Mid-Atl - Oct 2016 - Fall Garden 2016

Sorry this is early again -- hubby and I are closing on a house on the 30th and I know I'll be super busy helping our son and his family move. Soooooo once again if I don't get it done now I won't get it done.

Are you gardening this fall?

If so, what are you growing? Are you trying anything new? New veggies? New varieties?

What will you do if you get an unexpected cold snap?

Are you planning on extending it into the winter?

Yes to Fall Gardening!
Since I love broccoli -  there were 18 transplants but upon closer inspection 9 more were in the cell packs. After teasing apart the extras there are 27 broccoli plants to look forward to.  There are many squares of lettuce and spinach, peas,  no particular new varieties were tried out. 
As far as your question of what I will do about an unexpected cold snap. First hope for the best.  Can always pull out old bed sheets, plastic, and cage covers if needed.
Am I winter gardening? No as it's much too cold to bother.

Yes, I am trying!

I have 3 SF of radishes out there:  new variety, Chinese red meat radish that is sometimes called watermelon radish.  Tried these in the spring, but they were super small with no ball formation.  Beetles told me (I had no idea!) there are 2 likes of radishes; Fall and Spring types!  Well, I'll be!

So giving them a try inthe fall.  None of my lettuces and 2 tries at spinach has germinated, except for some Black Seeded Simpson.  Love that variety.  Dependable!

New:  Gonna plant some mache and corn salad;  2 of Eliot Coleman's faves from Four Season Harvest.

Cold snap:  Sheets.  Pretty much on their own.  Would like to do a box cover for the 4x4 maybe someday.

Winter?  Nope.  Hibernating, reading my forum, and waiting for my colorful catalogs!

Like you Scorpio, I will be hibernating.  I may plant some seeds in the large pop bottles and see what comes up.  I did that a couple of years ago and germination was quite successful. Also garlic that did well up to spring when I have now found out that I over watered and they turn rather nasty and I have only a few cloves to plant and I had to buy some new stock.

I will enjoy the activities of our members in warmer climes and seeing the lovely green pictures, but I am happy to take a season off and come back raring to go in the spring and reading the Forum as well.

"Winter?  Nope.  Hibernating, reading my forum, and waiting for my colorful catalogs!"


I promise to keep you all entertained with my winter gardening adventures. (Sorry about this formatting -- don't know how to make quotes work right.)  

I'm *trying* to fall garden. Basic summary is some success, some failures due to poor germination (it's really been too hot) and seedling death due to bugs and undetermined causes while I was away for a week. Here's the some success list: beets, cabbages, broccolis, cauliflower, kale, kohlrabi, Brussels sprouts, Napa, Pak choy, and mustards.   Here's the currently failed list: lettuce succession#9 (including endive, radicchio and escarole), spinach, turnips, mache, claytonia, and orach.

Fall radishes go in both categories because my re-do appears to be succeeding. I haven't had time to restart much else. I had family vacation and there wasn't much point to trying to grow seedlings inside without watering while I was away. And now I have house guests coming in less than a week. That means my seed-starting grow light set up has to be taken down for the year (it's in the way of the guest bathroom's shower/tub.)  And I chronically have CHAOS (Can't Have Anyone Over Syndrome).  But in exchange for being able to stay overnight I will hopefully get to borrow their truck for getting a load of compost dumped off. My beds need to be topped off, and I'm switching some more of my garden over to ANSFG.

New: I grew some of the plants listed for the first time this spring, so this is my first time trying them in the fall. The kohlrabi are new to me this fall (i.e. didn't grow them this spring.)  Two new varieties of beets (Avalanche and  Touchstone Gold), two new varieties of fall radish. I also got seeds for dandelion, sorrel, and tatsoi to try this fall/winter but haven't sown any of those yet. 

Cold Snap: Cry. The tomatoes and squash are too large to do anything about. Might throw a sheet over the eggplants/peppers. The ground cherries are really low to the ground this year, I might be able to protect them.... but I hate dirty sheets, especially where the birds... aerially assaulted them last year. And I must be missing something?: All the photos I see are of bed sheets beautifully hung and draped with nothing to secure them... my sheets just blew off the plants last year. 

Winter: Plan part 1: switching the two covered 4x4s over to thicker Agribon (and putting a plastic cover over that when needed.) Plan part 2: four cold frames ... but the cold frames aren't built yet. Also, my original plan this year didn't include winter gardening, so I don't have blocks of space ready and waiting - there's a pepper here, and a will-be-too tall for a cold-frame brassica over there, etc. And I haven't started winter seedlings yet. I hope it's not too late.