water, usually starting sometime in July. Most years the regular rain ends and the late summer dry season begins around that time. Beware that some places have only a very thin layer of soil, meaning topsoil will have to be brought in or raised beds used.
You didn't mention it, but the summer humidity here will knock you for a loop until you get used to it, and then it will only be incredibly annoying. As dry as the air in Colorado is, this area of Alabama can be a steam bath, beaten only by parts of Louisiana, Mississippi, and spots like Savannah Georgia. The Everglades can be less humid at times.
Be also aware that church and conservative values are strong. The West and the southeast are VERY different that way.
Such great information, thank you! I'm soaking all of this in. I like properties with mature trees and didn't think about how much sun the plants need so I'm glad you said that. Garden in the sun, play set in the shade!
We lived in Houston (League City) for a couple of years. I don't remember hating the humidity quite as much as I thought I would. Dry air can feel very harsh, while the humidity seemed gentle, if that makes sense. But I didn't love the way walking from apartment to parking lot left me sweating through my shirt, haha!
We are Christians with fairly traditional values and conservative leanings, so we definitely won't mind moving from a blue state to a red state. We feel out of place sometimes here and don't like how Colorado seems to be turning into California.
We’ve had great success gardening in Madison. We love it and our kids enjoy it. We currently have two raised beds but are going to expand to four. Tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, strawberries, peppers, greens, carrots, basil, and okra. We coat okra with olive oil and tajin and grill it. Really good.
We plant right after Easter. Humidity doesn’t kick in until June and lasts until late September. This year we didn’t really see consistent 90+ temps until this week. Back to 80s next week. But other summers are hotter. Nice thing is you can get 70s in January. It can get cold for sure but certainly relative compared to Colorado Springs.
You can still find a good amount of land in Madison and if you have kids, schools are amazing.
Thank you! We do have kids but we homeschool, so while we enjoy communities that value education, the actual school itself isn't as key for us.
I found a few options I liked in Madison but I heard traffic is "bad". I'm not sure what that means when we're talking about a town of 50,000 commuting to a town of 200,000, since my city is twice that big. But I understand that infrastructure is everything and you can have bad traffic anywhere if it's not designed right. Any thoughts on that? My husband would be working at Redstone Arsenal.
Thank you! We do have kids but we homeschool, so while we enjoy communities that value education, the actual school itself isn't as key for us.
I found a few options I liked in Madison but I heard traffic is "bad". I'm not sure what that means when we're talking about a town of 50,000 commuting to a town of 200,000, since my city is twice that big. But I understand that infrastructure is everything and you can have bad traffic anywhere if it's not designed right. Any thoughts on that? My husband would be working at Redstone Arsenal.
The county has something under 400,000 residents, but there are also commuters from Limestone County at over 100,000 and Morgan County at 120,000, who exacerbate the traffic issues on less than adequate roads, but still the traffic isn't stop and go at a crawl, for the most part, like large cities - it's mostly just an irritant if you're expecting to just breeze in.
I worked on Redstone for over 40 years, and it's a fantastic place to work. You'll have to see it to fully appreciate it. They're implementing methods of speeding traffic though the gates but there will still be backups there at rush hour and once offices reopen (at the moment, very, very few NASA workers are on-site and only about 30% of the Army workers are in their offices due to the pandemic). Traffic will get heavier over the next few years once the full cadre of FBI workers are here, and the Space Command workers (assuming they actually are transferred here from Colorado - it's a political thing at the moment).
I moved 3 yrs ago from Bankhead Forest (55 miles west) to S. Huntsville . One of the reasons... the main reason I did not move to the Madison/Harvest area was that traffic. My daughter and 2 sisters live over in that direction and what should have been (and was when no one was on the rd) a 10-15 minute drive from one to the other generally became a 35-40 minute drive. And this is off of the main drag. Yes.. it's worse in some other areas and cities but it all depends on what you become used to. It's a lot of stop and go, stop and go. The road system was not built for the growth that took place in that area.
As for gardening, right now we have been seeing a LOT of rain and intense heat so you really don't want to be outside doing much of anything. Soil has a lot of clay so when preparing your garden it helps to amend the soil very well. As mentioned, I find bug spray essential (I do use a natural one that works well) against mosquitoes. If it's really hot out I do wear one of those cooling cloths that you soak around my neck and it really helps.
The humidity will be the biggest thing to get used to most likely... was for me anyway...moving from CT. But I've been here a long time now.
There is a nice long growing season for sure. And I can honestly say that in the 30 something yrs that I've been paying attention, every single year except 1, any garden that has been planted before the 1st week of April has seen the owners scrambling for hay, pine straw, blankets or whatever to cover up for a frost at least once. So personally, if I'm not growing any cooler weather veggies/plants.. I don't plant until after the 1st week of April.
So, for all the heat, rain, drought, humidity and bugs... I'd much rather be outside playing in gardens and dirt than indoors doing whatever needs doing inside.
You can garden like crazy in North Alabama. You just have to learn what grows well and what doesn't. If you have favorite plants better adapted to colder climates, you will have to learn to love some Southern favorites in their place (for example, most lilacs don't thrive in the South, but who cares when you can grow Gardenias instead?). Huntsville is far enough north that some northern/colder-climate plants like hostas do pretty well.
Vegetable and fruit gardening are very common, and we have a very long growing season (April to October, sometimes longer if you get into microclimates that avoid late and early frosts). Again, some fruits better adapted to cooler and/or drier environments don't thrive (most raspberry selections and cherries come to mind), but plenty of things do really well (strawberries in the spring, blueberries selected for the South, blackberries, regional grapes called muscadines and scuppernongs, PEACHES, some apples, pears, and plums). You just have to investigate and make sure what you're planting is well-suited to the area (the big box stores don't always carry best-adapted varieties in all cases).
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In addition to nature, there're many nurseries that you can go to and they're all friendly and willing to offer advice to be helpful. I think you'll really enjoy gardening in Huntsville.
