Plant A Fall Garden

Source(s): Robert R Westerfield, College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, Extension Horticulturist

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So you didn’t get your vegetable garden planted this spring because you were busy or the ground was too wet? And you still want some fresh, tasty vegetables. Well, it’s not too late to plant a fall garden.

In most cases, choose early-maturing vegetables. Lettuce, radishes, spinach, turnips and peas can be started from seed. Lettuce and radish can be seeded about every two weeks. Broccoli, cauliflower and collard plants can be planted toward the middle of August all the way through mid-September.

For hardy crops like cabbage, cauliflower and collards, count back from your average first frost date (if you know) the number of days the vegetable takes to mature, and plant at that time. If you don’t know either of those, then call your local County Extension Agent and find out.

For half-hardy plants like beets and carrots, allow an additional week. And for tender crops like beans and sweet corn, allow an extra two weeks. Hopefully, this will keep an early frost from killing your vegetables before they mature.

The garden pests will be out there in full force, so be extra diligent in watching for them.

You can grow an abundant crop of fall tomatoes, but where can you buy young tomato plants in the middle of the summer?

The easiest way to solve that problem is to cut small suckers from spring-planted tomatoes and let them grow to full-size plants.

You may have pinched out suckers at the first of the season, but some have grown back in the axil of the stems. They should be 4 to 6 inches long and have a growing point with several leaves. Sometime this month, cut the suckers from the plant, remove the lower leaves up to the bud and place them in a jar of water for an hour or two.

Then plant them in pots for later transplanting or plant them directly into the garden. Keep them watered heavily for a few days until they’ve taken root.

If you don’t want to do that, then simply lop off the top foot or so of a healthy plant and set it in water for a few days, then plant it directly into the garden. Just don’t forget about. It will need to be watered and mulched well until roots form.

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Resource(s): Vegetable Gardening in Georgia

Center Publication Number: 98