PNW: Fall garden planning - do you know your first frost date?

So even though most of us in the PNW barely have a summer garden going, now is the time to start planning and planting your fall garden! For any newbies out there, three seasons out of each square is a bit of a stretch where I live in SW Washington. Most summer crops continue to grow and produce until the first frost in the fall kills them off, but fall crops also have to reach maturity before the first frost date.

Look at the chart on page 259 of the ANSFG book. Fall crops are planted two and three months before the first frost, which means in July and August for anticipated frosts in September and October. But July and August is when I should be able to harvest beans, peppers, tomatoes and cucumbers from my summer plantings done in May. I'm not going to pull those plants that haven't even produced yet in order to plant fall crops. That means if I want to plant fall crops I need to have squares available that aren't currently being used for summer crops.

For me, those squares are coming available from my spring plantings. But maybe you are just now getting started and have a whole garden available for fall planting, like I did with my late start to SFG last year. Maybe you have some summer crops that failed and it's too late to re-start them so those squares are empty. Maybe you left some squares fallow in anticipation of fall. Some summer crops will finish in time for some fall crops. Bush beans and tomatoes will give you one good crop and can be pulled to make room for a quick maturing fall crop like radishes or baby leaf lettuces.

The number one thing you need in order to figure this all out is your first fall frost date. Find it for your zip code here:

Then it's a matter of using the charts Mel provides and a calendar to count backwards. Let's use this thread to post about our fall garden preparations. Questions welcome!

I agree with gwennifer's assessment of our growing conditions in the PNW. What just naturally evolved for me is having two physically separate gardens, one is for cool crops where I plant spring and fall; one is for summer. We just don't get enough GDDs fast enough; warm season crops take longer to grow here than in other parts of the country.

Last year I watched some forum members sabotage themselves on their fall planting. They kept saying 'it's too hot to plant; I'm going to wait until it cools down a little'. Well, they waited too long and ran out of time. The critical component of fall planting is your frost date when growth slows way down for all plants, and many warm season plants shrivel without protection. You have to begin planting to accommodate your frost date, not the current temps. Just like in early spring we germinate inside because it's too cold, sometimes for fall planting we have to germinate inside because it's too hot. Except, of course, in the PNW!

Unless we have an unusually hot summer, we don't get hot enough for the need to germinate inside. Unless, you want to, of course. If you're short on space, germinating inside might give some of your warm crops a chance to finish up. When we've had decent weather, I've direct seeded everything with success. When the weather is crummy, not always.

Remember that dates for when to plant are based on averages; just like the 'time to harvest' on the back of seed packages. Selecting the best time to plant in the fall is as much about luck as knowledge. This is where getting feedback from other local gardeners comes in helpful. I hope everyone in the PNW chimes in if you have some experiences to share.

Last year I planted broccoli the last week of July, and got huge heads. I planted kohlrabi at the same time, and they failed to bulb. I'm planting broccoli this year at the same time, and will be planting kohlrabi in the middle of July.

thank you GWEN for starting our fall thread.. .you are doing such a great job as our host!!

thank you Boffer.. ..so glad for all the info you provide!!

this is our first year of a fall garden and like Boffer we have differnt growing areas for are cool weather crops.... (in our back to eden-SQ-raised beds).....like broc's, caulis, cabbage, kohlrabi, spring onions and carrots.....almost done harvesting from these 2 beds and will grow most of our fall crops in them ....they also have hoops...

then we have 2 beds that held our potatoes (which we are now putting in more beans, carrots and onions

one other bed that spring plantings are still going.....we also planting some beans as we pull up spring plantings.....

in our SFG area....we still have a lot of spring plantings going.....this area has a lot of salad type plants along with our sugar snap peas, fava beans, garlic and onion..... there is also 2 wine barrels with MM in this area .....that our children are growing the three sisters (corn, pumpkin and beans)....the children also have each a self water container with MM that has tomato, onions, carrots and cucumber growing....

we also have a lot of pots/containers that is holding tomato, squash, peppers, carrots, herbs and a few other things......

one of our 4x4 SFG also has our scarlett runner beans growing.....

our plan....for our fall garden.....which can change at any min is to plant in our 2 4x8 beds with the hoops for sure.....and try to have enough starts to plant in other area's as space opens up......along with direct seeding too......

now we would like to know what everyone plants for a fall garden and does anyone over winter garden as well?

hugs

rose......

