Fall Garden!

As my spring crops of various vegetables bit the dust of a hot summer, I would clean the bed and prepare it for a fall crop of a different vegetable. I let the prepared beds simply sit idle through the highest heat, but starting today, we seem to be in line for eight or ten days of moderate day time heat and much cooler nights. Normally the late August and early September days with fewer hours of sunlight slowly recede into a cool fall season and finally a first frost in mid to late November.

I had a couple of free hours this morning so I planted three kinds of lettuce, Chinese cabbage, collard greens, spinach, carrots; and a couple of other things. I planted beets a couple of weeks ago because they seem to germinate well in high heat. My spring tomatoes, cucumbers; and peppers are still growing well and will become more productive in the fall. I still have a lot of really large sweet onions preserved in the soil where they grew. I will harvest them when they start producing new green tops.

I haven't used any insecticide in my garden, but I usually have an invasion of stink bugs in the fall. They drill tiny holes in my green tomatoes, eggplants, peppers, and other crops causing me to lose a lot of fall veggies because they ripen quickly while still small after a stink bug attack. I'm thinking of spraying my plants to kill the resident stink bugs before any new fruit is set but I haven't decided what to use.

Most years, I clean my spring/summer beds and let them sit until it's time to plant in the fall. This year, I thought the seed should germinate quickly in the warmer soil and may grow faster plus I seem to have more energy this year than in past years.

Comments please!

Ted