The November Vegetable Garden

It's finally time to get the chore to end all chores done: cleaning up the vegetable garden.  After a year of intermittent neglect, frustration, summer heat, and family tragedy it is definitely time to put this year's garden under wraps.  Mostly under wraps that is.  We actually have a crop of greens on the way to help feed the family and ease the budget.  

Here's the view of the left side of the garden.  The blue tarp is still down to prevent the Bermuda grass from taking over completely.  The next step for this area is to remove the tarp and the raised beds then till it.  Once tilled I'll remove as many Bermuda roots as possible.  I know I'll miss a few rhizomes but drastic measures must be taken to beat back the Bermuda.

On the right side of the garden I have quite a mess of strawberries.  Fortunately I didn't take a before picture when the strands of Johnson grass were still poking through the strawberry foliage. You'll just have to imagine it!  The patch of green way in the back is a combination of asparagus and chickweed.  Definitely not the ideal planting companion to asparagus! Chickweed just seems to invade everywhere this time of year.  Fortunately it's one of the easiest weeds to pull which is quite satisfying! 

Now I can show you the good side of the garden.  Here we have garlic interplanted with a combination of lettuce and spinach.  There's probably some cilantro here and there too since I seem to have it everywhere.  Sure makes me wonder why it's so expensive in the stores when it grows so well all on it's own!

Here are a few more of the seedlings.  I have the supplies for the PVC coldframe that will eventually be covering the greens but I don't have it all pieced together yet. Soon! 

There's no shortage of work to be done even though the cold weather is arriving.  I'm going to miss those warm fall days.  We'll get a few here and there but definitely not enough to suit my tastes!

For More Vegetable Gardening:

• Vegetable Gardening
• Designing a Raised Bed Vegetable Garden: 11 Things to Think About
• The Surprise Vegetable Garden
• Fall Vegetable Garden Layout

5 Fall Things to Do to Prepare the Vegetable Garden for Spring

The fall season is a busy one.  We're all busy cleaning up the outside areas of our homes and gardens to prepare for colder days ahead.  The list of things to do this fall isn't a short one but if you can fit a few more items to your list you will save yourself some time in the spring!  Let's take a look today at a few things you can do this fall to prepare your vegetable garden for spring.

5 Fall Things To Do To Prepare the Vegetable Garden for Spring

1. Clear out your summer garden.  Maybe you've already done this but I haven't.  We were still getting tomatoes and peppers from the garden and I didn't want to stop a good thing!  
   
   Don't put any diseased foliage or branches in the compost bin.  In the past I've burned the dead and dried tomato stems in a fire pit.  Once the ashes cooled I tossed them into the compost bin.  If you were to put diseased materials in your compost you will probably just spread it around to other plants next year.  
2. Add compost to your garden beds.  Compost and the organic matter it contains are one of the best amendments you can add to your garden.  The organic matter keeps the soil loose and is great at retaining moisture.  It also contains living organisms that work hard to bring usable nutrients to your vegetable plants.  You can till compost into the soil if you like or simply spread it on top of the beds and rake it in lightly.  Over tilling soil can destroy the soil structure so try to use the tiller a little less often.  Spreading the compost on top of the soil will allow the rain (or snow) to wash the compost into the soil.  Don't forget to keep composting over the winter.  I know the trek to the compost bin might get chilly at times but your plants will thank you!
3. Mulch your beds!  After you've spread compost on the vegetable garden cover it with a thick layer of natural mulch.  One of the cheapest and easiest to find mulches is available right now on your lawn - leaves!  I highly recommend using a bagging mower to collect the leaves since the mower will dice the leaves into small bits and pieces which are easier to break down in the garden.  If you happen to get a bunch of grass clippings to go with the leaves then that's great too.  A balance of green and brown materials is ideal blend to make compost!  I use grass clippings all the time for the vegetable garden.  I do avoid Bermuda grass clippings since those are prone to rooting - I'm fighting a Bermuda grass battle anyway.  Also avoid using grass that has been sprayed with pesticides or herbicides.  You don't want that stuff on your food, in your food, or around your food!
4. If you haven't already done so make a crop rotation plan.  While the locations of your plantings are still fresh in your mind write them down.  Next year don't plant the same thing in the same spot.  Diseases that effect one family of plants may not effect another but can persist in the soil for several years.  If you rotate the crops in a 3-4 year rotation you'll be better able to avoid those diseases.  This requires good note taking or a 100% accurate photographic memory.  I don't know about you but I don't have the latter!
5. Write down the good stuff from the vegetable garden.  If something was outstanding - write it down!
   
