Fall Garden ALREADY??

[shelleybean]

I know way too much about my neighbors across the street because they like to fight with each other out in their yard where we can all see and hear it...whether we want to or not. But they do have their own garden!

[FlipTX]

Glad to hear your beets and carrots are making up for lost time after that rain storm, Feldon. I'm also envious of your increased sunlight! I need to get a branch of my ash tree trimmed but my "garden fund" keeps getting used up for car repairs, dagnabbit.

Anyway, I have some Red Russian kale that I've been harvesting from. This sucker is the kale that will not die. A product of a careless mesclun seeding, it lived for an entire year under the shade of a large parsley plant. For that whole year it was no more than four inches high, as if it were in suspended animation. It neither grew nor faltered. It just existed.

Then the parsley started to die off about four months ago and the kale began growing. Snails quickly decimated it so I cut it off almost at ground level. Before I knew it, the bare stem started putting out new shoots and now the whole plant is enormous and full of gorgeous leaves. I've been picking from it for a couple of weeks.

[shelleybean]

Most things are looking pretty good out there. Still no frost here right by the Chesapeake Bay. I like to have a little frost on some of these things before I eat them to improve the flavor but sometimes I can't wait that long. I've already pulled White Egg turnips and they've been good, along with the greens. Oxheart and Paris Market carrots have been excellent. They're almost gone though. Broccoli is about done. I cut my first Chieftain Savoy cabbage of the season and cooked it last night. Yum! My first planting of collards is pretty much smothered by the broccoli and cabbage plants. My second planting is still pretty small. All the garlic and shallots are up and look good, too.

Now that the seed catalogs are rolling in, I'm really looking forward to the 2008 garden and planning that out. I guess we'll be ready to start a thread on spring planting pretty soon!

[FlipTX]

I need to take a picture of that kale I mentioned above. Even with frequent harvests, it's a monster.

And my beets seem to be doing OK! They're growing slowly from lack of sun, and most of them were dug up by squirrels, but those that remain look to be doing well. This is quite an accomplishment for me, because I've tried to grow beets half a dozen times or more and never got much past the first true leaves.

[shelleybean]

FlipTX, I have not had much luck with fall beets here either. I decided to try them in the spring and see if it goes any better. Please tell me again what variety you're growing this time.

I wish I'd made room for some of that Black Tuscan kale earlier but got busy with that camping trip and never planted it. From what I understand, the plants are pretty large and a family of four only needs two or three plants. I'm trying to imagine that. I've grown the Dwarf Siberian kale before and it's much smaller.

[Ruth_10]

I bought seeds for the Black Tuscan kale a couple of years ago but haven't planted it yet. I've grown Winterbor and Red Russian and also Dwarf Blue Curled Vates. The Dwarf Blue Curled Vates is very tasty raw and is very, very winter hardy. I love beets but have yet to plant any since we moved here in 2003. I have never found them a snap to grow--lots of things can and do go wrong with beets, in my experience.

I'm still harvesting carrots, kohlrabi, and broccoli. I will harvest my first cabbage in a day or two, once the snow goes away. I hope to have some Brussel Sprouts, but last I checked (a good long week ago) they were still pretty small.

I am amazed that the broccoli survived some low 20s nights. In the past, when I've gotten them going earlier (lost seedlings twice this fall due to flying and four-footed pests) and the heads matured in October, they were done in by temps in the mid twenties (the heads turned kinda mushy, but the plants survived). These late maturing plants seem to have adapted somewhat to the colder temps. It is truly a treat to have fresh broccoli from your own garden in mid-December!

[Ruth_10]

I am a tad concerned about my brassicas. It got down to 11 F last night. There is some snow cover, but not much, so I don't think I can count on the snow having insulated the cabbages and Brussel Sprouts.

[shelleybean]

That happened to me last year, Ruth. When I cut open my last few heads of cabbage, I could see they had damage from frost and I was not able to use them. We had no snow at all last winter, other than flurries, so no help there.

[FlipTX]

Oh, no, Ruth! I hope your brassicas are ok.

Here's a pic of The Kale That Wouldn't Die:

[Ruth_10]

The temps were in the mid-forties today and will be even higher tomorrow, so the snow is disappearing. I plan to go out tomorrow and see what shape things are in. I'm going to be ticked off at myself if they're "toast" because I got greedy and wanted to leave them out longer to get bigger.

[feldon30]

I posted the positive results of my carrots in the carrots thread.

[shelleybean]

It's that time again! Seems weird because it's almost 100 degrees here today. Most of my summer veggies can stay in the garden until frost so I won't have much room for fall stuff this year. But I have on hand or have ordered the following:

Paris Market carrots (we have grown these the last two years, very sweet)

Green Glaze collards-love these and was happy to see SESE had seed for this variety once again this year.

Black Tuscan kale-I'll finally get around to trying this one. I want some kale, white bean and tomato soup this winter!

Yellow Potato onions-going to compare these to shallots, seem very similar.

Creole Red garlic-sounds fun. I'll be a while before I plant this. I just finished curing this years garlic and shallots.

Anybody else got anything in the works yet?

[rnewste]

Michele,

Brought back some Maui Onion seeds from (where else?) Maui, and I'm going to give them a try for the Fall.

Ray

[shelleybean]

Yum! Sounds good. I haven't been to Maui since 1985. I'd love to go back. 8)

[Ruth_10]

My fall garden will go in the space where the peas were this spring.

I have started in the basement, under lights: broccoli, savoy cabbage, and Brussel Sprouts. I have tried direct seeding these in the past, but the results have been poor. The cabbage is a single variety, but the broccoli and Brussel Sprouts include maybe four varieties each, that way the harvest is spread out somewhat.

I will direct seed the carrots, definitely Mokum and Nelson and probably Napoli as well. I got some beet seed (Red Ace) this spring and will try not to forget it. Kohlrabi is another possibility--I should probably get it going pretty soon. I still have a few spring planted kohrabis in the fridge.

And thank, Michele, for the reminder to put in the kale as well. I will probably put in Toscano and Dwarf Blue Curled Vates.

Getting the timing down for the fall garden is still a work in progress for me. It's worth the learning curve, though, to have fresh vegetables from the garden in the fall and winter.