Extending Your Garden
Sow Now for Fall and Winter Use
Many of us know to sow early spring plants such as peas in an area that can
later be planted with summer crops. Do you also take advantage of this
principle in the fall?
As August advances, summer crops reach maturity. Although some can be nursed
along into the fall (for example, dark leafy greens come back in the fall
even if they look parched, bug-eaten and inedible for human consumption by
August), others will stop producing, availing sections of your garden to new
crops.
What to Plant
You can extend your fresh lettuce and vegetable enjoyment by sowing
early-maturing varieties now. Examples of vegetables to plant now are any of
your leafy greens such as lettuce and mesclun mix; dark leafy greens such as
beet greens, chard, collards and kale; and parsley and other leafy herbs.
You can also plant broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, cress,
cucumber, endive, kohlrabi, pea, radishes, spinach and squash.
Root vegetables such as beet, carrot, onion, parsnip, potato, rutabaga and
turnip can also be planted now for fresh enjoyment throughout the winter.
The winter soil is a great storage place, like a giant root cellar. Simply
leave the root vegetables in the ground until you are ready to consume them.
This is different than root vegetables planted in the spring, which must be
harvested in late summer to avoid rot or resprouting in the fall.
This is also a good time to plant or divide daylilies—or any of your
spring-blooming bulbs, for that matter, as well as liriope, sedum and the
like.
How to Plant
Although the bare spots in your garden may tempt you, do not plant
them with the same fall or winter vegetable crops as were there during the
summer. Remember that crop rotation is a critical part of any garden scheme.
A common caution is that if the same crop is planted in the same location,
the soil will be weakened through continual loss of the same nutrients.
Likewise, the plants will attract the same insects and diseases to that part
of the garden. Therefore, even though the overall insect population is
smaller in the fall, your crop will do better being planted else-where in
the garden. Make those bugs work for their food by searching it out in a
different part of the garden.
Clear the area to be planted of prior plantings and weeds, removing the
debris from the garden to reduce the potential of spreading insects or
disease. Most of this is fine for the compost bin, as the high tem-perature
in the bin will kill insects, eggs and weed seeds. Late summer plantings
require considerably different care than those in spring. The soil is warm,
allowing you to plant seeds rather than seedlings. In fact, seeds fare much
better than seedlings. Soak the seeds overnight, and water the ground well.
You should also protect the soil from the heat and sun. After sow-ing, mulch
lightly until the seeds begin to sprout. As the sprouts emerge you can add
more mulch. Thin the sprouts as they germinate. Enjoy fresh salads with the
edible sprouts. Do not try to trans-plant them, as the transplants will
simply not survive in the summer heat.
Late Summer Garden Care
Late summer garden care is quite simple. Keep the plants cool, moist and
weed-free. All three of these things can be accomplished with a good dose of
mulch.
Yes, you may need to water new plantings more frequently in the late summer.
Rainfall is more predict-able in the late summer, leaning towards requiring
additional water, which is a much more controllable situation than too much
water, as is often the case in spring. Watering is best accomplished with a
soaker hose or drip irrigation, in the cool morning hours.
As mentioned above, you can also revive your dark leafy greens such as chard
and kale, even if they look beyond hope. There are fewer pest and disease
problems in the fall, so they will actually come back on their own if you
leave them. Simply prune back the dead and severely bug-chewed leaves, and
water and mulch them well. As the weather cools, they will re-sprout from
the stems and provide an abundant fall harvest.
As your late summer garden flourishes, this is also a great time to plan
that fall trip to the mountains to see the turning of the leaves and enjoy a
fall harvest of fresh apples. Go ahead and treat yourself—you deserve it!
Marie Gardner has an M.S. in biology and a
Ph.D. in education. She gardens in King William County. Email suggestions
for future columns to
mshania@gmail.com.
Please include “garden column suggestion” in the subject line.
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