   That tomato that produced prolifically, was disease free, and tasted awesome is one you want to plant again and again.  So write it down and you will never forget it! You can make a list of things you didn't like too, to help you avoid those plants next year.  It makes no sense to keep replanting a vegetable that never grows well, doesn't taste good, or you just don't want and have no use for!

Now it's time for me to take my own advice and get busy in the garden!

More Gardening Tips from the Friday Fives

Vegetable Garden Clean Up for Fall

This weekend I partially accomplished one of the major garden chores of the fall The Fall Vegetable Garden Cleanup! There's a second section of the vegetable garden that needs cleaned up still but I really wanted to leave the tomatoes alone for now so that maybe, just maybe they could ripen up a few more before the end of the season. They've already survived a couple of minor frosts in my backyard but I think we might be without frosts for another week (keeping my fingers crossed!) and we may have enough time to squeeze out a few more red ripe tomatoes.

The bulk of my time was spent in the raised beds in the picture below (more on raised beds here). The long bed on the left (4'x8') was completely engulfed in Bermuda grass as was the smaller one (3'x4') toward the front of the picture. These beds are untreated pine in their third year and are really starting to show some wear.  I planted two rows of garlic in the small front bed along with some lettuce and chard in between. I will need a screen to prevent the deer from eating away the greens but I doubt they will like the garlic very much! The second small bed was planted with more garlic of a different variety. The other beds we weeded, hoed up to remove all traces of Bermuda grass roots (as best as possible anyway since that task is nearly impossible), then covered with leaves that I gathered up with my push mower with the bag attachment - I love that bag!
  

 

The leaves will serve as a mulch over the winter and should help add organic content to the soil as they break down. I may come back later this week and plant a cover crop like clover to help fix more nitrogen into the soil. I need to gather some manure and add it to the compost bin to cure over the winter to help nourish my raised beds for gardening in 2011.

These beds are being protected from the deer. In this bed are a few small summer squash plants that most likely won't produce anything at this point. This raised bed also contains a bunch of cilantro seedlings. We're big fans of that herb around here! The pepper bed in the back was also cleaned up but I didn't cover with the leaf mulch.

The back section of the garden housed my tomato plants this year. It's still a complete mess. The vines have gone everywhere and the deer have nibbled every branch. There are still tomatoes being produced on the inside of the plants and maybe they will ripen up a little more - it all depends on the weather!

Here's a look at a couple green ones. My daughters went harvesting tomatoes today from the "Tomato Orchard" as they called it. Both green and red tomatoes found they way into their baskets. Some we'll let ripen while others will no doubt become fried green tomatoes!

The cherry tomatoes are always the most prolific tomato producers in my garden. You just can't stop them! This plant was a volunteer that I moved next to the garden fence. The artemisia in front of it may have offered a shield form the nibbling deer.

After the beds were cleaned up I planted 2 varieties of garlic, two varieties of Romaine lettuce, chard, and red onions. I have my deer protection plan ready to go - once they germinate!

What's growing in your garden?

***Never burn your leaves - They are too valuable to waste!***

Growing in the Fall Vegetable Garden

Fall vegetable gardening can certainly be interesting in Tennessee!  You never quite know how the weather is going to shape up.  Is it going to frost early?  Late?  Will the temperatures be normal or extra warm like we'll be having this week?  You just never know.  For gardening weather this October we've had a couple light frosts but nothing damaging which means our summer garden still has more to give - and we're going to happily harvest until the end.  With temperatures set to be in the 80's this week with no frost chances we have a good chance of continuing to get summer vegetables through the end of October!  Tennessee is a great place for a vegetable garden!