FamilyGardening wrote:...does anyone over winter garden as well?

I over winter garlic and onions; I've planted them in early Oct and late Nov, and haven't noticed any difference between the planting dates.

I let the kohlrabi, that I mentioned above, over winter, but they did not bulb this spring either.

The potatoes that I missed harvesting last year were the first up and best looking. This year I'll be intentionally planting potatoes to over winter and covering with plastic.

I always quit planting carrots by mid-May because they don't seem to fully develop after that. The carrots that I planted in Mar and Apr will keep all winter where grown without getting woody.

Sunchokes I leave where planted and harvest all winter.

This year, for the first time, I'll be trying various greens in a hoop house to see what I can do.

boffer wrote:
...You have to begin planting to accommodate your frost date, not the current temps.

Thank you for emphasizing this point. Having never gardened before, last year I equated fall gardens with fall weather. It blew me away that I was supposed to be starting cool season crops during the hottest part of the summer. But it worked, which is why I'm still here of course.

FamilyGardening, you sure have a lot going on! My fall garden is going to look just like my spring garden. More peas, broccoli and lettuces. I also want to overwinter garlic and onion - I did them both in the spring this year and am still waiting on them. When you do that with onions boffer, you start them from sets?

I'm curious to hear how people use the first fall frost dates. Do you go with the first possible chance, 50% chance, etc.?

I'm wanting to plant some Oregon Giant snow peas - they are Ed Hume seeds out of Puyallup. On the package it says to sow for fall in late July. I have two questions:

- My trellis space is all used up right now - with sugar snap peas just starting to produce, a watermelon, zucchini, tomato, (next box:) pepper, cucumber, tomato, pole beans. With the exception of the sugar snaps, everything else is just too small for the trellis or just now starting to climb. Can I plant seeds in with any of these things? Or in an adjacent box and stretch them over when the time comes? :scratch:

Second - I think my first frost date is Oct 5. I live in the country out of Centralia, about 700' elevation. Does planting in "late July" sound right? It says 60-75 days to maturity - maybe I should plant in mid-July?

But where!!!

Loving the sun!!

---- Hey! just had an idea.... My boxes are two feet from an 8 foot fence (BAD deer problem here) - could I run a couple of pieces of twine from the edge of one of the boxes without a trellis over to the fence?

Or in an adjacent box and stretch them over when the time comes?


I meant to say adjacent square....

Hey there Warbler, did you go to the website I posted at the top of this thread to find your first fall frost date? You can put in your zip code and it will give you a whole chart of frost times, and how likely they are to occur on such and such a day.

Anyway, working on an October 5th frost date... the charts in the book say ten weeks for peas, which would give you a late July planting. But why not go ahead and stagger plant? Plant half mid July and half late July.

I wouldn't bother planting peas in with any of those other things you listed. If you have empty squares elsewhere and have a way to get them to climb over to the fence, that's what I would do instead. But that's just me! Maybe someone else will chime in.

Warbler, I agree with Gwennifer, I would stagger some plantings. Your frost date is earlier than mine and I would not take a chance with a 700 foot elevation due to a possible early frost. While peas are frost hardy you want to make sure that you can eat them before the bad weather hits. As far as trellis goes, use anything you can. Yes, twine will work!

i think we are 15 wks until our first frost date for our family gardens..... ....does that sound about right?

oct 18th is the on average frost date for my zip code

hugs
rose....who has been cleaning out beds all day to make room for fall planting ( well to be honest the kids and hubby have been doing most of the work....hee hee...im just over seeing it all) :drunken:

oops .....i do have a fall planting question....some of our onions that we pulled today are on the small side.....broc's and cauli's over grew them)

can we cut off the top of them and replant them for a fall harvest?....some came from a bulb (white) some came in a bundle (walla walla)



also found some of my garlic was gone....no green stock ....but under the ground were tiny bunch's of cloves ....can i replant them too in the fall?

