Category — vegetable garden

Many gardeners do not even consider fall gardening because of the winter frosts that might make an early appearance. On the contrary, fall gardening will result in excellent vegetables and will extend crops long after spring planted plants are finished. Vegetables produced from fall gardening are sometimes sweeter and milder than those grow in the summer and offer a brand new taste to the same old veggies.

What you choose to grow during you fall gardening will depend on your available space and what you like to eat, just like spring plants. Even the crops that enjoy the heat, such as tomatoes, sweet potatoes, okra, and peppers, will produce until frosts hit, which can be pretty late in the year in southern areas. However, there are some plants that will quit towards the end of summer like snap-beans, summer squash, and cucumbers. If these vegetables are planted around the middle of the summer they can be harvested until the first frosts as well. Hardy, tough vegetables will grow until the temperature is as low as 20 degrees, but those that aren’t as strong will only be able to grow through light frosts. Remember that if you have root and tuber plants and the tops are killed by a freeze the edible part can be saved if a large amount of mulch is used.

When fall gardening, make sure and pick the vegetables with the shortest growing season so they can be full grown and harvested before the frost arrives. Most seed packages will be labeled “early season”, or you can find the seeds boasting the fewest days to maturity. You may want to go after your seeds for fall gardening in spring or early summer; they are usually not kept in stock towards the end of summer. If they are stored in a cool and dry location they will keep until you are ready to plant.

In order to know exactly when the best time to start fall gardening, you must know about when the first hard frost will hit your area. One of the best ways to tell this is by a Farmer’s Almanac. They will give you exact dates and are rarely wrong. You will also need to know exactly how long it is going to take your plants to mature.

To get your soil ready for fall gardening you must first remove any leftover spring/summer crops and weeds. Crops leftover from the last season can end up spreading bacteria and disease if left in the garden. Spread a couple of inches of compost or mulch over the garden area to increase the nutrients, however, if spring plants were fertilized heavily it may not need much, if any. Till the top layer of soil, wet it down, and let it set for about 12-24 hours. Once this has been done, you are ready to start planting.

Many gardeners will run from fall gardening so they don’t have to deal with frosts, but if tough, sturdy vegetables are planted they can withstand a few frosts and give you some wonderful tasting produce. Fall gardening gives you the chance to enjoy your vegetable garden for at least a little bit more time.

Vegetable Garden off to a good start and the weather has been cooperating as well. I stopped by to check on it last night and everything seems to be getting well established. It has rained a lot the last couple of days so the mulch is not down but as soon as the ground drys and we can get in there we will be mulching everything.

If the weather is good the first row of beans should be in by the end of the week bush type green beans and it will only be a few days latter and they should be sprouted. While pumpkins are readily available in this area I have a suspension that I am going to see some vines sprouting up one day soon. I have been takeing photos but I am still trying to get them downloaded and posted. I think I may just make it into an album and post it in the photo gallery.I will let you know when the first batch go in.

I was hoping to post some pictures of the new vegetable garden  but due to cable company I can not use my desktop right now and so can not upload the pictures. The garden was all tilled and I was just putting up the fence when it started to rain. Of course it poured and that really saturated the soil. I was hoping for it to dry out yesterday and it did a bit but then it poured rain again last night! I hope maybe to get planted this weekend now but the weather is still a little bit unsettled so we will see.

I know a lot of you are way ahead on your gardens and that you are probably counting the days to harvest. This garden is getting a late start but I think it will still produce well this year. Lets hope for better planting weather this weekend.

A vegetable garden is a very interesting hobby and also a great way to get some exercise and stretch the family food budget ! I have grown vegetables off and on for many years. It has been some time since I have had a real full blown vegetables garden. This week I have agreed to help out a neighbor and put together a garden. I will document it’s progress throughout the growing season and update it’s progress on a special page tittled Vegetable Garden.

The current plan calls for growing tomatoes, peppers, beans, broccoli, radishes, carrots, spinach, cucumbers, zucchini, and eggplant some more may be added. Please check back on me weekly and follow the progress from garden preparation through harvest. If any of you are interested I would love to show your Vegetable Garden. Just shoot me an email with some pictures and a description and I will add them to my post. Be sure to include your name and location.

Today is May 31st and I will begin work on the garden tomorrow !