This morning I picked a few orange bell peppers.  I didn't realize I had this many still coming.  In fact I had given up on the peppers a couple weeks ago thinking the weather was about to turn.  Glad I was wrong!  Peppers are very easy to grow.  Once planted they take some time to produce and we usually don't get much until late July or August. I've had very few pest problems on our peppers.  This year though I had a bunny that apparently had a taste for jalapenos - still haven't quite figured out if it liked them or it just had a very short memory.  Perhaps it thought that the next pepper it tasted might not be so spicy.  I suspect it found out differently!

I still have a whole bunch of Tabasco peppers to harvest although I haven't a clue how I'll use them.  Perhaps the tomatoes I still have on the vine and Tabasco peppers might make friends in some delicious October chili...

I have potatoes growing again.  I didn't intend to grow a fall crop of potatoes - or not consciously at least. I must have left a few potatoes in the ground from spring since now we have about 12 plants growing strong.  I'll cover them through the next couple light frosts then dig and see what we have just after a hard freeze.  They may be small potatoes - but often those are the tastiest!

Pak Choi

The actual fall vegetables I planted are doing well, I grew them from seed in this raised bed.  I've watered only a couple times so far, since we've had some rains.  We have pak choi, two types of lettuce, spinach, kale, and chard.  The other half of this bed still needs planted.  I have several PVC pipes that are curved to use for a row cover over the winter.  Hopefully we can keep the plants actively growing through December and into January.  If nothing else we'll have some great looking plants when spring comes around.

This weekend was beautiful here in Tennessee.  I hope you had a chance to enjoy the outdoors!

Pak Choi and Other Fall Greens

A few weeks ago I planted our fall greens from seed in the vegetable garden.  I planted a mix of kale, chard, lettuce, spinach, pak choi, and Brussels sprouts.  The seedlings are all located in one of my long 10'x3' beds made from scrape lumber. They were orginally meant to be 10'x2' like in this raised bed layout but I altered the size a little. When the days begin to stay a little cooler, without the peaks of 80 degree weather, I'll install PVC pipe for a hoop house to keep my greens growing. Otherwise the greens need little care at the moment except for occasional watering during the dry spells.  Fortunately rain has been fairly frequent compared to normal this fall.  I sowed the seeds fairly thick but I'll harvest some of the younger greens to thin out the bed.

Earlier in the summer I planted a few pak choi (or bak choi) in another raised bed which are doing good.  There is also some self sown lettuce in the same bed that we'll cultivate and harvest as long as we can.  It's been my experience that lettuce sown in the fall will survive each year until spring even if it doesn't put on growth.  Once spring warms up the lettuce has a great head start.  I'll place a couple hoops over this smaller bed as well and cover to encourage growth for a longer period over the winter.

Are you growing fall or winter greens this year?

The Surprise Vegetable Garden

You've seen it before I'm sure.  A surprise plant or two coming up where you would least expect it.  A bird may have moved the seed around, or maybe it was caught can carried along on the wind. But have you ever had a whole garden just appear ready to go?  I have!  Now it's not the perfect fall garden.  It doesn't have everything I would have chosen to plant but it does have several different edibles that we can definitely make use of.  So what is planted in my surprise vegetable garden?  Lettuce, arugula, and cilantro! 

Arugula, lettuce, and cilantro self-sown in the lawn.

The next thing you are probably wondering is how did this surprise crop appear?  A planting by aliens perhaps? Or bigfoot? Maybe Elvis?  Nope as much as I hate to disappoint those who wish to keep Elvis alive, I planted this vegetable patch without even realizing it.  In the spring I gathered the refuse from the garden and piled it up in the center of the yard before I took it all to the back for composting.  I always let my cilantro go to seed for a returning crop the following year so its presence isn't too shocking but apparently the arugula and lettuce also made it to the seed stage.  When I dropped the load in the center of the yard the seed went everywhere.  I have no issues about eating the food from the lawn since our yard is free of chemical pesticides and herbicides.  What is neat about this situation is that the deer so far have left this patch alone.  Apparently deer aren't fans of cilantro, it's good thing I am! 

