Time for Fall planting

Most cool weather crops, brassicas especially, do better in the Fall and it is time to start planning now.  A handy gadget I bought a few years ago is Clyde's Garden Planner.  I don't remember where I bought mine, but Amazon has one (link in my sidebar on the left). It's a slide chart, so you can see everything at a glance.  It is formatted in a "time phased" format so that it is possible to see at a glance the entire planting, growing and harvesting period. It shows proper indoor and outdoor planting times relative to spring and fall frost dates for several common garden vegetables. Since frost dates vary from region to region, the chart will slide, making it useful in most parts of the northern Hemisphere where frost is a critical gardening factor. The front of the chart shows the spring season, and the flip side acts as a guide for fall gardeners. Frost dates are included in the directions.

If you do not  know your average frost dates, you can find your dates by zip code at Dave's Garden.

The most important thing right now is protecting seedlings from the heat.  I have started some carrots in an area that gets afternoon shade from the larger plants around it. 

If you plan on cabbage, Brussels sprouts, kale, cauliflower or broccoli, seeds should all be sown soon, late June-mid-July in most areas.  Depending on what squares I have open, I set up a "nursery" & make a seed bed in the garden, but usually plant in pots.  I let them germinate in the shade, but after that I keep them outdoors so they get at least 5-6 hours of sunshine daily,, with afternoon shade.   Just be careful not to let them dry out - this can happen quickly.

The garden on May 3, 2011

Well, I'm still having fun.  I finally got around to taking some pictures this morning.  It was very overcast and I probably should have waited until the sun was out.

After the cabbage disaster last yea, DH constructed a screen cage for my cabbages and it is working much better.  It is a little too big at 8x4', should have been slightly less than 4x4 so it would fit inside the box instead of on top of the boards, but hey, it works.  The cabbage is just starting to head and no damage so far. 

Short weekly update

Not too much went on this week since I was sick.  The seedlings are all coming along fine, the weather had been beautiful & I took the plastic off of my hoop house.  The grandkids were here on Saturday and Pop helped them plant potatoes.  They used the big tubs/totes & planted Yukon Gold, Kennebec and Red Pontiac.  Everything went very well without me, except Pop forgot to wet the mix before planting the taters & had to dig them out, wet the mix and start over, but no biggie.  They all had fun. 

I'm finally feeling a little better, so maybe tomorrow will transplant some lettuce & spinach.   After being in bed for over a week, I probably won't get too  much done.

My First Fall Garden

September has been a very tough month after my mom had complications from surgery, but things are finally settling down.

This is the first time I have seriously tried to have a Fall garden & I'm quite pleased with it considering it has had quite a bit of neglect.  Fortunately no weeding had to be done with Mel's Mix & I watered my seedlings as best I could.  The only thing I had that didn't sprout was a second planting of Brussell sprouts, they evidently didn't have enough water.

Here's the main section of my garden.  Maybe next year I'll have some paths & the area will be neater since I'll be retiring in February, God willing, & I can garden & make jewelry til I get sick of it.

The first bed has rutabaga, parsnip, carrots, onions from seed as an experiment &
cauliflower.

The rutabaga's grew much faster than the others - the seeds were all planted at the same time, except the cauliflower.  The parsnips have been the slowest.  

This second bed has the salvaged carrots that Kujo the wolf used for a bed, Bok Choy, one remaining tomato at the end.  I used a piece of vinyl lattice on inverted fence posts for my shade cover.  It's not much to look at, but worked really well.  The fence posts lying across the boards was to keep Kujo out.

This has been mainly my seed bed.  On the left is my last cucumber crop, on the right is delicata squash, underneath are some Romaine lettuce transplants & leek seedlings.  I used cattle panel fencing over the pipe to make a trellis for the vines & made a good shade panel too.   Then powdery mildew & aphids attacked & the vines are about dead.

 This is my amazing asparagus patch - first year & what a difference the Mel's mix & composted manure made.  I'll be able to pick a lot in the Spring.  The stalks were finger sized this year, but I refrained from picking any.  I probably could have without hurting the roots, but I didn't want to take any chances.

