If you are lucky enough to have a relatively long growing season you might have enough time to grow two or three different crops of vegetables in your garden if you plan correctly.
Most of your cool weather plants will do well in both spring and fall but where spring is the start of the growing season and the temperatures are increasing as the plants grow larger the fall is the opposite and you have to plan carefully to get your harvest in before temperatures fall too low for your fruit and plants to mature. Some plants such as root vegetables and thick leaf vegetables like Collards will do well late into the fall but although they are surviving the cold temperatures and maybe even a few light frosts they won’t be growing larger or maturing.
Problems With Late Harvest Vegetables
In order to plan our planting and harvest dates we need to know more about the number of days until maturity for each specific plant. Vegetables like Radishes have a very fast growing time and you can expect a harvest in 40 to 50 days. Other plants like tomatoes are not a good choice for late season planting unless you are using a green house or hoop house to supplement your growing. Tomatoes like both full sun and high temperatures but in addition to that they need insects like bees for pollination. Bees will start to leave your garden in late August to maybe late September or early October. You really can’t count on them to pollinate your plants after the last week of September in most areas. Manual hand pollination is an option if you learn the method correctly.
In addition to the good bugs like bees leaving your garden in early fall you will find that your garden gets attacked by the bad bugs at the end of the growing season. This happens for many reasons but its often associated with weak plants that are past the primary harvest. If you do start to see bugs then be proactive and remove the plants that they are attacking before you lose your harvest.
What Vegetables Will Grow Well At The End Of The Season?
Basically you are looking for any vegetables that grow quickly in early spring or plants that don’t have a fruit. By that it means you want to stay away from Tomatoes, Strawberries, Beans all have the primary plant and a fruit that requires pollination. Cabbages and heavy leaf plants can be grown into the colder months, root plants and quick growing vegetables. Remember you can harvest some greens for salads even if the primary plant does not mature by the end of the season.
Planting Your Fall Garden
The first thing you want to do is look at your seeds and find out the maturity time in days. Once you do this you want to use a weather website to find your expected first frost date. You then want to give yourself a decent buffer so your vegetables aren’t maturing on the day that you expect that first frost so add another 14 days to your maturity date and then subtract that from the first frost date.
Now you know the latest day that you can plant your seeds. This is the latest in the season that you can plant and have any hopes of a late harvest. For best results you should probably start your seeds indoors where the temperatures are not above 85F a couple weeks prior to that last planting date. It is important to start early because you never know what percentage of your seeds will germinate.
Full Sun and 75F to 80F are good conditions to start your seeds. Keep them moist and care for them as you normally would. Don’t transplant your starter plants if temperatures are over 85F for most of the day.
Transplanting your starter plants is difficult in mid summer because the heat can effect them so take your time to transplant and make sure your plants have healthy roots. Also you should consider planting in an area that has partial shade or set up a shading method for your plants so they aren’t getting direct sun all day.
If you do plant your starters in a shaded area you might want to move them again once they have grown to near full size. This can be difficult so artificial shade which you can remove later when temperatures are cooling is a better bet.
When preparing your beds for the late season plants never mulch under any plant material that has grown that year. I like adding a 10-10-10 fertilizer to my soil along with peet moss but you can probably just add the chemical fertilizer and your soil should be of a good consistency for planting.
Final Note
There are many factors when it comes to stacking your crops. Any blight or damaged plants could cause your new plants to have problems so only plant in a healthy area of your garden.
Plant your vegetables early and if necessary keep them indoors if you air condition your home. Shade is also a factor.
Consider a portable hoop house to protect your plants later in the season when it cools off.