Join the 2011 Fall Color Project and share the brilliance of Autumn!

Fall Seedlings

The fall vegetable garden is coming along! It never fails to fill me with excitement when those freshly planted seeds grow into seedlings. Especially when the seedlings were planted naturally through self-sowing as is the case with my cilantro. Cilantro is one of those expensive to buy but easy to grow plants.  It likes it when the weather is cooler and always germinates easily in the fall.  The trick to getting it to self-sow is to give it room to grow then let it go to seed! (Pretty easy right?)  Cilantro gets big when in bloom so it needs the space and so might the gardener!

The other little seedling to sprout this week was the 'Baby green Fortune' pak choi. It was very tasty and very heat tolerant back in the spring, now it's time to have some in the fall.  A couple plants lasted into late June.  The pak choi seedlings germinated in less than 5 days in a pot on my back porch. If you don't want a big fall garden consider planting in pots near the door to the house. The residual heat from the house will help the vegetables and it's pretty convenient too when the temperatures are colder than you would like them to be!

I have to clean up the vegetable garden more before I plant other fall crops but so far here's what is in the fall vegetable garden: Lettuce (a red Romaine called 'Rouge D'Hiver' and 'Tom Thumb'), Spinach 'Teton Hybrid', and Radishes 'German Giant'.

What seeds have you planted for your fall vegetable garden?

Growing The Fall Vegetable Garden Part 1

I finally started my fall vegetable garden. I planted it in one of my 4'x3' raised beds by planting lettuce, radishes, onions, broccoli and more summer squash. I know summer squash isn't a fall vegetable crop but I'm hoping to get one more batch of yellow crookneck squash before the first frost. This raised bed is the first of  4 raised beds that I will convert from summer vegetables to fall vegetables in the coming days.

One of the biggest advantages to fall gardening is the lack of insects to bother the plants or the gardener. Most insects will have completed their life-cycle with the fall vegetables are picking up speed which is great for those plants!

I did a little preparation before planting that should help the fall vegetables along. I leveled the bed and removed any weeds then I did something different as an experiment. I moved the dirt from one side to the other and layered newspaper then moved the dirt back over it. Then I repeated the process with the other side. My thought was that the newspapers would act as a water retention device and keep the water closer to the plants longer. The newspapers will break down eventually and add to the organic matter already in the bed. Then I leveled the bed again and tamped down the surface with my garden rake.

Before planting seeds I made sure that the vegetable bed was well moistened with cool water. Most spring and fall vegetable seeds prefer cooler temperatures for germination and watering with cool water may help to offset some of the summer heat we are still experiencing. Fortunately the nights have been much cooler which should help the seeds. To prevent the rodents from getting into the bed I'll be putting up a small plastic mesh around each bed. I'll wait on the mesh until some of the seeds have germinated.

My next raised bed will have spinach, a second round of lettuce and radishes. I may sneak some beets in there too since I love beets! By sequencing the lettuce I can spread out the harvest. The spinach is very cold tolerant and should last much of the winter.

Have you started your fall vegetable garden yet?

5 Fall Vegetables for Your Garden

Fall is creeping closer and closer each day which brings to mind cool evening breezes, pumpkins, festivals, the Fall Color Project (more on that later), and of course the fall vegetable growing season.  Most gardeners seem to garden almost exclusively in the spring or summer and don't even consider the fall.  It's probably since starting plants this time of year can be tricky.  Fall plants in Tennessee need to be planted early enough to have a couple harvests before the frosts come and often the temperatures are not conducive for easy germination of seeds. 

