Fall crops are up!

When I pulled the garlic from my kitchen garden, at the end of July, I immediately started prepping that space for fall crops. Garlic harvests best when the soil is dry, so that soil was very dry. I added a couple of buckets of compost, and roughly hoed that in a little. Then a bunch of water, (the kids wanted to play in a sprinkler, it was a win-win operation.)  Then I  seeded Swiss Chard, Red Russian Kale, the last of the onion sets that were still in a plantable state, some green beans, white turnips and Cylindra beets. It might sound like a lot, but there's only 2-3 feet of each one.

Thanks to a week of rain and a waxing super moon, I had GREAT germination on all of them, and with any luck, it will be a welcome wave of fresh veggies at the end of the season.  I'll be curious to see if the beans will have enough time to produce, they are bush beans, so I only need them to put on that first big flush.

Worst case, they'll shade out some weeds and be interesting from a research/trial-and-error stance.  But I'm betting at least half will give me food. That Swiss Chard and Kale will probably give me food well into winter, they are both super hardy.

Some notes for future reference. No onion sets for sale this late in the season. Keep more onion sets in a dry dark location after spring plantings. That means I have to buy enough in the spring so I'll have leftovers that I can plant in fall. And actually get them into a safe place. I had probably 3 little bags of sets this year leftover, but one got wet during a watering "incident" that soaked my whole gardening basket, so it rotted. One was left in a sunny place and sprouted, then rotted.  Only one was in a dry dark place, and of course, that was totally by accident.

Other food related things going on, include a bunch of canning. Dave has really stepped into the lead on preservation work, but we still work together on most batches.  We've done a couple rounds of zucchini relish. Bread and Butter pickles are still to do this week.  Some sweet corn next week. We've dried a lot of herbs. Tons of oregano, some mint and parsley.

I don't know if we'll get a tomato glut this year, it's been so mild, there are barely enough heat units to ripen anything. I'll just have to wait and see how the rest of August plays out.

Garden Buddies: Fall planting time!

I know, I just finished planting all the summer veggies. But July is half over and that means it's time to start seeds for the fall harvest.
Fall plantings can really make a gardening season worth the time and effort. Seeds are less likely to wash away, seedlings are less likely to rot, and there's lots of light to get plants off to a good start.
It's important to pick veggies and greens that can handle the cold up here in zone 4 and zone 5 Iowa. Get them started and growing by August, and they'll be at a good mature growth when the first frosts come and the light starts to fade. So, I'm thinking a little bit of beets, and some carrots and spinach and lettuce. The greens don't need to be started yet, they can wait till August, but the beets and carrots need to be started ASAP. Other options for fall plantings include kale, cabbages, parsnips and radishes.

Thanks to Donna my garlic grower for the season, babysitting my babies back in Des Moines. She sent me some pictures of the bulbs, and I'm so excited to harvest them, it'll be soon! The picture above is one of my hardnecks that was planted last fall.

Seed saving reminder, if you left peas on the vine to dry and save, now is the time to start gathering those dried pods and separating out the dried peas to store for next year. Don't be afraid to leave some of the pods on, especially the higher up pods, as peas will mature from the ground up and the top once might not be totally done and ready to save yet. Wait till they are dry and crunchy. Lettuce and spinach from spring should be finishing their flowering and starting to set some seed, but they're definitely not done yet.

Go ahead and try some fall gardening, you might find you really like it. I'm making a couple of cold frames next month, so expect posts and pictures on that, maybe I'll get some greens to survive until Yule. :-)