New Book! Fall Garden Planning

New for 2018! Great for new gardeners who are looking
for a shortcut to successful fall gardening and for more
experienced gardeners looking to hone their craft.

Anyone still reading at this site, and not yet over at smallgardennews.com, my new site, may not be aware that my little book finally got published. I am so happy to have finished!

The page for the Kindle version on Amazon.com includes a "look inside" feature that I still haven't figured out how to activate for the soft-cover version, but this - generally speaking -  is what's inside:

• Crops that grow best in fall
• Two ways to make a planting calendar for your own garden 
• How to get the garden prepared for your fall crops (amendments, fertilizer)
• Management options for three common pests (caterpillars, aphids, root-knot nematodes)
• Details about 24 fall-garden crops, including recommended varieties for Southeastern gardens 

There is more, of course, even though it is just a little book (65 pages) but those are the main sections.

I developed the book with gardeners in the Southeastern U.S. in mind - from the Carolinas to East Texas, in planting zones 7, 8, and 9. I wrote it because, when I worked at my county's Cooperative Extension office, a fairly common set of questions each year was about when to plant and what to plant for a fall vegetable garden.

This book is my expanded answer to those questions, based on my experiences as a long-time organic gardener who looks for research-based answers to questions.

If you choose the Kindle version, you might want a larger copy of the blank planting schedule that is in the book. I have added a FREE pdf version that you can download as an 8.5x11-inch copy to the Books page at Small Garden News.

It is near the bottom of the page.

Bush Beans - A Quick Crop

I planted a little patch (about 2 x 3 feet) of heirloom Aunt Joanie Beans in the first week of August, and today I harvested the first beans from that patch. That puts the days-to-maturity (or days-to-harvest) at about 50 days for this variety of beans. There are not many vegetable crops that can be brought to the kitchen so quickly!

First harvest of Joanie Beans from an early August planting.

This first day's harvest is not enormous, I know, but after I washed and snapped the beans you can see in the picture, they measured a little more than a cup and a half. That is enough for two people to enjoy at suppertime.

If there were more of us here to split the harvest with, I would tuck these into the fridge and keep adding more each day until there were enough saved up.

The little plants have many more beans and flowers on them, at various stages of development, so more beans are definitely on the way! By tomorrow, an amount of beans similar to what I brought in today should be ready to pick.

The first frost for my yard does not usually arrive until the beginning of November, so we will be able to harvest beans from this patch for several weeks.

What are you harvesting this week?

Starting Again in August

New little patch of Joanie Beans, for a late crop. PHOTO/Amygwh

My little patch of the heirloom Joanie Beans, planted a couple of weeks ago, has come up. If all goes well, the plants should start providing beans for our meals before the end of September.

It is very strange to have spent so long away from the garden and to not have summer crops coming in from the yard. We are visiting the local farmers market for many of our veggies instead, and that is a very good substitute, but I do like to grow some our our own food.

In the good-news category, my friend Cheryl has been helping a local farmer, Lynn, at her weekend market booth, for several years, and she gets to take home a box of leftover veggies after the market closes on Sunday.

This past Sunday, my friend shared some of those veggies with us, so my dehydrator is full of chopped peppers and sliced tomatoes. Thank you Friend Cheryl and Farmer Lynn!

Caterpillar of a Monarch Butterfly on swamp milkweed. PHOTO/Amygwh

To make sure that at least some of my veggies this fall come from the yard, I already have started a batch of seeds in a tray. I will be starting more this weekend, since seedlings are often eaten by pests, burned up in the hot sun, or pounded to smithereens in summer storms, which makes growing some extra a good idea, but I am happy to have made the start.

In the first tray, there are a few each of kale, winter radishes, mini bok choy, beets, and collards, and a short row of green bunching onions. The next tray will have more of the above, plus lettuces. I won't start the spinach until in September, because it is so finicky about hot weather.

More good news - my milkweed is doing exactly what I hoped it would do: host some monarch butterfly caterpillars. Of course, there are also a bunch of weird orange aphids and milkweed bugs, but the caterpillars were the goal, and they are there.

