Thinking About the Fall Garden

Yesterday I received a seed catalog in the mail for "Winter 2012".  It was well-timed, as I've been thinking (now that most of the summer garden is planted) that it's time to go through my seeds and see if I need to order anything for fall.

Around here, many cold-season plants will survive well into the winter, if not right through.  The tricky part is getting them to grow to an appreciable size before it gets too cold, or the days get too short.  If you plant too early, the plants will bolt (go to seed) when they're about half-grown.  If you plant too late, they won't be able to produce enough energy to grow, and they'll sit in the garden with four leaves on them, waiting for spring.  I have yet to hit the sweet spot in the middle where they reach an agreeable size, then sit in my garden all winter waiting for me to eat them.

This year, though, I have a secret weapon.  The amazing, the incredible: HG-16!  HG-16 is a publication of the Maryland Extension, which lists two pages of common vegetable crops with useful planting info like - ahem - spring and fall planting dates for central Maryland!  It also gives spacing recommendations, and recommendations about how many feet of row to plant for each person you're planning to feed.  These things are, of course, variable from one garden to the next, but the recommendations give you a place to start.

According to HG-16, I can/should start planting many of my fall crops soon.  Here's the list so far:

• spinach                       Aug 1 - Sept 5
• loose-leaf lettuce        July 15 - Sept 1
• romaine lettuce           July 20 - Sept 1
• broccoli*                     July 20 - Aug 20
• carrots                        June 15 - Aug 1
• cabbage*                      July 10 - Aug 20
• fava beans                               ?
• garlic                          Oct 15 - Nov 15

* These dates are for setting out transplants

I'll have to order seeds for carrots, cabbage, and fava beans.  (I'm still debating about the fava beans, actually.  Since I grew so much garlic this year I should have plenty to re-plant for next year if I want, or I may order some more just to increase the variety.

Harvest Notes

Yay!  Some of the year's first harvests are starting to come in:

• 2.75 oz cilantro
• 0.5 oz spinach (mixed flat and curly leaf)
• 6.0 oz lettuce (mixed romaine, valerie & volunteer)
• 3lbs 8 oz cabbage (cleaned and shredded)

R and I had a lot of fun this morning washing and chopping cabbage to make sauerkraut.  Then we washed and chopped some more, with less fun.  Then we washed and chopped the last third of it as fast as we possibly could, just to get it finished already!

Note to self about next year's fall garden:
I picked about 10-12 cabbage "heads" - more than I needed for the kraut I wanted
Next year, more carrots and broccoli, greens - less cabbage

Fall Planting

Broccoli bed

R and I went to the garden several times this week, and N braved an approaching thunderstorm last night, trying to get some planting done for fall.  R helped me pull all the weeds from the cucumber bed and turn it over with a shovel.  The next visit we planted some broccoli  and I dug a new bed in a previously unused section of the garden, where I intend to plant carrots and celeriac.  (I asked R if he wanted to help, but he was done weeding and digging by then.) 



New carrot bed awaiting amendment



Unused section of the garden

Finally, I added cauliflower to the broccoli bed and dug up the potato bed.  Then last night N hauled in two bags of LeafGro, which I'll use to amend the new carrot bed and the old potato bed, which didn't get any compost in the spring.  Then he turned over the soil in the old corn bed, where I'll put in some peas.

N's been working on a garden planner that will export easily to blogger; once it's done I'll post a picture of the fall plan.

Update on Fall Planting

In an earlier post I mentioned that I'd planted some stevia plants that were taking a long time to get up to size. I'm starting to wonder if they just don't get enough sunlight in the spot they're in (which has been fine for many other sun-loving plants!) Here they are circa last week or so, kind of falling down in their pots. I've never grown stevia before, but it doesn't look like that on Google Images. Does anyone out there have any experience with this plant?



Oh, and by the way, here is a pretty little celery plant that I planted in that same round of fall planting. I planted several old celery seeds after a discussion in the comments section of an earlier post; after a couple weeks I concluded that they hadn't germinated. Then we had several days of very wet weather and up they came! They've been so happy that I decided to transplant them into my cold frame bed and see what happens. The roots were nicely developed and just starting to reach the outsides of the pots. The leaves look a lot like parsley, but bigger (that's a four-inch pot, if you were wondering).


Recently I plopped some spinach seeds in the ground, too, but then the squirrels and maybe the cats did an awful lot of digging in there, so I don't know if they'll come up or not. I wanted to plant some carrots, cauliflower, and kale this fall, but I think it may be too late. I still have a few carrots that I planted last spring - I have read that they are supposed to get sweeter after the first frost, so I am saving them at least until then. (I know I'm rambling a lot tonight, but did you know that carrots are a biennel plant? One day it started really bothering me that I didn't know where carrot seeds come from - well that's because I always picked them in the first year, before they flowered!)

Fall Planting Notes

This post is a little late, as some of the seedlings planted in the container above were transplanted into the garden on Sunday. There are still three very small stevia plants in there. I tried planting stevia outside three times and haven't had any success, and now I think I see why. The plants are still quite small well after the broccoli and marigolds were ready to transplant. I'm not sure it will even have enough time to grow one usable leaf before the cold weather comes. (I put two broccoli in the cold frame garden, one near the blueberry bush, and one in a nice sunny spot by the zucchini.)

I also planted some Viguera that I'd intended for the planter I put on my front steps, but none of it sprouted. Maybe my kitchen was too hot? The seeds were from Pinetree, and I've had very little luck with their seeds. I probably won't order from them again.

I want to plant cauliflower and cabbage this fall, also, but the instructions on the package say to wait until four weeks before the average first frost, so that means I am supposed to plant them near the end of September.

I transplanted some little basil plants given to me by a co-worker into my cold frame garden, as well. Mine are huge and they have tried several times to flower. I'm sad that we haven't been making any fresh tomato sauce this summer because we've been trying to cook outside of the house. Now that I have a few babies I will have some to pot up and bring inside in the fall! When the weather starts to cool down I will plant lettuce and possibly spinach around the basil.

Planting for Fall

My average first frost date is October 25th. It is almost time for me to start planting my fall garden. I usually miss the chance because I just don't think about planting fall crops when it is 90+ degrees outside. Last year I planted several things, but way too late. I think maybe this year I'll work out a calendar for myself like I do for the spring planting. There are plenty of good spots in my garden, just waiting to be planted or re-planted.

If you're interested, here is a good article about fall vegetable gardening.

Sprouts

Happy Easter!

Yesterday while finishing construction of the new bed I saw the spinach and lettuce seeds I planted last weekend have come up in my cold frame bed. (Which isn't actually enclosed this year due to some much-needed maintenance.) I planted so late, I hope I can still get a little to eat before it gets too hot and they go to seed. Spring here is very brief and I have had a really hard time getting spinach or romaine lettuce.




This little guy is leftover from last fall. Doesn't he look happy? I don't have the hang of fall planting yet, so I planted too late last year and this little guy only had enough time to sprout and grow about 6 leaves. It just feels wrong planting when it's 85 degrees outside, doesn't it?