Okay, so now that the fall gardening bug has bitten me I am itching with anticipation of getting my garden started again, provided the horrific heat and humidity comply and go away - far, far away. Yes, I admit it has come to this... most of my garden planning is based in a pure fantasy world where nature cooperates and provides reasonable temperatures, rainfall and insect control - nothing at all like the actual world surrounding me. Yet, it is this naively, optimistic avoidance of reality that is the backbone of gardening on the Gulf Coast.
I am planting a fall garden because in other parts of the world there is this thing called Fall. I know there is because I have seen the after school specials and movies depicting it even though I have never in my life experienced Fall as a season. Oh sure, we sometimes have 'fall-like' weather, meaning the temperature gets reasonable, the humidity drops and human beings in this part of the world emerge from their air conditioned enclosures like groundhogs hoping to see (or is it not see) their shadows. We make all sorts of resolutions (I will go for a walk every day!) and discoveries (Is that a cool breeze?) and then the next day it is either back up to 90 degrees with 90% humidity or down into the low 40s with driving rain. Our regions bipolar weather disorder allows us to experience a years worth of climatic events over the course of a week and sometimes in a single day. There is no 'season' except for summer and Mega-summer which fill up about 6 to 7 months of our year.
But, because other places have Fall and have fall gardens, I too feel the need to have a fall garden. To do this all I have to do is ignore the weather. So, with my fantasy life fully engaged, I plan my fall crops.
Here is what the guide regarding my planting zone 9a says to plant. I always figure that little "a" attached to the 9 stands for 'approximate' or 'absurd' or maybe 'abandon all hope yea who plant here' - but I go on in spite of it.
For September it says I can plant:
Beans
We had a great bush bean season from the spring/summer garden and so these will go into the center bed where we had the okra. I will be planting them from seed, so I need to get hopping on this asap to maximize their productivity.
I have never grown broccoli successfully, probably due to the fact I have never paid the slightest attention to things like 'when to plant the broccoli'. I am going to pass on this one even though I love to eat broccoli - part of the problem actually. Even if I got the broccoli to 'brock' I don't think my plantings could keep up with my consumption.
I was a novice to the world of cabbage until this last spring but now that I have had success, sign me up again. I am pretty sure my success this spring was a fluke since I put it in at the very last possible planting date. Maybe planting it now at the start of a season will yield even better results.
This is really a toss up for me. I have planted carrots before and sometimes have done rather well, but not the last two attempts. I have put more into the last two tries than all the tries before with deeply dug, sandy soil and constant vigil bordering on cheer leading. I feel sort of rejected by this root crop so I am putting it into the no category for now.
Never tried it before. It looks like it might be very simple to grow, much like parsley. I guess I am hesitant because it is so cheap in the stores and quite frankly I can't remember the last time I ate celery. Pass for now.
My collard greens were big and beefy and quite frankly one of them is still surviving right now in the garden (if you count surviving as being somewhat smothered by sweet potato vines. So, I can grow collards. But I don't actually want to eat collards. Ah the vegetable gardener's dilemma - being good at growing something you are not wanting to put in your mouth. Pass for now.
It was actually news to me a few years ago that cucumbers could be planted again in the fall. I guess I associate them with spring and summer so much it never dawned on me that the temperate fall would be a good bet for them. I planted some sort of wacky heat/humidity loving weird cucumber type whose actual plant name is eluding me. If it grows great I will be kicking myself for forgetting what type it is. If it is a dud, then I will never again try a wacky cucumber variety.
It is a beautiful plant that grows very well for me and then I just leave it there because like collards, I am not a big fan of eating greens. Maybe I will just to have its beautiful leaves gracing my garden.
LettuceThere have been several great lettuce crops in my gardening life. There have also been some beautiful patches that I have ignored. It all has to do with the selection. This spring I made the mistake of planting a mixture that was various greens as well as a few lettuces. Not for me. I will get some select either leaf or bib lettuces and try for this fall. I am also going to try planting more each week to see if I can keep up with my consumption.
I grow it every chance I get, even though, like the other greens I seldom eat it. Never mind that, the leaves are beautiful and it grows wonderfully.
My onions barely onioned this spring and I am not sure why. Part of it is that I don't know exactly what I did that made my previous onion patch so successful. I am not even sure if planting a fall onion bed will result in onion bulbs or just green onions, but damn the torpedoes - I am already in and going to plant some more as well.
Okay, this might sound like I am not a true southerner, but I just am not a pea fan. Except for snow peas which are great, but I am not sure they do well with our weather. I also don't get the whole 'inoculate the soil' business regarding planting peas. Probably why my previous earlier attempts have yielding nothing.
If peppers would let me I would plant them in the dead of winter. I actually one mild winter kept a pepper plant alive to the next year. I learned the hard lesson about this - the second year they barely produce. I already have planted two peppers - a sweet banana and a mild tam Jalapeno. That may be all I put in for the fall.
Radishes are almost guaranteed to come up for you, but my first 3 years I had poor to no results. Then I had incredible results, but the problem is that I don't actually like to eat as much radish as I am able to grow, so once they get going I just sort of ignore them. I did learn that if you have neglected your radishes to the point they are as big as turnips, you can cook them like turnips and they taste like turnips. So there is that.
I have never yet gotten spinach to a harvestable condition. They sprout, they grow a bit and then they just seem to be stunted. Maybe I am expecting too much from the type I am planting. Maybe my expectation is that I will get a whole cooked can of spinach from one plant. Not a reality. I have some seed, so it is probably that I will throw it into the dirt this fall, but I am not excited about it.
Squash
I am excited about squash. Specifically the butternut squash that I discovered last fall. Talk about making you feel like you have done something right. The plants grow amazingly long vines and they produce about a billion of these large squash per plant, but best of all, nothing seems to want to eat them. I found my seeds last night and I am putting them in asap.
Even though I am not always successful with the fall tomato plantings, there have been many times that I have had Christmas tomatoes. The Better Boy, Early Girl and Rutgers that I have planted seem well on their way.
When we mad the beds for the ceder garden was the first time I ever tried growing turnips for anything other than the greens. I still feel like a champ when I pull those purple topped beauties from the soil. Definitely going to plant them this fall.
So with all my choices it looks like I will be having a bean/cabbage/lettuce/mustard/onion/pepper/squash/tomato/turnip fall garden.
I am sure that many other things will work their way into the garden as well, including several types of herbs. So, it is a loose plan with room to grow.