Ready to Plant a Fall Garden?

It may be hard to believe but, within the next couple of weeks, seeds for your fall crops can start going into the garden.

If you are like me, you may actually want to start some seeds in a flat or in pots, to transplant into the garden later, but those need to be started soon. My earliest-to-plant seeds (between now and August 20) are beets and winter radishes. Before the end of August, though, I like to have seeds for other crops started, too: carrots, kale, collards, and Swiss chard are in that group. Lettuces and spinach, the least heat-tolerant of the cool-season veggies (in my garden, at least) get planted in September. Regular salad radish seeds can go in then, too, mixed in among the lettuces and spinach.

Of those crops listed above, the only ones that are hard to move out of a flat or pot and into the garden as seedlings are carrots. Those do best for me if I put the seeds straight into the garden. Transplanting them as seedlings, started in a flat, results in such oddly bent and twisted carrots that they are hard clean and cut up without too much waste. Of course, you may be more skillful at transplanting the carrot babies than me, but I expect that many people will have an experience like mine.

If you had planned to start your own broccoli and cabbages from seed, in flats or pots, getting them started now is almost too late. If you have chosen short time-to-maturity varieties, though, starting TODAY may be fine. Otherwise, for a small garden, buying little plants of those crops at a garden center might be a good plan. If you are looking for cauliflower transplants, but don't see them at the garden centers in August, just be patient. They are more finicky about heat than cabbages and broccoli and are not usually in stores until sometime in September.

Since I missed out on summer crops this year -- my own fault for going on a crazy adventure! - I also have just put in a little patch of bush beans. I didn't buy any seeds this year, which has seemed very strange, but I have plenty of heirloom Joanie-beans saved from previous years' plants for both this year and the next.

Yesterday while running errands with my younger son (visiting from Statesboro), I stopped by TruPrep, which carries Baker Creek seeds, and I saw that it still has a decent selection in stock.  Not all stores/garden centers still have seeds available. If you need seeds for cool-season crops, it might be a good idea to call ahead before driving across town to shop.

Hope that all is going well in your gardens!

The Summer Garden Looks Toward Fall

We are just about at the mid-summer crossover point, when many of the summer vegetables are either at or just beyond their peak of productivity.  Pepper plants are loaded with ripening fruit, tomatoes are almost flying into the kitchen, zucchini plants have been felled by the borers after piling up lots of squashes, winter squashes are big and beginning to turn from green to tan. You get the idea.

We've made pickles with some of our cucumbers, and we have hot peppers fermenting in jars on the counter for a Tabasco-style sauce. In addition, the dehydrator has been busily turning slices of tomatoes into chips that we can re-hydrate in winter for use in cooking. The dry tomato-chips are a great snack, too.

Meanwhile, the okra pods have only just begun to come into the kitchen. Those plants are typically slow-starters, but they will produce until frost.

Over the past weekend, I pulled out lettuces that had been left in the garden to produce seeds. I will be leading a seed-saving workshop next week (Thursday, at the Extension office), and I wanted to have lettuces for participants to see and pull seeds from. After clearing that garden space, I dumped on some more compost, mixed in an organic fertilizer that I hadn't tried before, and planted seeds for a late patch of bush beans.

The pole beans we are eating from the garden now are Blue Marbut (find them in the pole/snap category on the linked page) and I LOVE these, but a friend (thank you, Kim!) gave me a little packet of Dragon's Tongue bush beans to try, so those are what I planted. Hopefully, they will germinate and grow in this hotter-than-usual July. The seeds were in one of the beautiful packets from Hudson Valley Seed Library, so I can enjoy the artwork while I wait for my plants to appear.

The next space that opens up in the garden will be sown with buckwheat as a place-holder (some people would say "cover crop") before re-clearing the space for a fall crop. Even though the weather will still be quite toasty, I am sure, mid-August is the time to get some of our cool-season crops seeded into the ground.

Planning for More Good Food

Twenty pound "Luscious Golden" melon from our front yard.

