G’day! Today’s discussion will be about planning for your fall garden, detailing ways to get the most from your sown efforts. Now that we’re past the ides of August, summer temps will begin to mosey on down to a more... comfortable level, which makes going outside and enjoying the garden SO much more enjoyable, in my ever-so-humble opinion, especially down here in the humid Deep South! For those blessed to be in our climate range, that means we get a second chance to grow some of the crops that might have been decimated by this year’s agonizing heat wave… RIP my wonderful beefsteak tomatoes, your death shall be avenged. For those that aren’t so fortunate, I hope you guys have your greenhouse/hoop house set up to extend your season!
So! First item on the agenda is to begin cleaning up your summer garden area. When I say cleaning up, I mean pruning the ineffective branches/vines and setting them in a couple piles to the side: one for the healthy vegetation, one for the sickly. If you happened to notice some of your structured plants were succumbing to illnesses, I would HIGHLY suggest that you cleanse the structure, first and foremost, to prevent the same illness from potentially re-contaminating any new plants you place. Some people use a diluted bleach mixture, some use vinegar mixtures, some use plain soap and water… the main point is to remove the bacteria/virus ASAP.
Now that the structures are clean and the plants have been effectively optimized (if you have any that you’re trying to continue, that is), some of you may be wondering what to do with the piles you set to the side earlier, am I right? The quickest answer is utilizing the power of COMPOSTING!
“But James, you just told us to separate the piles, so why would I compost them both?”
Well, you compost the healthy pile; you want all that health and nutrition to go BACK INTO your soil, thereby reducing your need for artificial fertilizers and additional watering. So... what to do with the sick veg, you ask? Some will throw it in the trash, let the landfill sort out its fate. Not me. I say you should thoroughly CHAR the veg and use the carbon husk that remains as additional garden material. Methods to create homemade charcoal will be provided in a later installment, I promise!
The next step in your plan should be to amend the soil. That way, your plants have the greatest fighting chance to give you your greatest return on investment. This is done a few different ways, and I’ll talk about some of those here.
You can start with mixing your old mulch into the ground with a gardening fork, like a broadfork or pitchfork. If you’re of the machine tilling mindset, this step will be somewhat easier, but I’m not a fan of the practice myself. My reasoning could result in a tangent that could be a post in and of itself, but to make a long story short, it’s not the best kind of practice for long-term soil health.
In any case, mixing in the old mulch provides additional organic material that will break down over time, again reducing fertilizer needs (unless you’ve used something like cedar/cypress shavings as mulch; in which case, try to remove them as best as you can, because their oils contain effective antifungal compounds that do not discriminate between good and bad fungi. This is very important for a highly effective, less labor-intensive garden strategy). This also loosens the once-compacted soil, so root growth will be better encouraged, and nutrients will be more easily accessed at deeper levels.
Speaking of good fungi, there’s one mushroom in particular that has been proven to be extremely useful in garden spaces as well as in pastures… and no, I’m not referring to THAT mushroom everyone thinks of when they picture mushrooms in pastures. I’m talking about the Garden Giant mushroom, also known as the Wine Cap or Godzilla mushroom, the one and only King Stropharia! The Latin name is Stropharia rugosoannulata, known for its burgundy cap and the ring, or annulus, that stays around the stem as the cap expands out.
You may be asking, “Why are you mentioning this mushroom when you’re supposed to be talking about preparing for a fall garden?”
Well, it’s the multipurpose properties of this particular mushroom that makes it worth mentioning. It attacks and consumes nematodes, destroys E. coli in storm water runoff, and enriches and helps to build the soil surrounding it, among many other fascinating abilities!
Did I forget to mention that it is considered a choice edible mushroom that can grow to the size of a dinner plate?!? There’s that, too, but they’re generally better eating at smaller sizes. The flavor is reminiscent of potatoes simmered in red wine, hence the wine cap nickname.
If you have a mushroom grower nearby, I would highly suggest you get yourself a growing kit to break up and spread into your soil as an added amendment. I am actually in the process of getting back into growing mushrooms myself, but my setup is not yet complete. Updates will be made once everything has been completed!
