Easy Steps to Winter Abundance

For many of us, it seems as though summer just started. Surely there’s plenty of summer harvest left, so why worry about the Fall garden now?

Of course you’ll get plenty more summer goodies before the end. But think: When did you start those tomatoes or squashes you’re harvesting now? If you want to have bowls of salad, crunchy carrots, sweet broccoli florets, and frost-hardy kale in fall or winter, you should be planting them now. See the choices here: Plant for Fall

Once the days get short and the temperatures drop, plants stop growing. Many hardy crops will survive all winter. But you won’t be able to start them from scratch in winter–they need time to grow to eating size before the cold sets in. Favorites like broccoli, cabbage, kale, collards, turnips, carrots, and beets need at least 2 months and sometimes 3 before they reach maturity. Late July/early August is the perfect time to plant them. (Find the possibilities HERE.)

Professional growers and authors often say you should start them in July,  and it’s true you’ll have bigger plants if you do. But for the ordinary person with a job, no fancy propagation systems, and possibly vacation plans, July can be unrealistic. I work with reality, not against it. In August, the nights are getting longer. There is more dew and the sun’s angle is getting lower. Fall crops become a realistic option, and take very little time to start. Planting takes minutes, yet the harvest goes on for months.

Here is a way to start a delicious and money-saving winter garden in easy stages. 

First, locate a place where you like to spend time on August evenings–could be under a shade tree, on the porch, or even in an air-conditioned space indoors. (You can put down a sheet of plastic if necessary–a flat garbage bag right off the roll works great.) 

Now, pour yourself a drink before your hands get muddy, then fill a couple of seedling trays with potting mix. Get out your seeds and plop them into the seedling trays, pots, or whatever. You can plant a full tray during the time it takes to have a drink and a snack in the shade–about 20 minutes. Then set your tray where it will get sun in the morning, shelter from baking afternoon sun, and be easy to water once a day. Like maybe a window, porch, or picnic table. 

If you don’t want to have to water seedling trays, then seed these items directly into the garden each week in August. Use shadecloth if needed to keep them from getting scorched. Or find places that are temporarily shaded by summer crops.

So what goes in those trays? First week, the long-season crops like cabbage, carrots, parsnips, rutabagas, kale, collards, broccoli, beets, peas and Brussels sprouts.

Week two, crops for fall consumption. In addition to standards like spinach and lettuce, these include treats that are unique to Fall and often unique to Mediterranean cuisine–Florence fennel, endive, escarole, chicory, chard, and cima di rapa are all in this group. Peas planted for clipping the new growth as salad greens are a new addition. They freeze-out below 25 degrees, so they need August planting and October-November eating. Quail Seeds carries a Fall in Italy Collection with many of these crops.

Week three, faster-growing fall crops: Spinach, Chinese Cabbage and other Asian greens, salad turnips, arugula, radishes, lettuce, cima di rapa, mustard, and other leafy greens for both cooking and salad. 

Week four, Asian greens, Miner’s lettuce, Erba Stella, arugula, and sorrel, the fastest-growing plants in cool soil that I know of. Plus more lettuce, radish, spinach, and pea shoots.

After 4 weeks, your first tray should be ready to go into the garden. By then there’ll be places in the garden where the crops are finished, overtaken by weeds, or not paying their way. Rip out those weeds, shriveled bush beans, bolted lettuce, or whatever, and water well. Or move vines aside to make planting spots. Layer on some compost or fertilizer and transplant the seedlings from your first tray. Repeat the next week. It takes maybe 15-30 minutes each time, for crops that will feed you for several months. Totally worth it!

see our seeds for fall