My not updating the blog for 3 weeks doesn't mean the garden isn't still a productive and wonderful place. It is, actually, providing surprising quantities of good food, considering that it also has been a little neglected.

We are running short-staffed at work, during our busiest time of year, and work-stuff has spilled over into my non-work time. However, the bosses have interviews lined up to fill at least one vacant space, so we are hopeful that the whole "short-staffed" thing will be short-lived!

In the meantime, I am thinking more and more about the fall garden. Last weekend, I amended some areas with compost, planted seeds for chicory, beets, parsley, green onions, and one last patch of bush beans, and I started seeds (late!) in a flat for broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, more beets (in case the outside seeds don't make it -- they can be finicky), and bok choy.

Vegetable Abundance

Yesterday's harvest from the front yard.

This is a time of abundance in the garden, which means we are busy in the kitchen. I put up tomatillo salsa in jars over the weekend, and I blanched more green beans for the freezer. Joe has kept the dehydrator full and humming with tomatoes and okra, and he's smoked some of the hot peppers, then dried them and ground them to powder to store the full, amazing flavor in tightly sealed jars.

Even though the garden still is fairly bursting with good food, it is time to begin the transition to cool season crops, which will provide fresh vegetables in winter.

Mid-Summer Garden

July 6 tomatoes, Rutgers  PHOTO/Amy W.

Since the beginning of the month, we have enjoyed meals that included zucchini, beans, potatoes, tomatillos, shallots, onions, garlic, tomatoes, salad peppers, and cucumbers from the summer garden.

We have pickled peppers - both Jalapeno and Poblano - and made several batches of fermented cucumber-pickles. Beans have been blanched for the freezer, and we have been giving away our extra zucchini.

We also have begun thinking about where to plant the cool season vegetables that will provide fresh food in the coming fall and winter. It seems so soon. The tomato harvest has barely begun! If there isn't a plan, though, it usually turns out that no room is available when it is time to plant the seeds for carrots, beets, lettuces, collard greens, and other cool-season crops.

Southern Vegetables

There's a reason Bob Wills' song "That's What I Like About the South" includes turnip greens, black eyed peas, candied yams, buttered beans, and corn bread. The basis for each of those foods grows reliably and well here. The cool-weather vegetable in that list, turnip greens, is almost a fool-proof crop. However, there are plenty of crops that are less reliable producers in Southern gardens.

In years like this one, when my broccoli, cauliflower, and cabbages all are slow to head up, I remind myself that such Northern vegetables can't be expected to do consistently well in the South. Some years the garden produces big, full heads of all of those by Thanksgiving. This year, the heads on most of those plants aren't even close to what I consider a good size. If we get a hard freeze any time soon, I probably will be bringing in a lot of ridiculously small vegetables.

Many of the carrots aren't full sized yet, either, but those will continue to grow slowly underground through all kinds of weather.  It may be March before I pull the last one, but eventually those all will be brought into the kitchen.

Luckily, this year I planted plenty of kale and collard greens and a few bok choy. Greens don't seem to be delayed the way the heading vegetables are by an early hard freeze that's followed by weeks of warmer weather.

Even better, we haven't had a hard enough freeze to turn the winter radishes to mush yet, either, so we still are enjoying those, thinly sliced then salted.

To celebrate the South and its vegetables here on the last day of the year:

Garden's Progress

A couple of broccoli plants that had been set out in July. 

In one of my several garden-experiments this year, I set out some broccoli and cabbage transplants Very Early.  I had started the plants from seeds in June to use as "visual aids" in a class I would be teaching in July.

After the class, it seemed a shame to waste the little plants (and the time/attention it took to grow them), so I went ahead and planted them in the garden, even though we had plenty of hot weather ahead. It turns out that the broccoli that was set out to grow through the hottest months of summer  got really tall and then produced quite-small heads of florets.

Broccoli and cauliflower under netting.   

Pasilla bajio pepper plant.  

