Planning the Fall Garden

Gardening recently has become a popular way for many people to make ends meet and creating a fall garden is a great way to extend your harvest longer into the season.

We’ve been in a drought with temperatures over 100 degrees Fahrenheit for the past two months and rain and the temperatures have fallen so I am feeling that it is time to plan to plant my fall vegetable garden.

What I Have Done So Far

Last week I planted broccoli and cabbage indoors and now I intend to plant them outdoors within the next couple of weeks. If I had any seed for it, I would also have planted Brussel sprouts, but I don’t have any available now. I do have seeds for other vegetables. Here are some vegetables that I will be planting during the next couple of weeks.

Green Beans

One of the first vegetables that I am going to be planting is more bush beans. I already pulled out the bush bean I had grown earlier this season.  I would like more fresh beans than the pole beans that I have so another planting of bush beans would be good not only for eating fresh but also to add to what I have canned already.

Greens and herbs

Another group of crops I intend to plant soon is greens. Greens come in many forms. Lettuce, arugula, beet greens, spinach, collards, and kale all can extend the vegetable harvest well into the autumn months. These are easy to plant, but you’ll want to plant them deeper than you would in the spring. Once planted, water every day until the plants become well established. Pick the outer leaves rather than taking the whole plant to help extend the harvest.

Some herbs like parsley, cilantro, and chives love the cooler weather. The cilantro can be allowed to go to seed. The parsley will produce until well into the winter months and the chives are a perennial that will come back season after season.

Root Crops

Root crops are another group of vegetables that grow well in the winter. Carrots, turnips, and beets all do well and will produce edible roots before snow flies. In many cases, you can make several plantings in succession every couple of weeks to guarantee a large harvest that you can keep over the winter months.

Radishes that take a month or less to produce can also be grown in succession and I will probably start growing some myself probably starting in September once temperatures cool down at night. I can also plant these in succession every week and may be able to continue to eat these along with the greens well into December and beyond if the weather stays mild.

Read more of Ten Powerful Ways to Save Money this Fall in this article I wrote on my other blog How My Spirit Sings https://wordpress.com/post/authorcygnetbrown.com/3862