While we’re here, I’d like to mention another way to make sure your soil stays loose throughout your season: worms! Yes, those hermaphroditic wonders of the subterranean realm, especially red wigglers, will eat half their weight in food waste in the span of a day. More importantly, while they’re rooting through your compost, they create pathways to improve the soil’s aeration, not to mention their castings provide one of the most concentrated and biologically available forms of nutrition for plants anywhere!
Also, once you get some, you’ll have access to a free bait source, for all you anglers out there. Don’t worry, you don’t have to worry about thinning out the population too bad. They have the potential to double their numbers in 90 days.
So, you might ask, “Where can I get some of these wigglers?”
Sometimes, pet stores and bait shops will have them, but it’s not always guaranteed. Luckily, I came across a person from the Baton Rouge area who happens to deal in these little garden saviors. Her name is Alyssa Hughes and she runs a little place called Lazy Worms. You can find her here. She offers amazing products at a very reasonable price. If you stop by her place, just let her know I sent you, please?
Once the soil’s been loosened, it’ll be time to add in any kind of soil amendment you’re in need of: manure, blood & bone meal, fish emulsion, charcoal, ashes, etc. You get the picture. You can either go to your local agriculture extension office to have your soil extensively tested for a relatively small fee, OR you can find an inexpensive pH test kit at local big box stores. The choice is yours.
After that, put in a nice couple inches of compost so that your seeds aren’t going to immediately get hit by the intense nutrition you just added; you don't want your precious plant roots to burn from fresh fertilizer. Once you’ve planted your seeds where you want them, be sure to have something to mark the spots for each section, then apply a couple inches of mulch on top to prevent potential weeds from invading your sanctuary while helping to conserve water usage. It might take slightly longer for your seedlings to pop up, but the results will be well worth the wait. See, a little struggle in the plant world is a good thing; it means they’ll send out deeper roots in search of their food and it gives the amendments time to simmer down, acclimate, and become more biologically available.
See? There’s a system to the madness after all!!
Now! For those in more frost-sensitive areas (or those looking to protect their subterranean underlings from the harsh nip of nature’s winter chill), as I said earlier, I hope you’ve got your shelter set up. With the extremes we’ve been having lately, I wouldn’t be too surprised if things turn out colder than usual a little further down the road. With that being said, it’s always nice to have preparations handy. Enter: cold frames and hoop houses/greenhouses.
Choosing one over the other really depends on the size of your garden and what you’re growing out of. If you have a few smaller container plants, but you don’t have the room for them, go with a simple cold frame. If you’ve got larger containers or you’re trying to cover beds to protect sensitive plants, then the hoop house/greenhouse will be your go-to project. Some quick plans can be found here. I’m not affiliated here, but I thought that they were some good ideas that were absolutely worth sharing, especially since they live in Maine and they know the cold much better than I do.
Since we now have our soil taken care of, and we’ve made plans for extra protection, it’s time to get to the real meat & potatoes of the matter: what are you going to plant that can go toe-to-toe with cooler climates? As I mentioned earlier, some of us are blessed to get a second chance with our summer crops, at least the ones with a shorter maturity date. Now would also be a great time to plant brassicas, such as cabbages, mustard, kale, Brussel sprouts, collards, and broccoli.
The taste of brassicas (as well as other dark leafy greens) grown in cooler climates is vastly different to those grown during the spring and summer. You can say the taste is sweeter when grown in cooler conditions and more bitter during warm temps, much like the difference between a cucumber picked early in the morning versus sometime in the afternoon.
Other great plants for your consideration this fall would be arugula, lettuces, cilantro, kohlrabi, snow peas, potatoes, sweet potatoes, pole beans, beets, radishes, bok choy, and mizuna/mibuna. You can get most of these at your local big box stores or nurseries, but if you’re looking for a place with a veritable cornucopia of rare, exotic, and colorful seed choices, I’d recommend Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds! They hand out a 350-page catalog on their website with over 1300 varieties of crops to choose from, with many more choices online. It’s absolutely mind-blowing what they have to offer, and they’re all either heirloom or stabilized varieties that they’ve come up with through decades of research, collection, and growing within their own facilities.
