Getting ready for fall

Darci
Great news. On page 71 in the ANSFG book covers the building of your protective cover.
Yes you can use the painters plastic. Check and see how thick it is.
There are many gardener supply companies/websites you can find on the internet. You can check some local nurseries who could sell the products.
I found www.Greenhousemegastore.com was a good place to get supplies.
Hint: you can put bricks, lumber on the base. (see photo on page 74) You can use "hair clips" the size of the PVC plastic pipe to secure the plastic to the PVC pipe (from the wind)
Even if you get two months additional garden time, it is still better then NONE.
Some of the cold weather crops will not germinate in hot weather(under plastic). See page 252-254 on crop germination. Remember that the plastic cover will not be needed until frost time or later. The plastic will heat up the cold weather crops and take them down. You MUST keep your soil moist or it will suck the moisture out of the newly planted crops. Don't forget to open the plastic when the sun shines. Put a termometer in your covered plastic box and see how hot it gets before planting. This will give you a good indication of the climate in your growing space.
Mike

My Square Foot Gardening book is on my kindle so it takes a bit more to search. Page numbers let me know the information is there though! I may just have to get a "paper" copy some day so it's easier to flip through.

I won't put anything over the dome, and actually haven't even planted the box yet, but wanted to get things figured out well in advance of that first frost. I'll take your words to heart about watering and letting it vent during the day. I need to buy a temp gauge so I can watch how hot it gets. I'm still considering creating a second one for another square, but we'll see. The dome was pretty simple to put in. I may tie the center to a brick or other type of anchor to make sure the wind doesn't cause me trouble, but anchoring the plastic along the side should work too. I'm excited to find out!

6 mil plastic is available at the big box stores. It says clear, but is really a milky look. This over the hoops will create your basic hoop house, but some plant blankets (agribon or remay) laid directly over the plants inside will add another layer of protection on colder nights. Even old towels or blankets. Just be sure you take them off during the day so you can get whatever sun is available. The plants will stop growing when daylight hits the 10 hr or less mark.

Kay

https://squarefoot.forumotion.com/t4622-winterizing-experiment
https://squarefoot.forumotion.com/t4686-winterizing-update

I have most of my fall veggies planted. Carrots, spinach, turnips and lettuce early in August. Now I'm planting radishes. I have two cold frames and one raised bed I'm using. I've saved space for planting lettuce in late September. It goes dormat, but does fantastic in the spring in March. So far everything is up except spinach, the little rascals.

floyd1440 wrote:@CC

Now I am pretty sure that spinach does not germinate in warm soil. I know goes against the grain, but I checked the seed packed and they do best in cooler soil.

If I have room it won't be till September at least. Could be way off here but seems better suited for spring growing.........

Check out page 60 of the ANSFG book
Mel give us a nice set of of days for germinations wrt temperatures
Spinach will germinate from 32 o F in 63 days to 6 days in temps of 86 o F


If you put in to a search engine something like " percentage seed germination + temeratures " ,you should be able to find more specific info ..

I have a set of printed off lists but it is out in the office & I'm too lazy to go out in the rain to get it

My spinach is finally sprouting outside! I've been planting a few seeds every couple weeks all summer and it looks like they want 70's and no higher in my area. The inside ones haven't sprouted yet, but the inside kale & leaf lettuces have.

Also coming up outside now is the romaine, leaf lettuce, pak choi, kale, scallions, turnips, kohlrabi & more beets/ carrots/ radishes. I just planted more chives, snow peas and sugar peas for fall, but we've been eating previous snow peas for a couple of weeks now.

I cut off all the bug eaten leaves of my collard greens and there are itsy bitsy new leaves coming out. You can bet they are now covered with tulle!

Spring & summer kale, chives, tomatoes, cucs, green beans, chard, jalapenos and peppers are still going.

Speaking of peppers, my sweet peppers have taken off!!! It wasn't that long ago that I was cursing them and thinking I should give up on them. I can't believe how big they got over the past week and how many baby peppers there are. Amazing!

Some powdery mildew hit the tomatoes yesterday so I sprayed with baking soda solution and it didn't spread today. *crossing fingers*

OH...is this a cantaloupe? If so, I have 2 of them and have cut off most of the leaves and other vines in hopes of getting these babies to finish off before it's too cold. But shouldn't they be green and not yellow?


Check out how green that grass is, too. It's been a while since we've seen THAT!

CC

My hubby and I spent much of the weekend putting leaves through the shredder. we now have a pretty large fence-bin half full, and we'll have many more leaves coming down. That will be a big help in keeping my compost "browns" up!

Today I cut the clear plastic to put over my PVC dome in my "fall" box and now it's folded in the garage and ready to attach whenever the weather turns frosty. The temps are dropping into the 70's so I planted the rest of that box with Swiss Chard, Kale, Arugula, and Spinach. I stuck some lettuce varieties under my tent trellis hoping they'll have time to mature too and get a little frost protection from the tent/vines. We've started eating radish from my first wave of fall planting and the spinach isn't far behind. This fall planting stuff is all new to me, and so I'm pretty excited by every experience!