Considering that I didn't really expect them to produce at all, this is sort of a success story. However, I am hoping that the tall plants will start producing side-shoots of florets for us to harvest, so the little broccoli heads won't be all that we get from these plants.

The cabbages from that same batch of transplants are beginning to head up, and I am waiting to see whether those will stay small, like the heads of the broccoli, or put on some size.

The most-recently planted broccoli and cauliflower plants have settled in nicely, and should begin to pour on the steam (in terms of growth) pretty soon. Until we get some colder weather, the plants will stay under netting, to keep the butterflies and moths that are the parents of cabbage worms and cabbage loopers from laying eggs on them.

Meanwhile, the peppers still are coming into the kitchen. The Pasillo bajio peppers only just started to "make" a few weeks ago, but they are worth the wait for gardeners who also do a lot of cooking.  Those skinny peppers have full-sized flavor!

Some of the peanuts from our garden. 

In the kitchen, we've been enjoying the beginnings of the winter greens: kale and collards. We've also brought in plenty of radishes. We eat the radish part, and I feed the leaves to my pet bunnies.

The cilantro is flourishing; some baby parsley plants look as though they will help make great tabbouleh in spring; beets and carrots are growing well; the parsnips finally got beyond the seedling stage (it's a slow crop); the earliest-planted lettuces are nearly full-size; the spinach patch is darkly green with leaves that are about half the size I expect to see at maturity; bok choy will be ready for harvest in a few weeks; and it won't be long before I will need to plant the garlic, shallots, and multiplying onions. This is a great season for gardeners!

So Close, and Yet So Far

I keep saying that the fall garden is nearly all planted, and that gets closer to the truth every time I say it, but summer peanuts are still maturing in the garden, and a patch of oats (part cover crop, part bunny food) is scheduled to go in their place; the sweet potatoes are yet to be harvested, and the garlic and shallots will be planted in that space.

Almost time to start eating kale and radishes.

Also, there are some bare stretches to fill in along the rows of carrots and in patches of other crops. A gardener's excuses to be outside are nearly endless! More good news: the weather is cooling enough that spending time outside is even easier.

Rain has been mostly nonexistent lately, so all the cool-season crops have needed to be watered to help the seeds and seedlings make a good start and to encourage transplants to mingle their roots with the garden soil. Otherwise, the cool season weeds are growing slowly enough to keep them from taking over, and
we are still bringing in little bunches of green beans, cowpeas, and small tomatoes. The peppers continue their steady stream into the kitchen, as well, and it looks as though we will finally get some eggplants.

Glacial vines from the sweet potato patch, slowly consuming the yard.

I had planted the eggplants too close to the tomatoes, and they were so overshadowed that it was all they could do to hang on through the summer. The tomato plants are gone, and the eggplants look very happy! If we are lucky, the first frost will hold off long enough for all the flowers and little fruits now on the plants to reach maturity.

I'm expecting to harvest the sweet potatoes this weekend, and that is always fun, assuming the chipmunks have left something for me to harvest.

I hope that everyone else is out enjoying their gardens, too, and that all is growing well.

Mid-September in the Garden

It's almost as though the garden has taken a deep breath, and is yet to exhale. It will be a few weeks before the cool-season vegetables will begin coming into the kitchen, but much has been planted; of that, much has germinated and pushed out some true leaves. We are waiting.

Okra, peppers, and the late-planted bush beans and cowpeas are still ripening in the garden, and there will be another week or two (or three) of tomatoes. In October, I'll be digging up the sweet potatoes and peanuts, but the warm season crops are almost finished for the year.

Already I am looking forward to the winter radishes, to slice thinly and salt as an easy snack. I am ready, too, to leave behind the hectic pace of the summer garden. There is so much to harvest, and the weeds grow so quickly! There is a lot to do, every week. In the cooler seasons, it is much easier to keep up with the garden.

Besides the winter radishes, I've planted regular salad-type radishes, spinach, lettuces, chicory, cilantro, peas (that the yard-rabbits have mostly eaten down to nubs), beets, two kinds of kale, cabbage, broccoli, bok choy, carrots, collard greens, and a little more parsley.

