Get Your Garden On For Fall (Guest Blogger)

With summer camp, swim lessons, baseball games and family vacations, busy families can find it challenging to plant and tend a summer garden. Don’t fret! There are plenty of yummy vegetables that will grow in the fall!  Everyone deserves a second chance right?  Here are some tips to start you out.

• If you don’t happen to have a tiller and lots of open land outside your door, the easiest way to get started planting is with a raised bed. To star easy, you can buy  one of many Square Foot Gardening Kits.   Otherwise, you can go for the DIY approach. Four sides made of anything sturdy and non-toxic will work, such as cinder blocks, untreated wood, or even bales of hay. Pick a sunny location in your yard with good drainage. Make a square 3-4 feet wide, not so large that you can’t bend over it easily to weed or harvest. Fill the square 6-12 inches deep with a mix of equal parts blended compost, peat moss, and vermiculite. (The folks in the garden center at Lowe’s or Home Depot can show you where to find it.) You’re ready to plant!

• Some vegetables actually have better flavor if they mature when the temps are cool. Veggies you can sow from August through September include English peas, carrots, beets, broccoli, cauliflower and Brussels sprouts; be sure to select early-maturing varieties (think 40-60 days instead of 80-100). Plenty of greens can stand up to the cooler fall temperatures, including lettuce, spinach, collards and kale. Root veggies like turnips, radishes, parsnips and Irish potatoes also do well, since they grow primarily underground and are not bothered by cooling fall temps or frost. Feeling adventurous? Try planting rutabaga, leeks, bok choi, or arugula. Many onion and garlic varieties have to “over-winter” (they must spend the winter outside for a spring crop), and now is the time to plant them.

• Be sure to keep newly planted seedling moist until they germinate, either with a soaker hose or by hand watering early in the morning. Floating Row Covers are highly recommended, since so many summer bugs and critters can destroy your newly sprouted seedlings quickly. Use a “summer-weight” floating row cover that retains very little heat. (You can even make your own by sewing or pinning two pieces of tulle into a long, wide shroud.) Keep the row cover up off the sprouting plants with stakes or hoops, and as the plants grow be sure to raise it. (Note: my kitties loved to poop in my newly planted beds, and kitty poop is very toxic. The floating covers help keep them out as well.)

• Homeschooling? The fall and winter garden is great way to get the kids involved. Plenty of learning opportunities for math and science lessons are right outside your door, from measuring growth rates, weight of harvested vegetables, soil pH and acidity with Soil Test Kits, or comparing varieties for size, color, texture or flavor. Economics can be taught, using spreadsheets to keep track of seed costs and planting supplies and comparing them with similar produce found at your local grocery store. Lessons in weather, climate, nutrition, geography and even history can be easily tied to your garden, and the kids can help you keep the beds weed free all year.

• My favorite sites to buy organic and/or heirloom varieties of seeds and vegetable plants are Johnny’s Selected Seeds and Territorial Seed Company .

Whatever you choose to do, be sure to follow these simple rules. Start small, grow big, take pictures, and have fun!
 
GUEST BLOGGER:

Allison Mackey is living the dream in remote south/central Tennessee. She lives on a 13.25 acre farm in a 110-year old home she and her husband Chad gutted and renovated in 2010. Born and raised in metro Atlanta, Allison loves to lead worship, write, cook, eat, and tend her garden. She and Chad are spoiled rotten teleworking for their respective companies in Atlanta. Married almost 18 years, Allison and Chad have two daughters (ages 23 and 16); one 13-year-old son; two dogs; two cats and one guinea pig. She is currently working on her memoirs, and on publishing her testimony as a novel.