If you live in the northern part of the United States and are hoping to have a fall garden it’s time to start seeding all your leafy greens, radishes, turnips, kale, bunching onions, and peas. Since I’m attempting to grow more food throughout the year instead of relying on canned summer produce, I’ve been meticulously planning my fall planting schedule and trying to stick to it. If the weather is normal it looks like I should have a nice fall crop of veggies, and I hope I can overwinter some for harvesting in Dec, Jan and Feb.
One of the great things about gardening is that you can experiment. When you live in a cold climate you can attempt to plant a second round of certain crops like beans, zucchini and cucumbers. If you get an early frost and no harvest all it cost you was a few seeds and some time. If the weather holds off, you’ll get a good second harvest your pantry will be stocked with even more winter goodness. I started some cucumbers back July and transplanted them a few weeks ago hoping to start getting a good flush of cucumbers for pickling near the end of September.
I planted a lot of cucumbers hoping to have enough to do large batches of pickles. I planted 15 cucumbers plants at my mom’s house and 25 here in my gardens. Let’s hope we’ll be enjoying vats of fermented pickles all winter long!
Have you been wanting to plant a fall garden? Have you had any luck growing second rounds of crops?
I can also be found at Chiot’s Run where I blog daily about gardening, cooking, local eating, beekeeping, and all kinds of stuff. You can also find me at Simple, Green, Frugal, Co-op, and you can follow me on Twitter.
I really want to plant a fall garden this year. Thanks for all the ideas on plant choices. Of course, I went to Lowe’s and they don’t carry seeds for fall planting. Hopefully I’ll be able to find some by next week, otherwise I’ll have to give up. I didn’t think of fall gardening in the spring, or I would have stocked up on cool weather veggie seeds & onion bulbs then. Here in NJ, it should be very possible to do fall crops. Stores should lend more support to extending the gardening season!
If you have trouble finding seeds, I’d suggest ordering from Baker Creek, they have a good selection, good prices and quick shipping. They specialize in heirlooms, usually when I order I get my seeds within a few days.
http://rareseeds.com/
Those cuke plants are gorgeous.
I’m sowing simple greens this weekend – roquette arugula, lettuce, etc. My kale and chard are still growing to beat the band, so we’ll definitely have “backup” greens until frost. The garlic is going in shortly…
Our first babe is due in a month (!!!) so I think that’s pretty much all I’m going to have time to plant and harvest this Fall.
I always find that I enjoy my Fall salads even more than my Spring ones….