The short row of parsnip seeds that I put in late has not germinated, but those seeds often are slow, so I'm not giving up on them yet. If I can find some cauliflower transplants this week, I'll add those to the garden, too.

Pulling the finished summer crops, amending the soil, and replanting has been some work, but the upcoming harvests will be worth the effort. Hope everyone else's gardens are growing well!

The Garden Keeps Rolling Along

The three-day weekend was reasonably busy in the garden. Joe helped with the biggest job, using the grub hoe to churn up the cleaned-up squash/melon bed, so I could spread on a layer of compost and then set in the little plants I've been growing in a flat. The plants include a couple of kinds of kale, cabbages, cauliflower, beets, more cilantro, and a couple of broccoli.

I also worked more on clearing the last of the older tomato plants. I'd like to be able to plant that bed soon with spinach, bok choy, and winter radishes.

The bed I've saved for carrots still needs to have the buckwheat cut down, and there is a little space where the tomatillos were that will be available for re-planting after I've dumped some compost on it. Otherwise, though, the planting for fall is nearly done.

The first lettuces have developed some true leaves; the first cilantro looks less frail; the peas are a couple of inches high; and the cilantro, collards, and kale that I planted in the garden as seed a couple of weeks ago are all looking like actual little plants.

Meanwhile, we are still bringing in peppers, okra, and tomatoes (the Principe Borghese that were planted last have just recently begun to ripen), and the late-planted green beans and cowpeas will begin contributing to our meals later this week.

I had planted seeds for pickling cucumbers several weeks ago, to find out whether a late-planted crop was a possibility, and those are beginning to make cucumbers; however, the leaves already are very damaged by mildew, so I'm thinking that the late cucumber crop is going to be tiny. The plants won't last long in the garden at the rate they are going downhill.

I also sprinkled some critter repellent around the perimeter of the sweet potato bed. The chipmunks have already been in there, eating my little crop. I'd like for the little rascals to leave me some this year, and I'm hoping the repellent works.
 

I totally forgot that this year's watermelons would be yellow inside.  PHOTO/Amy W.

A highlight of the weekend was eating watermelon from the garden. This year's melons stayed smaller than they should have, but they were sweet, with good flavor and texture. I had completely forgotten that they would be yellow inside, so I had a very brief "uh oh" moment as I sliced into the first one. It is great that the garden offers so many surprises! I am never bored.

Harvesting Summer to Make Room for Fall

About 2/3 of my butternut squash harvest.    PHOTO/Amy W.

It's been a busy weekend in the garden. To start, I harvested most of the remaining butternut squash. Six had already been brought inside, because the vine they were on looked "done."

These in the photo to the right were also on some pretty dead-looking vines, but there are three more immature butternut squash out in the garden. After tracing their vines so I could determine whether they had a chance of further ripening, I left their vines behind when I removed the other, browned-out plants. So far, I have brought in about 25 pounds of butternut squash. That has opened up some space in the garden.

Browned vascular tissue caused by a tomato wilt disease.  PHOTO/ Amy W.

I also harvested all the remaining Amish tomatoes, even the green ones. In last week's post I had mentioned that the plant had a lot of yellowed, drooping foliage, and it was time to pull up that plant.

After slicing through the stem to check on what had caused the trouble, it was easy to see the gunked-up vascular system, which often is caused by Fusarium wilt. A healthy stem would have been white or whitish-green all the way through, rather than being ringed inside with brown!

As space has opened up in the garden, I've planted some more seeds. Today I planted some kale, collards, lettuces, nasturtiums, and English peas. If they don't do well from seed at this time, it won't be a disaster, because I have started some of those in a flat already.

Caterpillar of the Gulf fritillary butterfly.  PHOTO/Amy W.

The English peas are part of yet another experiment. I harvested most of the popcorn, and as I was cutting the stalks down to chop up for the compost pile, I decided to leave them cut at about 3.5-4 feet high, for peas to climb up. The peas are planted in the rows between the cornstalks. It will be interesting to see how that space goes as the summer/fall progresses.