I'm thinking it's time to pull my spring peas. They are still producing, which makes it hard. But there aren't as many coming on as often, and there are more odd shaped ones showing up. Plus some of the plants are beginning to become discolored. Time to make room for a fresh fall crop.

My spring broccoli was a bust. Harvested one two inch head out of six plants. A couple of others had small heads coming on, but began turning yellow and yucky before the buds ever filled out. Time to pull all of those and try again for fall too. The cabbage moths are really making a showing now, so I need to get the tulle for a covering too. That will be less work than spraying weekly.

Rose, I know when I read up on planting onion sets, that you are supposed to go through your bag and plant the bulbs that are smaller than a dime. So if any of yours were that small, I think you should try it! Don't know about the ones that are planted as slips. Garlic is the opposite - where you want to plant the biggest cloves. Maybe Nonna.PapaVino will chime in here?

How's the fall garden planning going for everyone? I planted broccoli seeds out in my garden the night before last. Should have done it earlier - it's mostly an experiment. According to the book if I were going to start from seed I should have done so inside much earlier in the year. But there are no transplants available at the nursery just yet either. So I figured, seeds are cheap. I'll pop some in the garden now and see how they do. If they bolt, or if they don't grow large enough to compare to the nursery seedlings by the time they get theirs in, I'll simply by some and replace mine.

I did Chard and Parsnips yesterday. As a rule I should have waiting until mid August for the parsnips like I would for other root vegetables but we shall see!

july15th we started brocs, cauli, cabbage, bok choi, collard greens and brossel sprouts in cups out side.....they came up within a couple of days and over the weekend i thin them out and up potted a few of them....

we decided to start seedlings in cups again to transplant when they are bigger to give them a better chance against the slugs...

last week we put in our onions that were small to see if we can get them to bulb bigger....

we harvested our garlic last night :drunken: ......it did pretty good.....i think we may use some of cloves to replant in the falll.....

the spinach that we planted a few weeks ago in a pot and set it under our plum tree for shade is doing great!!.....we planted the olympia hybrid......the seeds are a couple of years old.....yet they pretty much all came up and we have harvested from them twice now......we sowed some more seeds in a pot under the tree week ago and its up growing great!

we are going to pull our peas this week...they really did well and we harvested a ton from them again this year......we were able to fill 2 gal size freezer bag to have over the winter....im hoping to sow some more for a fall harvest......i need to find a bush type though with a shorter growing time unlike our other peas who grew over our 8 ft trellis we are going to have a lot of empty squares.....havent decided what to plant in all of them......

we also have been saving seeds this year....our bok choi that we allowed to go to flower after it gave us more then we could eat ....went to seed and we have a life time supply of seeds now.....i tested out the seeds to make sure they would sprout and sure enough they all came up!

we also are rooting some tomato suckers to move into the green house when our summer is over to see if we can get a few more toms in the fall.....

hugs
rose who really should be out side pulling those peas

how is falling planting going??

the fall seedlings are now in our raised beds.....

brocs, cauli and bok choi.....



we are still waiting for our spring planting of brossel sprouts to make some sprouts ...they were left in our box that has our cabbage and collard greens seedlings along with some swiss chard and purple kohlrabi....



today i planted some lettuce and spinach to make good use of extra space left between the plantings of cabbage...we figure by the time the cabbage is big enough we should be done with the spinach and lettuce....

our fall sugar snap and shelling peas are coming up i see green

we still have 4 empty squares in our SFG area.....

along with a few seedlings that didnt fit into our raised beds....



we are trying to figure out who goes where.....

hugs
rose

My broccoli squares seeded two weeks ago all have true leaves by now - will still pull some and replace with nursery stock if they ever get any and they are further along.

