Fall Gardening

October 27, 2011

My neighbor for several years grew a garden.  About early September he would harvest everything, and clear the garden spot in preparation for planting the following year.  He lost a lot of good fall vegetables.  Sarah and Brian, my daughter and son-in-law are still getting zucchini squash from the few plants they planted early spring.  This may be a record for zucchini productivity, but it still chugs along, awaiting the final killing frost.  Several plants will continue to grow and produce until a hard frost kills them. 

Every week since mid September my raspberries have produced 1 to 2 cups of nice disease free berries.  Berry harvest measurement is inaccurate due to the handful I eat every day or two when I walk by.  The last handful was yesterday with a few more berries this morning.   This fall has been quite mild with only some light frosts.  There are more berries to ripen but our chances for many more are slim.  Last year we had a hard frost late September that ended all berry production. 

The most productive zucchinis in the world with a Granddaughter

With planning and mid summer planting several crops do very well into the fall.  Simply look at the days to harvest on the seed package, calculate back from the average frost day and plant.  This is usually sometime in late July or August.  Some crops that grow well planted for fall harvests are Swiss chard, mustard greens, peas and lettuce.  Beets do well planted mid to late summer for a new crop through the fall until deep freezes end the season.  My fall harvested beets grew better than spring planted beets.  Short season carrots will grow very well into the fall.  My spring planted carrots continue to grow in the cool fall months.  After a short drought during August, two inches of rain fell in September.  The carrots doubled in size and some split after they rapidly expanded with the excess moisture.  Some carrots reached 4 inches in diameter.  A later planting would have provided normal size carrots in fall.

Cole crops grow well in the fall months and can withstand heavy frosts.  Early planted brussel sprouts keep producing until temperatures get below 20 F.  Cabbage and broccoli planted mid summer can withstand temperatures to 20 F or sometimes down as low as 15 F.  As a new graduate student and citizen of the great city of Columbus, OH, I visited a friends place who had a broccoli plant that had survived the cold weather clear into December.  There was a nice 4 inch head on the plant.

Radishes planted late can be very tasty as well as being a soil structure enhancement.  A few years ago tillage radishes started to be grown after a crop was harvested in agriculture fields.  The radishes are the long icicle types or Japanese types that grow a deep root that will penetrate deep to increase water penetration after the radish is harvested, eaten by cattle, or just dies due to freezing.  If the weather is mild through the winter and they don’t freeze, they can simply be tilled up in the spring.  There is a chemical in radishes that may be very helpful and provide a natural control of nematodes, a microscopic worm that feeds on plant roots.  Crops grown after a planting of tillage radishes usually have a good yield bump. 

The Garden Doc