Spinach

Once started fall vegetables will do fine through the early frosts and will continue to grow (albeit a little slower) until the cold sets in for good when they go dormant.  Once spring comes back around the fall vegetables can spring back too and provide you with a delicious early harvest!

5 Fall Vegetables For Your Garden

1. Spinach - Spinach is a delicious alternative to lettuce (which can also grown in the fall vegetable garden).  It's much more nutritious than lettuce which makes it a great substitute in salads or on sandwiches.  Spinach in Tennessee will survive easily without cover into spring.  If you want to keep it growing you will need some sort of cover like a row cover or cloche to keep the frosts off and hold in the warm temperatures.
2. Brussels Sprouts - Lately my family has had a fascination with Brussels sprouts.  At least my wife, son, and I have.  My two daughters haven't quite warmed up to them yet.  When sauteed in grape seed oil they taste like popcorn! Brussels sprouts have more flavor when grown in the fall due to the cool temperatures which aid in generation of its natural sugars. Brussels spouts are extremely close relatives of broccoli and have many of the same health benefits.  Broccoli isn't on this list but also makes a great fall grown vegetable!
3. Kale - Kale is another vegetables that has seen a revival of sorts over the last couple years.  It's highly nutritious and boasts high levels of calcium which is more easily absorbed into the body than calcium from milk and dairy products.  Kale is frequently mixed together with fruits in smoothies.  It adds the nutritional benefits while the fruits add the flavor!
4. Chard - Chard is one of the most ornamental vegetables you will run across.  It's stems can be all sorts of colors from yellow to orange to red.  It's easy to grow and is full of vitamins C, K, and A among various other nutrients.  It's so pretty you may have trouble eating it!
5. Beets and radishes!  I'm sneaking two vegetables into this section but radishes are so easy to grow that they had to be included. 
   
   My only issue with radishes is finding interesting ways to eat them.  Sliced in a salad is good, but what else can you do with a radish?  Any ideas? Beets are great pickled and can be eaten as greens as well as a root crop.

 
If you want to start a fall garden from seed you still have time but if time gets away from you you can still plant transplants!  Do you grow a vegetable garden in the fall? What do you plan on growing in your fall vegetable garden?

More Friday Fives Posts

 

A couple years ago I put together a fall vegetable garden design if you need some ideas on how to arrange your fall vegetable garden.

Starting The Fall Garden From Seed

It's time to start thinking fall garden if you haven't already!  It may seem too hot, too dry or too much like August where you are but over the next few weeks we need to get our seeds started and growing.

When to Start Seeds for a Fall Vegetable Garden?

The tricky thinking about starting a vegetable garden in the fall is getting the plants started from seed.  Anyone can buy transplants and get them growing at the right time but it takes a little extra effort to get them started from seed.  That being said I believe that this is something anyone can do too!  You need to know two dates:  your first frost date and the time to maturity.  When you get your seed packet look up the time to maturity or time to harvest on the packet.  Then add a few weeks to the time to allow yourself some harvest time.  Subtract the time from the first frost date and you will come up with the date you need to start your seeds.  If you're off by a week or two don't worry about it.  Usually the first frost doesn't slow down fall plants like spinach, lettuce, kale, chard, bak choi, and many others very much.  These vegetables tend to be fairly frost tolerant and will continue growing through several frosts.  Once your vegetables go dormant they can make it through our mild winters easily then begin actively growing again in the spring!

How to Start Seeds for a Fall Vegetable Garden

One challenge to starting fall vegetables is to simply getting the seeds started.  Most fall vegetables enjoy temperatures in the 60's and 70's for ideal germination which is very tricky if you live in Tennessee during August! You have a couple options though to get your seeds going.  First consider starting them indoors then hardening them off as they grow their first sets of true leaves.  A second method is to shade the seeds on a covered porch or outdoors with some shade cloth.  The important thing is to keep the soil cool and moist.  If you can keep the soil cool and moist then you should have no problem growing your fall vegetables from seed!