Today I planted spinach, arugula, more radishes (stagger planting them every two weeks around the broccoli's), Simpson Elite lettuce and Red Sails lettuce. Planted those two leaf lettuces 9 per square this time around and will be sure to start plucking at them sooner - that seemed to spur my spring ones into action this year.

checking in to see how everyones planting for fall is going

our spinach, lettuce and fall peas are up

in our hoops we lost a couple of broc & cauli seedlings to what we think is slugs....but not sure after finding a black and red beetle type bug....we didnt get a pic of it....but im wondering if its the one that is eating the seedlings....never seen a bug like it before

we made good use out of an old dog kennel..... extra fall brossel sprouts, cabbage and one cauliflower seedlings....we just couldnt stand the thought of throwing them out....



hugs
rose

Ooohhhh...that looks nice, Rose. It gives me a close up of how to use the netting I bought.

What a great use of the dog kennel! I love innovative stuff like that.

CC

Well I got lazy with the BT and the cabbage worms have about finished off my broccoli. Also discovered they will eat radish greens as well now that I have radishes planted among the broccoli's. Oh, I think everything will recover and the ones I spotted at the nursery were just as puny as mine, so we'll see how they do.

I did harvest a few French Breakfast radishes and they taste exactly like any other radish I've ever eaten. Member daniel9999 I think said radishes grown in hotter weather are spicier? We have had some very warm days. But I like spicy radishes, so all's good there.

As far as all the greens, looks like a salad is still a long way out for me. I'm hoping for a growth spurt.

CapeCoddess wrote:Ooohhhh...that looks nice, Rose. It gives me a close up of how to use the netting I bought.

What a great use of the dog kennel! I love innovative stuff like that.

CC

CC....just wanted to let you know that the wood in the pic above is only temporary.....its not tall enough for the brossel sprouts once they start growing larger....we are going to us pcv pipes and then drape the telle over it.....let me know if you want better pics....i can take some of the dog kennel and our other hoops the telle really has done a great job keeping out the cabbage moths....now slugs is another story

hugs
rose

Photos are always appreciated, Rose!

Btw, I use pine needles for slugs...and I have a back up of DE if need be for next spring.

CC

Know what I woke up to this morning when I opened the blinds and looked out on the world? The windows on all the cars out on the street were fogged over!

A couple of ninety degree days had me fooled into forgetting about overnight lows! I have four Brandywine tomatoes I've been waiting all summer for that I don't want to lose to frost.

I better start making it a habit to check this website for potential frost warnings: www.intellicast.com

My little SFG is so healthy that I'm paranoid about protecting it!

So, I make it a habit to check two or three weather websites every afternoon, and if the forecast is for temps to drop below about 38 degrees, I cover the bed. Better safe than sorry! After all, I have a baby zucchini to protect, and a male blossom appeared this morning.

checking in to see how everyones fall gardens are growing

we are still fighting aphids on our cole crops for fall and on our summer corn.....the aphids dont seem to be hurting the corn.....only the cole crops the aphids are effecting...they are group together in curled leaves.....we did find ants with them or in the same area....so the ants must be hearding aphids in the the back garden.... .....we also are finding a lot of baby lady bugs too in the same area as well.....

the square foot garden area so far is not showing any signs of aphids....

so far the broc, cauli, cabbage and collards are growing really well....we are surprised on how big they are getting....the bok choi and lettuce is ready for first harvest.....the spinach is not to far behind.....sugar snap peas are about a foot up on the trellis and we are seeing lots of flowers ...carrots are coming in well too.....we have been starting more onions and leeks to try and over winter.....they are just now starting to sprout

hugs
rose

fall crops are coming along

in SFG box 2 we have sugar snap peas & carrots!



in the back garden we harvested a bunch of fall lettuce the cole crops are doing great too!



in the re-used dog kennel we have cabbage, brossel sprouts and cauliflower...still fighting aphids, slugs and cabbage worms.... but they are hanging in there....



how is everyones fall gardens going?

hugs
rose