The Fall Garden Begins

Middle of August and the days are so hot you can barely breathe. But I have already received my seed order and I finger the crisp packets of many kinds of lettuce, celery, carrots, chard, beets, arugula, broccoli raab, kale, peas, and other vegetables. There are no tomato seeds, or eggplants or peppers. These are the hot weather things I know will not have the time to come to harvest before the frost in December. I will buy broccoli and collard seedlings at the farm store, and maybe I will go for cauliflower and brussels sprouts. In the last couple of years there seem to be more choices.

The compost pile has been cooking all summer, ready to be spread over the seed beds. Right now, the vegetable garden is a mess! I have been weeding the beds when it is cool in the mornings, but I haven't the heart to take out the morning glories adorning the fence or the zinnias or the milkweed that so attract the butterflies and hummingbirds. I will do it the last week of August when we return from a cool visit to Seattle.

Our vegetable garden is quite small, 200 square feet or so, enclosed by a six foot chicken wire fence that is buried a foot to deter the armadillos. A string flies above the fence from pole to pole and it has old neckties attached to it at intervals. I am convinced this fluttering fabric deters the deer. Some years ago, I became convinced that top down, no weed gardening was the way to go. So I pile on the mulch, never till. When it is time to plant I just pull back the mulch for the row I want to plant, apply some compost and stick in the seeds. It works!

Last year, almost all the vegetables we ate came from our own garden. (Yes, we certainly ate a LOT of broccoli and snow peas!) But there was so much else! We had wonderful salad greens every day, carrots, beets, peas, eggplant, tomatoes, herbs. The innovation of last year was the salad garden tables. We have two of these raised beds on legs that grow only salads. They are immune from the burrowing of armadillos and nibbling of rabbits, and they are so easy to weed and harvest!

But it is still the hottest part of summer and the next harvest is only a glimmer in my eye, some seed packets, and a fantasy for our table. We are devoted to growing organic. The fall garden is not so prone to the predations of hot weather bugs so it's easier than the spring garden. There are not so many tomato horn worms or stink bugs to contend with.

I want you to try vegetable gardening! Not only good eating, good exercise, fascinating scientific interests, it is good for the soul.

In subsequent posts I will let you know more about this garden. Ask questions!