Elsewhere in the garden, we have some surprisingly unattractive caterpillars. They are dark orange with black spines, and they are busy defoliating the passionflower vine.

Bees loving a passionflower to smithereens. PHOTO/Amy W.

The caterpillars are the babies of the Gulf fritillary butterfly which also is orange, but it seems a lot prettier.

The passionflower vine is getting a lot of insect activity. In addition to being host to the spiky caterpillars, it also is host to some big, shiny carpenter bees that spend most of their days, it seems, loving on the purple flowers.

All that bee-loving action has resulted in the formation of a lot of "may-pops" on the passionflower vines. I am looking forward to trying those fruits!

Not Fall Yet, But Getting There

This weekend I made more progress on switching over to "the fall garden." Some of the summer plants are still doing really well, some are just now reaching their peak of production (peppers, okra), and some are nearly done.

Rutgers tomato plant, still green and productive.      PHOTO/Amy W.

Based on the percentage of browned leaves, I'd say that the Better Boy tomato plant is going to keel over soon, but the Rutgers plant is still covered up in green leaves and plenty of fruit.

This weekend, I pulled out one of the smaller-fruited tomato plants that looked pretty bad, and that should help the airflow around the Rutgers and Better Boy, hopefully helping to keep them alive and productive a little longer.

The Cherokee Purple is definitely done, the Pink Brandywine still has a few fruits, and the Amish tomato plant is somewhere in between. It has several green fruits that are nearing ripeness along with some smaller, newer fruits, but the foliage is yellowing and droopy. I think it has fusarium wilt, but I haven't sliced into a stem yet to check.

Fruits of a passionflower vine. This vine has at least 10 so far. PHOTO/Amy W.

Among my other experiments for the summer is a passionflower vine. The flowers are beautiful (I'll try to get a good picture up, soon), and I'm hoping that the fruits have enough pulp inside that I can make a little juice or jam.

Another crop that I haven't really mentioned yet this year is the greasy beans. Six slender vines (they are pole beans) are climbing up a little trellis, and they have been making small numbers of beans, but the production has been steady. When I bring in a handful, I pull off the strings then toss them up into a hanging basket to dry for leather britches. If I had lots of them, I'd do the traditional hanging-up-on-a-line-to-dry thing, but I don't.

Flat of seeds for cool-season crops.      PHOTO/Amy W.

I've started some more plants for the fall garden, too. While waiting for more of the summer crops to finish, it can help to have some of the cool-weather crops already started, for transplanting to the garden when the space is available.

Just behind the flat in the photo to the left is a box with some cabbage seedlings in it that I started a few weeks ago in peat pellets. Those were bumped up into a couple of old "6-packs" last week, and I'll be setting those plants out into the garden in the next week or so.

Butternut squash nearing maturity.          PHOTO/Amy W.

The husks on the popcorn have been turning brown and dry, and as I've noticed that change I've brought them in. If I leave them outside too long in damp weather, they tend to mold (it's happened before), so bringing them in on time can be important.

I finally brought in some dried Provider Bush Beans that I had left on the plants to mature, to replenish my seed supply for planting next year.

The wrinkled, tan pods were definitely ready to be pulled! The beans have been removed from the pods, and I've set them out to dry in a wide, flat basket.

I have some Joanie Beans growing in the yard, too. These bush beans from my friend Becky are part of her family history, and I plan to save seeds from those, too.

When the weather returns to being a little bit more dry (we've had a lot of cloudy and cool, with light rains mixed in), I'll start bringing in the butternut squash that began to turn to the mature tan color a few weeks ago.

This is a busy time in the garden, but so rewarding. I hope that all the other gardeners out there are enjoying this time in the gardening year as much as I am!

I Needed a Bigger Basket

For weeks, the little basket was plenty big enough for the 1-3 pounds of produce that I brought in from the garden each day, but last week we finally reached the point of needing a larger basket.

That "I needed a bigger basket" time of year has arrived.        PHOTO/Amy W.

