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Fall Vegetable Gardening

© Deborah Turton

It's fall and that means you get a second chance with your garden. That's good news for everyone who had a bad summer garden and everyone who didn't get landscaping done this spring. In your vegetable garden, you can grow a lot of the same crops you grew in the spring right now. But depending on where you live, you'll have to move quickly. Here's a nifty little site (http://www.chestnut-sw.com/) that can show you what you should be starting and planting now for a fall harvest. If you want to do some landscaping, fall is a great time to plant trees, shrubs and of course bulbs. My next column will talk about fall landscaping.

So, what can you plant in your vegetable garden now? Below I've listed some good fall crops. I put in radishes, carrots, lettuce, spinach, turnips, and kale. I also wanted to put in beets and Swiss chard. Unfortunately, I wasn't organized enough this year to buy my fall seeds ahead of time. Seeds are hard to find this time of year, so it's best to purchase your fall seeds along with your spring seeds.

Garden greens are a good choice for a fall crop. Plant greens 6-10 weeks before the first frost. As the weather cools, the greens won't bolt like they do in the summer. Even better, they'll perk up your fall soups with flavor and nutrients. Just rip up a handful of spinach and let simmer in the soup a few minutes before serving. The hardier greens (basically everything but lettuce) can even survive the winter. Mulch them well so you'll have early greens in the spring. Just don't uncover them too early. Wait until the time you should be planting seeds and uncover your greens gradually. You might have to re-cover your greens on cold spring nights. If you strip off the mulch too quickly, your plants might freeze to death.

Peas are a good fall crop. You have to plant them 12 weeks before the first frost. So, it's probably a little too late for most of us to plant peas. However, if you feel lucky, you can always plant a quick maturing variety and hope for the best. In the lower latitudes, the cool autumn weather can make it much easier to grow peas now rather than in the spring.

Root crops also do well in the fall garden. I love vegetable stew with lots of root crops and they taste even better out of the garden.