[Tammy]

This is the first time I'm trying my hand at some fall gardening. My DH built me a small raised garden bed from some scrap lumber he had and I planted lettuces, spinach and brocolli. They are doing well and I could start picking some of the outer leaves on the lettuce if I wanted, but will wait for it to get a bit bigger. I took some wire fencing we had and built an archway over the top of the bed and tonight I'll cover it with some vizquine. Our nights are getting down to the upper 30's, even though the days are still great for lettuces - upper 70's to low 80's. Some areas in our valley are even getting a bit of frost at night. brrr!

anyone else doing fall planting? how's it going? I see so many areas of the country that are having some very early cold temps and even snow in some areas!

 

[stephanie]

getting ready to top dress and cover my raised beds for the winter and let them cook the compost till spring. will cover all with news paper,horse poo and wood chips and maybe top with black plastic to help the cooking process through winter.

 

[Errol]

Stephanie, thats the way I do it to. except I don't use the black plastic. But the plastic will help cook the compost just as you say.
get a stack of seed catalogs and wish away the winter!

 

[Errol]

Tammy, I have black simpson leaf lettuce, red leaf, broccoli, cabbage and its doing good, been eating lettuce and got a couple heads of cabbage about ready. The radishes likes a few days. the garlic I planted first part of sept is coming up good, and the walking onions are doing extremly well, as are the potato onions. If you have not tried these two onions, I suggest you get a few. Now is the time to plant those and by spring you will have onions ready when everyone else is thinking of planting.
have a nice productive fall

 

[Tammy]

Thanks Errol. I'll look for those onions. i've never tried either (never even heard of potato onions?). I checked out my lettuce last night and I can start picking some any time now. so happy to have homegrown lettuce. I had to buy some last week and after about 3 days in the fridge, it was already discoloring and the edges were getting slimy. yuck.

I've never successfully grown brocolli either. I tried once, several years ago, but it got hot too quickly and it all bolted before I ever got the brocolli heads. Hopefully the fall planting of it will do better for me.

 

[veggiewhisperer]

Hey Tammy!

I've started my lettuce, carrots, beets, turnips, spinach, and broccoli last month. Everything is coming in nicely. It's amazing that I a still harvesting tomatoes, zucchini, and okra. I planted more basil in a pot which I keep in my kitchen window. I hope it will survive the winter. I didn't do any fall gardening last year. I just covered everything with leaves that fell from my trees.

 

[Tammy]

I picked some lettuce last night and this lettuce was better than the lettuce I was getting in the early summer!
I added some bokashi to the top soil, I've been adding some mature compost, the gardening bed was partially filled with some gardening mix that included chicken manure and I've covered it with some vizquine to help keep the day-time warmth inside when our nights have been getting down in the upper 30's/low 40's.
I'm thinking with all the gardening advice and knowledge that's been shared on this board, I might actually have a decent garden next year.

 

[Tammy]

Well, we had so much snow and sub-freezing temps over the past week, that not only did my little hoop canopy over my lettuce and brocolli bed collapse, but when I finally dug off the snow today and took the vizquine off, the lettuce and brocolli flowerets were frozen.
ahh, so much for my fall/winter garden.