Another thing to help boost production is to attract native pollinators to your garden by way of companion planting, as well as growing some native wildflowers nearby. Like the ever-famous three sisters formation, using companion plants is a wonderful method of utilizing plants for multiple purposes.
One great example is the innocuous tomato. You can plant asparagus (don’t expect to harvest for a couple years if you do), carrots, celery, cucumber, onion, parsley, and/or peppers as a companion. Basil is used as a fly/mosquito repellant, chives improve plant health and tomato flavor, and marigold will deter nematodes, whereas true calendulas deter tomato worms and general pests.
Similar to their friends, tomatoes have their share of enemies, as well as a frenemy of sorts. Kohlrabi will stunt tomato growth. Corn and tomatoes are both attacked by the same worm (so planting them together is like lighting the beacons of Minas Tirith for the hornworms), like how tomatoes and potatoes are attacked by the same blight. Then there’s dill, tomato’s little frenemy! While they’re both young hotshots, they look after each other. But, once dill comes of age, it’s got some sort of vendetta to settle and stunts the tomato’s growth.
The way you get around these dynamics is to mix some flowers and herbs in between some of the plants you’re growing to mask the scent from the bugs and allow the soil biology to work in your favor, or have a separate area for those plants that don’t want to play nice with each other. Again, your choice.
One of the best practices you can implement, and one of the greatest skills to learn for long-term success in any garden, is saving your seeds! By leaving a couple of your crops to fully mature in order to collect seeds, you are lowering your overhead by not having to purchase the same seeds from a company year after year. Most seeds are easy enough to collect. Usually, scooping them out of the fruiting body and placing them on a paper towel to dry for a day or two works, as is the case with squash and melons.
Fruits like tomatoes, on the other hand, have a sack surrounding them that’s filled with a growth-inhibiting gel. This sack must be removed for the tomato seeds to be properly stored. This can be accomplished by immersing the seeds in cool water, letting them sit out on a sun-lit balcony for a day or two, rinsing the seeds off in a fine sieve, then placing the seeds on a few stacked paper towels to absorb any excess moisture for a couple of days. If there are any remaining gel sacks, they should be easily removable at this point. Properly stored seeds will last a few years, so there shouldn’t be any worry about immediately using them.
Have you seen some of your garden flowers with plenty of greenery, but they seem to bloom less than usual these days? The answer may be that your plant’s roots are too cramped, thanks in part to their multiplying efforts. For all my flower-loving friends out there, now would be an excellent time to divide your perennials and spring bulbs!
Be sure to use a sharp spade when digging around the root ball to save yourself from any extra back-breaking labor, and to prevent ragged-like cuts when splitting your perennial roots. Once you’ve dug them up, you’ll want to make quick work of dividing the roots into even sections; this will not only provide uniform growth, but also mitigate transplant shock, meaning more lovely flowers for your viewing pleasure at no cost to you! Getting this step done during Autumnal weather will allow the new transplants to acclimate to their new surrounding and develop stronger roots as winter approaches.
If you don’t have any spring bulbs, but you’d like to see some new blooming flowers this spring, now would be the absolute BEST time to shop for bulbs. Many companies will only ship bulbs out when it’s their time to plant, such as the beginning of September, which means you now skip the long wait time when you order bulbs during the spring.
I hope you guys have learned a couple of things from this article. I will be following this article with a more in-depth discussion on vermicomposting, and how it’s an incredible way to save yourself time, effort, and more importantly, money with your gardening endeavors! As always, your feedback is greatly appreciated, so if you found this article interesting or informative, go ahead and like, comment, and share it with others so they can learn a thing or two as well.
I’ll end today’s discussion with a quote from Colin Adams: “The better you’re prepared, the better chance you’ll have at staying on top of everything that is coming your way.”
Much love, everyone, and thank you for your support! I’ll see you next time!