The zucchini are almost done, because the pickleworms have found my zucchini patch, and I pulled up the last of the raggedy cucumber vines over the weekend, but tomatoes and peppers are just now hitting their stride, okra is flowering, and the earliest butternut squashes are beginning to change color from pale green to that buff/tan that indicates ripeness. The tomatillos are producing, but in little waves, so that some days I bring in several of the green fruits and other days none are ready.

Meanwhile, I've dug up the last of the white potatoes, planted buckwheat in the empty cucumber patch, sowed some cilantro seeds, another bush-bean patch, and a few late cucumbers (an experiment...). I also planted some basil seedlings into the space where the last potatoes had been.

The popcorn has produced a few small ears on each stalk, and I noticed that something had climbed up one of the stalks and nibbled at the base of the lowest ear of corn. Luckily, the kernels had already begun to harden and be less easy to eat, so the critter gave up without doing too much damage.

I've had to put netting over the peanuts, because the neighborhood rabbits thought the plants were delicious. The daily damage was going to drastically reduce my peanut crop, but the bird netting propped over the bed seems to have stopped the ongoing damage (for now, at least).

The biggest task for August will be transitioning to fall crops. Three of the tomato plants will be done soon -- they are some of the more disease-prone of the heirlooms -- which means that space will be open, and other crops will be coming out, too. I like to have some of the fall crops in the garden beginning around August 10, so I have plenty of gardening to look forward to in the next couple of weeks.

Hope everyone else's gardens are growing well!

Thinking Forward to Fall

Has everyone else already started seeds for fall crops? Here in Cobb County, it's time! The cool-weather crops we usually set out as transplants - broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts - mostly have a long enough time-to-maturity that they are planted out to the garden in the second half of August, which means the seedlings need to be started now.

Exceptions would be for faster-maturing varieties, like Early Snowball cauliflower that is such a speed-crop (just 50 days!) that gardeners have an extra 3 or 4 weeks to get that one started.

In my garden, the space for most of those Brassica-family crops (aka: cabbage family; cole crops, Cruciferae) is still taken up by the April-planted tomatoes, but the space where I'm planning to plant carrots this year has some cucumber vines that are looking pretty ragged. I may pull those up this weekend and strew some buckwheat seeds in that space for now, to help get the soil in shape for the next crop.

When the buckwheat starts to flower (it happens fast!), that would get turned back under to add organic matter to the soil. In the meantime, the plants would have helped hold onto nutrients and encouraged some good microbial activity underground.

What Survived the Dip into the mid-20s

We had a couple of especially cold (for November) nights last week, and the garden showed it. The leaves of the pepper plants all wilted, the remaining summer annual flowers (marigolds, salvias, cleome) turned to mush, and even the last of the spring-type radishes fared poorly.

In the good news category, the winter radishes are still standing, as are the carrots. The cabbages and broccoli look good, even though they looked very sad on the coldest mornings. All the leaves fell off the Ichi Ki Kei Jiro persimmon, but the big orange fruits are still there, even a couple that have been half-eaten by my aerialist chipmunks.

The very small lettuces and assorted greens that have all struggled to get beyond the "delicious to chipmunks and wild rabbits" stage, also are still vibrantly green. In my dreams, they reach mature size before we get much colder weather.

A couple of stray potato plants had come up from tubers that were missed in the early summer harvest, and the tops of those collapsed in the cold. The good news is that we dug up another pound or so of red potatoes from underneath those wilted tops.

Essentially, last week brought an end to the remaining the summer crops that had been barely hanging on.

At the County Extension Office, we are still getting calls from people who want to know what vegetables they can plant now (gardeners rarely give up, and they aren't deterred by a little frost!). There is still time to put in some garlic and onions, but that's about it. However, this is a good time to start thinking about some winter-sown vegetables.

UGA Cooperative Extension's Vegetable Planting Chart (planting dates for middle Georgia need to be adjusted for Cobb County by 10-14 days) shows traditional planting dates for the most commonly planted garden crops. Alabama Cooperative Extension's Planting Guide for Home Gardening in Alabama offers dates that are similar to those in UGA's publication.

