When I pulled up my okra today I found icky-nasty-knotted roots. Google pretty much confirmed my fear: nematodes. The black-eyed peas in the same bed didn't have the knots on their roots, but the roots seemed stunted. For that matter, all of the plants in the bed seemed stunted, I didn't get near as much "fruit" as I'd expected this summer.

The bed was essentially fallow for over a year prior to the planting in late May/early June of the okra seedlings and pea seeds. I tried to plant radish seeds last fall but they didn't do anything. I blamed it on "not enough water" because I frequently forgot to water them and there wasn't a soaker hose.

I want to plant my fall/winter seeds ASAP, but one of them is beets and they're highly susceptible to the nematodes. The rest are greens, radishes, and leeks. I MIGHT try to find some turnip seeds, too.

What advice do y'all have? I'd rather stick the seed packages in the fridge until January/February and do whatever I have to do to kill those icky bugs than plant the seeds and not get anything much.

I'm a little bit north of Dallas.