Your Vegetable Garden: Now’s the Time to Plan for Fall Crops
Featured photograph by for Gardenista, from Garden Visit: At Home in Rhode Island with Painter Georgia Marsh.
Your tomatoes are coming in fabulously. Summer in the vegetable garden is a heady time.
Knowing your first frost date will allow you to figure out how much time you have to grow cool weather crops. Mother Nature does what she wants when she wants and doesn’t look at our human calendars.
1. Know the first frost date for your zone.
Carrots, depending on the variety, take anywhere from 50 to 80 days to mature.
Photograph by Howard Sooley, from Field Guide: Carrots.
2. Read the back of the seed packet.
The single most important bit of information on the packet is days to maturity. Check to make sure you have enough time to harvest by the frost date.
After the summer solstice, the days are getting shorter, so there is less sunlight for your crops. With less sunshine, your plants will be growing slower.
3. Remember the days are getting shorter.
4. Keep an eye on the current weather.
You may want to wait to plant cool weather crops. Again, Mother Nature is in charge.
Lacinato kale is a fast grower.
Photograph by Laura Silverman, from Garden-to-Table Recipe from a Cook’s Garden: Eat Your Greens.
5. Choose the right plants.
Look for short maturity dates, aka fast growers. Plant lettuce beneath tomatoes to shield them from the hot sun.