A Seed Starting Tip:
Sow your seeds appropriately!  Very small seeds need light to germinate so do not cover them with soil.  Just sprinkle them over the soil surface and keep the soil moist.  If you follow the directions on the package you should be just fine! Follow this link if you would like to take a peek at a simple layout for a fall vegetable garden.

My Vegetable Garden Video Update!

Since I bought my new toy (a Sony Handycam HDR-CX130) I've been playing around with filming my garden in different areas. I have to admit - talking to a camera by oneself while wandering around your garden is a weird sensation. I'm convinced that my neighbors already think I'm crazy and I doubt video recording my garden is going to change that! My most recent video is a short tour of my vegetable garden. Enjoy!

My Vegetable Garden As of May 11, 2011

Raised Bed on a Deck Question

A reader sent me this question asking how I would build a raised bed on a deck.  It's a very interesting question. I've never built a raised bed on a deck before but if I were planning one here's what I would do. But first the question:

Dave,

I want to build a raised bed garden to put on my deck and I need ideas for the design of the bottom. Should it be a solid composite board bottom with small spaces between the boards for drainage? Should the bottom be raised by an 1" or more so I don't have a constant moisture problem with the floor boards of the deck?
would you line the bottom with fabric cloth and then a layer of gravel for drainage? What would prevent the roots from penetrating the bottom and creating an unsightly mess?
Would appreciate your thoughts.

Dale

Comment from Greenland Gardener Raised Beds

Putting a raised bed on a deck is a very cool idea. It puts your vegetables closer to where you want them - right outside your door which obviously will be very convenient. Convenient is an awesome word when applied to a garden since it usually makes for a better maintained garden. My first concern with building a raised bed on a deck would be the deck surface it it sits on. Wood rots (even pressure treated over time) and you want enough space between the bottom of the raised bed and the deck to allow for moisture to evaporate quickly to help reduce or eliminate any rot. I think 3-4 inches might be ideal. Also for convenience you may want to consider attaching caster wheels so that you can move the bed around. With wheels you can follow the sun or move to a new location to allow the deck to dry out underneath.

I like the idea of using the composite boards underneath the bed. Spacing the boards apart with a nail should be sufficient to allow good drainage. If your soil mix is good you shouldn't need the gravel for your bed. In my pots I've been using a 50% compost and 50% mix of peat and fine bark mulch which might work well in a raised bed. The compost will retain the water and provide nutrients while the bark mulch creates drainage. Place the weed control fabric underneath the soil at the base of the bed to prevent the soil from leaking out from the cracks between the base boards.

Another idea for the base is to create a solid interior that will catch water and send the excess to a hose that drains off your deck and maybe into another garden or bucket to save for later use. This would be a lot more work as it would require a drain spout and possibly piping on the interior to collect and direct water to the drain spout.

Build the raised bed as deep as you can so that the roots have plenty of room to grow. Also remember that a raised bed dries out much quicker than an in ground vegetable garden so water accordingly. Since it is elevated it will dry out even faster, just keep that in mind.

Thanks Dale for the question! It's a cool idea and I hope my response helps you out!

Dave                               

Gardeners what do you think? How would you try this project?

That Really Is Lettuce Among Those Weeds!

Yep, the title says it all. I really have lettuce growing among the weeds in one of my garden beds. I planted it in the fall and despite a few nights of subzero temperatures and several cumulative inches of snow over the course of winter it's still there! The lettuce is small, barely even 3 inches wide but it's there! It's the reddish purple leaves you see hiding among the chickweed and henbit.  I'll bet you want to know what lettuce can withstand that kind of cold and snow here in Tennessee?

I won't keep it a secret. It's an heirloom lettuce called Rouge D'Hiver that I bought from Baker Creek.  Rouge D'Hiver heirloom lettuce seems to be extremely cold tolerant. I suspect if I had gotten around to putting a cold frame over this bed I would have been munching on backyard garden lettuce all winter.  Once the warmer weather hits and the lettuce starts to grow I'll have some early harvests from the vegetable garden!