Winter Gardening Means Mid-Summer Planning & Planting

The garden is in full swing, beans, cucumbers, and squash out the ears, plants loaded with tomatoes, and peppers well on their way to all developing nicely.  Many are asking what they can plant now for the small areas of real estate still available in their garden.  A second round of many of the summer vegetables is always a possibility; however, I tend to turn my attention to the fall garden..........................

Broccoli improves with flavor when kissed by frost!

I have been pushing parsnips lately as if they were a new drug in town to cure the wintertime blues, due only to the length of time they take to produce a healthy crop.  Several varieties of this carrot family relative can take 16 weeks or more to mature.

Parsnips have never graced my garden in the past and in speaking with some "ole-timers", they insist the flavor is sweeter than carrots in winter soups and stews. We shall see about that one!  According to Wikipedia, they are rich in history and during Roman times, they were actually considered an aphrodisiac. We shall see about that one as well, grin!

All of your broccoli's, brussels, cabbages, cauliflowers, etc. benefit from being transplanted into the garden between 4 and 6 weeks of age.  The proper time for sowing these seeds indoors is now for those who want to grow their fall garden for pennies on the dollar.  Beets, carrots, parsnips, and such do better directly sown and may go in as early as the end of July for those who want to be harvesting by Christmas dinner.

Burpee has a nice link where you key in the zip code for our growing area and the chart comes up for what to start and when.  In addition, I really like the links to the sowing guides from Botanical Interests, as these are quality seeds available locally at Pike's.

http://www.burpee.com/gygg/growingCalendarWithZipCode.jsp?catid=1000&_requestid=103634 - link to the growing calendar at Burpee Seed Company

https://botanicalinterests.com/img/site_specific/uploads/LateSummFallSowingGuide.pdf - link to the late summer and fall sowing guide for vegetables, herbs, and flowers from Botanical Interests

Green Meadows Healthy Garden Tip:

To get the most out of the fall vegetable crops, look for varieties that are resistant to the common diseases and insects we experience in the garden.  For example, Southern Exposure Seed Company carries the Green Glaze Collards that have excellent resistance to the cabbage looper and the cabbage worm.  They also carry the Dwarf Blue Vates Kale that resists yellowing of the leaves due to cold temperatures when winters are more severe than expected.  Anything that can offer resistance to downy mildew is a plus since we find that disease rather common.  Tilting the odds in your favor dramatically increases the success of a healthy vegetable garden with less dependence on the use of fungicides and pesticides.  This is especially important with the fall greens, as they tend to absorb what you spray.

One of the most comprehensive links for finding varieties that are resistant to many of the common vegetable diseases is at Cornell University.  I have placed that link here as well for your convenience.

http://vegetablemdonline.ppath.cornell.edu/Tables/TableList.htm - link to chart at Cornell for resistant varieties 

Happy Gardening,

Denise, Beds 25 & 29