You may think that the gardening season is over, but far from it! There is plenty of growing time left for cool weather crops like cabbage, broccoli, radishes, parsnips, carrots and kale. If the garden is set up to handle the very cool nights into December, and you have the stamina, you can have fresh lettuce into the New Year. In fact, during mild winters, I've actually harvested from the garden year-round; I think 18 months straight was my record.
Being motivated to continue the garden into the autumn can be a bit of a challenge. After the labor-intensive garden prep in the spring and keeping up with the weeds and harvesting in the heat of the summer, most home gardeners are relieved when the first frost wipes out the remaining tomato plants. However, there are several advantages to a fall garden including fewer pests and less weed pulling. In addition, the benefits of eating delicious, freshly harvested vegetables from your own back yard well into winter can beat the cold-weather blues and help satisfy your green thumb. By the time things finally succumb to the cold in January and February, it will be time to start seeds indoors again for the spring.
This year I was determined to extend my growing season due to the long winter and short spring. I am usually happily sowing radish and lettuce seeds in late March or early April, but this year I didn't get much of anything into the garden until May since I was still tilling icy soil through April. With the string of 90-degree days that happened in early June, most of my spring crops bolted before producing anything. I was especially disappointed I didn't get any radishes since I had several new varieties like watermelon (red meat) and Chinese Green Meat that I was looking forward to trying.
When deciding what to plant in your fall garden, think about what you would typically plant in the spring--peas, radishes, and lettuce and brassicas like cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower and Brussels sprouts. I remember harvesting Brussels sprouts on Christmas one year and having them with dinner. I was a little late getting my fall crops in this year because of a last minute heat wave in early September and wanting to time the harvest of quick-growing radishes around a week away from home in late September. I planted radish, broccoli raab, lettuce, peas, turnips, beets, arugula and spinach seeds in mid-September, along with mature seedlings of broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cauliflower, and kale. The kale I planted in the spring is still going strong, but I wanted to have some additional varieties availble into the colder months. I just harvested the parsnips I planted in the spring and may plant another round to harvest next year. The mache seeds will also be going in very soon as this green loves cooler weather.
Don't forget to add some organic matter before planting a fall garden to replenish the soil after a hard summer growing season. Unfortunately, I didn't have enough homemade compost available, so I purchased some organic compost from the local garden center and worked it into the soil a few days before planting.
Even though the vegetables mentioned above are cold-hardy, a hard freeze with temperatures
dropping into the 20's could cause damage. To give a little boost on those upcoming frigid nights, I'm trying an inexpensive system of poles and wires to support plastic sheeting over my raised beds. When not needed, the plastic can be pushed to one end and secured in place with ground staples and clothes pins. When the temperature is due to drop to dangerous levels, I can slide the plastic along the supporting wire and reuse the staples and clothes pins to secure it to the ground. The only wild card is heavy snow, which would reder the sheeting useless, but hopefully this winter will be less harsh in that regard.
I've already harvested some of my red radishes. They're some of the best I've ever grown. Without the unexpected heat waves that can sometimes happen in late spring, the radishes are big, plump and mild. I'm looking forward to a fresh garden salad and mashed turnips on Thanksgiving Day!