Now’s the time to plant fall vegetables.
“In most regions of the country, gardeners plant fall vegetables in August or September for harvest in October and November,” said Stan Cope, president of Bonnie Plants, headquartered in Union Springs, Ala. “You’ll need to carefully calculate your growing season so you can ensure plants have time to produce before freezing weather arrives.”
FIVE TIPS
1 Plant fall vegetables when daytime temperatures range between 60 and 80 F (the cooler the better), night temperatures should be above 40 F, and you’ll need enough sunshine to ensure plants will get at least six hours of sun per day. Find out your frost and freeze dates. Monitor your local weather forecast during late September and early October so you know when frost is coming.
2 To get started, remove all the debris left over from your summer garden so fall crops have plenty of room to grow. Add compost to your garden beds and landscape. Soil should be light, well aerated and well draining since fall gardens are more likely to get soggy from rain. Mulch will keep the soil cool and moist during the last days of summer.
3 Mix in an all-natural fertilizer. Give plants at least an inch of water per week.
4 Once you know frost and freeze dates, you can begin planting your fall garden. Plants need to be in the ground in time to mature before the first frost and to yield most of their harvest before the first heavy freeze. Some cool-season crops mature in as little as 30 to 40 days, while others may take several months to produce. Since time is of the essence when planting a fall garden, start out with transplants that already are growing.
5 Among the easiest-to-grow fall vegetables are: Packman broccoli (a hardy plant that matures in 45 to 55 days); Top Bunch collards (a hybrid that is heavy yielding, early maturing and more uniform than traditional varieties); spinach (a fast-growing, cool-weather vegetable related to beets and Swiss chard); Winterbor kale (a vigorous producer that weathers winter easily); Romaine lettuce (easy to grow, takes up little space and grows for many weeks in the mild weather of spring and fall).
For more information, visit bonnieplants.com.