Fall Garden Know-how

Start Transplants in the Garden

Three or four weeks before the planting dates for cabbage, broccoli, head lettuce, and cauliflower, I sprinkle their seeds in short wide rows out in the garden. It’s an easy (and cheap) way to grow a lot of transplants in a very small space.

For my fall garden, I choose the best-looking plants, dig them out of the short wide rows, and put them in another row with more room around them.

Seed wide rows as in spring

There’s no adjustment to make in fall planting of seeds. Use the same broadcasting and thinning techniques I described earlier for wide rows. Include some radishes with your greens and root crops.

Try warm-season Crops

Most people think only cool-weather vegetables will grow in the fall garden. Wrong. Even in Vermont, I harvest new crops of snap beans and Pixie tomatoes from the fall garden. Gardeners in more southern parts of the country look forward to growing their tomatoes, beans, and peppers in fall weather. Their summers are too hot, causing many blossoms to drop off these plants.

For the latest snap beans, use a “grow tunnel “

Where I live, nobody picks fresh snap beans in October—except at my place. Beans are so sensitive that I have to be good at protecting them from the cold. Once they start to blossom, I build a large heat tunnel over the row. It’s important to keep some air space between the plants and the plastic; when the leaves press against the plastic, the cold is conducted through. The beans are slower to develop than in summer, of course, but they are still beautifully crisp and tender.

Grow Pixies from suckers

Late in the year tomatoes from a young Pixie plant taste a whole lot better than those from a tired ol’ Better Boy that’s been producing all summer.

To start plants, I cut 5- or 6-inch suckers from established Pixie plants in mid-summer and set them in water for an hour. Then I strip off the lower leaves and stick the suckers a foot apart in a row. I water the heck out of them for 3 or 4 days. They root quickly and by early fall many new clusters of “tomatoes will be ripening. To make them last as long as possible, I cover them with light cloth when frost is possible, or I erect a tall plastic tunnel over them after planting and keep it there gathering heat as long as the plants are producing.

Kale is the hardiest and perhaps the most nutritious fall garden crop

I like to plant a lot of kale. To harvest, I break off the outside leaves (the small ones are the most tender) and leave the center bud alone. The plants will grow taller and send out new leaves. Kale is noted for its high vitamin C and A content.

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