Other than the onion group, neither of these publications lists any crop that can be planted (with the hope of successful harvest) this late in Cobb County. Even the most cold-hardy vegetables are fairly tender when they are very young, and,  at this point, the odds are pretty small of any vegetable growing to a tougher stage before another killing frost occurs.

However, Colorado State's Extension publication Winter Gardening: Planting Vegetables in Early Winter for an Early Spring Crop tells about planting seeds in the ground in late winter, much sooner after the New Year  than many people might usually consider planting. In this publication, author Curtis Swift offers, along with some basic instructions, this list of cool season vegetables that can be winter-sown:

• lettuce
• peas
• spinach
• broccoli
• Brussel sprouts
• carrots
• radish
• cauliflower

A website called (not too surprisingly) Wintersown offers a step-by-step guide to an outdoor container-option for sowing seeds in winter.

For the many gardeners who like to keep things moving in the garden, winter-sown crops might provide a nice outlet for that pent-up planting energy.

A Walk Around the Yard

Right now, the garden says that we have not yet had a hard frost, but that it's been too cool for most of the warm-weather plants. A few Zinnias and my friend Electa's Heirloom Pink Salvia are still blooming. The salvia re-seed all over the place, which mostly is fine because they attract lots of little pollinators.

This year's carrot and radish bed.

The carrots and winter radishes (to the right of the carrots) won't be too fussed about cold weather when it finally gets here, but both crops (and the rogue bok choy that somehow ended up in the same bed) have flourished in the warmth we've had so far.

I had hoped that last year's carrot success wasn't a once-in-a-lifetime event, and it looks as though the hope was not in vain. The carrot tops all look good, and the one carrot I pulled a few days ago (just to check on how things were going underground) was big enough that I think homegrown carrots will be part of our Thanksgiving dinner.

Winter radishes are getting big, a few at a time, and we have already been enjoying them as before-dinner snacks, sliced thin and lightly salted. They are our "healthy alternative" to the kinds of fried salty chips that come in bags at the store.

Ichi ki ke jiro persimmons

Broccoli patch

The broccoli is coming along, too. If I look straight down the center of each plant, I can see tiny heads beginning to form. At this point, it's too soon to guess when they will be ready to bring in for dinner, but it may be before the end of the month.

Ichi ki ke jiro persimmons will start coming in soon, too. In theory, they are edible while still as hard as apples (like now), but we learned last year that the flavor improves if they have more time on the tree to get a little bit soft.

Marigolds

Marigolds are still in bloom, and I've been bringing in some of the old, dried flowers to save the seed. This is one of the French marigolds that is supposed to be good for reducing nematode populations in the soil, when planted in a solid block to grow for several weeks (at least). I never grow them that way because the nematode problem hasn't been severe enough to warrant giving up a planting bed for so long in summer, but I like to be ready, just in case.

Still some peppers, in November

When we had our big "freeze forecast" scare more than a week ago, I harvested all of the larger peppers. There were still some smaller peppers out on the plants, and the tinies are beginning to get bigger. If we have another week or so of sunny afternoons in the high 60s-to-low-70s (degrees Fahrenheit), I may be able to fill the dehydrator one last time.

The garden is saying, essentially, that all is as it should be.

Great Things about Late October

Fried okra
Cubed butternut squash, sauteed in olive oil with garlic and black pepper
Tomato chips, made crispy in the dehydrator
Thinking forward to next year's seeds
Planting garlic
Thinly sliced radishes, lightly salted
A heaping basket of sweet potatoes on the kitchen floor
Falling leaves
Firing up the wood stove
Pansies, all happy-faced in bloom
Trains getting louder 
Peppery nasturtium seeds
Knowing that carrots are growing underneath those feathery leaves
Bok choy
Return of the barred owls to the woods behind the house


It seems like a short list, considering that I am thankful for so very much, but these are specific to this time of year.

I'm sure there are great things going on in the lives of other gardeners, too!