This section is the corner at the driveway & sidewalk.  This area has carrots, the smaller ones were just recentlyl planted where I pulled out some pepper plants.   

Garlic from grocery store bulbs at the end of the carrot bed.  On the other bed in the front are turnips & in the back I have planted garlic that I ordered from We Grow Garlic.  
A great site where you can buy garlic by the bulb, not the pound.  I was able to try several different kinds:
Shandong
Thai Fire
Vostani
German Hardneck
Red Toch
Persian Star
Krasnodar white
                                                                                    Italian mountain red
                                                                                    Italian late
                                                                                    Early Portugese

On the left are shallots from the grocery store & Egyptian walking onions from a friend on Square Foot Gardening. 

This baby box is planted with Cascadia sugar snap peas.













All in all it has been a wonderful gardening season and I wish I had tried square foot gardening years ago.  Several things I will do differently next year regarding plant spacing.  I didn't realize how huge things would grow.

I hope everyone else has had a successful gardening season.

Garden Update

Well, things have really been busy lately and I am behind in my updates. 

My summer garden is practically finished.  I have 3 more tomatoes that are almost ready to ripen - they have lots of blooms, but I don't know if they will "make" or not. It has been terribly hot here - upper 90's to 100, & really humid.  I have pulled all the other vines up & destroyed.  It was really weird, but they got the blight as usual, but after most of the leaves died, they started putting out new growth like crazy & are absolutely full of blooms.

I have had fantastic luck with my cucumbers.  I have planted them on trellises at the end of 3 beds at various intervals through the summer and the last section is just starting to bloom.    I planted Boston Pickling cuke & Carolina Pickling.   The Carolina seems to be a bit longer & more slender, but both have performed equally well & I have made lots of pickles, sweet relish & even added some to my chow chow recipe.  My carrots have met with lots of bad luck (my son's hybrid wolf keeps getting out of the back yard & digs them up to lay in the cool dirt).  This has become a big issue around here.  He is in in a very large yard with chain link fencing, keeps finding a way out.  We have 10 acres and he comes to the front of the house & messes up my garden.  I still have several of these carrots growing, but haven't had any harvest yet.

Another great success story has been with the winter squash, even though I planted the first ones in the Spring.  I have Delicata, Honey Boat Delicata (Larger fruit than regular Delicata) and Sweet Dumpling.  They have produced exceptionally well & we have really been enjoying them.  The first vines are still producing and I planted 6 more plants on a trellis & they are full of fruit and blooms.

FALL GARDEN:
I have been cleaning up my beds & starting some fall seeds.  I also planted some grocery store garlic last week, big purple bulbs, and it is up already.  I found a great site if you want to try a variety of garlic & not have to buy a whole pound.  We Grow Garlic.  You can purchase as little as one bulb of a variety.  I ordered 10 different types to see what grows best in this area.  My order has shipped & I'm anxious to get it.

So far I have planted the following:
Carrots:  Chantenay, Jaune Obtuse Du Doubs yellow, Muscade.  They are sprouting nicely.
Leeks:  Giant Musselburgh & American Flag.  The first flat of Giant Musselburgh evidently baked because I never did get anything to sprout.  I had it in the shade on the front porch & kept moist, but no luck. Last week I started some more seeds & kept them in the house & they sprouted in just a few days. 
Parsnip:  These were planted 8/20 & no signs of anything yet, but I read they are slow to germinate, so I haven't given up on them, it has only been 5 days.
Rutabaga:  It seems they came up overnight.
Lettuce:  I have planted a few of all of these:  Red Wing Mix, Rocky Top mix (both from Baker Creek), Cimmaron Red romaine from Ron's Seeds on E-Bay (highly recommended, great service), Parris Island romaine, Red & Green romaine mix from Walmart.  I'll continue to plant them these every 2 weeks for as long as I can.
Cabbage:  Copenhagen Market, Bok Choy, Pak Choy, Premium late flat Dutch, Perfection Savoy drumhead.
Cauliflower: Snowball Self blanching.
Brussels Sprouts: Long Island improved.
Turnip: Purple top.  We don't care for the greens, but love the roots.  I'll plant them this next week.

I guess that is all for tonight.