Temps in the 90's and I am starting my fall plantings!

lol - it just seems so foreign to me. All my spring goodies have finished save for a few beets which will be harvested today. Summer garden is rocking along, and I planted seeds for my fall garden yesterday (inside). I know it is the right time for my area, but it seems so strange when the hottest part of summer isn't even here yet! I am hoping to extend my season this year, and actually get a good harvest from my fall garden. I was late with my cole crops last year and the early heavy snow got all but 1 head of brocolli. Loved the snow, but dissapointed all the same. This year I have a better plan. Well - I have a plan, which is way better than last year!. I have several varieties of cabbage, brocolli, lettuce, some collards and one variety of cauliflower started yesterday. I will have the sprouts transplanted into soil next week hopefully so they can happily grow while I am on vacation. If they should dry out before I get back, I will have a half a chance of starting over which is all part of my master plan. I am also just rebuilding my towers after harvesting my spuds 2 days ago so I can replant with carrots and parsnips for fall and winter harvest - hopefully. I don't have much luck germinating carrots here - it gets so hot, and apparently I am not dilligent enough with the water in the early stages and they don't make it. This year I am trying super hard - I have one set of carrots that have survived a month so far - perhaps this is the year

It really is ironic how those of us in the lower regions are looking to fall crops while those much further north are just getting a good salad. Yet, it's not August down here either, so it's not HOT yet. I'll be planning my fall garden next week, I cannot believe it's time already.

Me too !! Im planning the fall garden now, and a winter one if thats possible. I know collards over winter well in my area (not that I like collards but the chickens do lol) I will do lots of greens if I can and brocollis and brussel sprouts, lettuces that will over winter with some help of a covering I hope. I am hoping my summer garden of tomatoes and such will make it through to the first freeze we will see they did last year. Im evening leaving a sucker to grow on all the plants now to make a new "main" vine" (taking acara's idea . Im excited with all that is going on in our garden, hoping for a great fall garden too:)
Ha-v-v

Planning is different from planting, imo.

For those of you south, why so early? Like FV says, the hot isn't even really here yet. You also have a much later fall season. I figured you would not be planting fall gardens until after Labor Day. I won't do anything up here until mid-August because even I have until Halloween.

Why so soon, guys?

I'm starting now because we have had nearly NO fall at all the last several years, going from 90° to 40° in one week. Last year we went from 85° to snow within 3 days.

But I'm a weird one anyway, my first square gets planted in August! Isn't that something most people do in spring?

FarmerValerie wrote:It really is ironic how those of us in the lower regions are looking to fall crops while those much further north are just getting a good salad. Yet, it's not August down here either, so it's not HOT yet. I'll be planning my fall garden next week, I cannot believe it's time already.

FarmerValerie,

will you share what you are planting?? I'm clueless and and a loss for what and when to plant next.

Thanks!!

Margarita

I'll be planning for about 3 weeks, in other words making notes and ordering anything I don't have. Mostly broccoli, cabbage, spinach, greens, fall tomatoes and peas. In other words anything that cannot or will not grow now. Some packets say start some of these in July. I'll be sharing these in the lower south regional forum (if I remember) and although you're in the coastal region, you are more than welcome to join in there too.

BackyardBirdGardner wrote:Planning is different from planting, imo.

For those of you south, why so early? Like FV says, the hot isn't even really here yet. You also have a much later fall season. I figured you would not be planting fall gardens until after Labor Day. I won't do anything up here until mid-August because even I have until Halloween.

Why so soon, guys?

I am starting my seeds inside for cole crops (cabbage, broc, cauli, collards) now. In an ideal world I would only have my chinese cabbage, collards and regular cabbage planted, but I am off on vacation in a few weeks when I would start the seeds if it was perfect timing. This will get my seedlings large enough to plant out in mid July through mid August. I should have all my cole crops in by the last week of August to get a good amount of grow and get ready to harvest by the end of November.

With my vacation, if the seeds don't make it for 7 days without my TLC, I am hoping that I will be able to restart some of them at least when I get back and still get a harvest in.

With the exception of carrots and parsnips - I am starting everything indoors for planting out later. Last year I had a rough time with cut worms and other bugs eating my seedlings when I direct sewed in the ground and I would rather not use insecticides.

Last year I have 2 snow falls in the first week of December that killed all but my kale. Up until the snow, it was pretty warm, then in a blink of any eye it was all over.

I am not sure, but I planted my spring crop pretty early too - same veges I started seeds on January 15 inddors. I just finished my last cabbages and broc about 2 weeks ago. Still trying to refine my timing, especially since I am trying to get a good 3 and hopefully 4 seasons out of my garden instead of the 1.5 seasons I got last year. So far so good.

BackyardBirdGardner wrote:Planning is different from planting, imo.

For those of you south, why so early? Like FV says, the hot isn't even really here yet. You also have a much later fall season. I figured you would not be planting fall gardens until after Labor Day. I won't do anything up here until mid-August because even I have until Halloween.

Why so soon, guys?

I know it seems strange to me as well. This is going to be my first year doing it so I am just learning.
Don't forget we plant fall and winter gardens down here. What we call a fall garden is what will be harvesting in the fall. I can't even plant potatoes until Jan.
The hottest time of the year (now-the end of august) our harvests are slowing down and/or stopping all together. Some of us get no frost at all, I do and even have nights when it gets down to freezing temps. a few nights a year. So we start or fall crops when it is warm and they mature in cooler temps. The some of crops our are different from what you would grow. We get to plant toms again for example to replace the ones lost to heat, pests, and disease, not many consider toms a fall crop but down here they are.

Ditto on what Shannon said about tomatoes being a fall crop. It's time to start seedlings in some areas here, to put out for fall tomatoes. Fall tomatoes produce more than those that fought the heat all year, suckers work well by the way for these too.

For those of you at a loss for fall gardens here is a cute little planner to print out.
http://littlehouseinthesuburbs.com/2009/01/free-printable-o-rama-herbs-fall-and.html

FarmerValerie wrote:Ditto on what Shannon said about tomatoes being a fall crop. It's time to start seedlings in some areas here, to put out for fall tomatoes. Fall tomatoes produce more than those that fought the heat all year, suckers work well by the way for these too.

For those of you at a loss for fall gardens here is a cute little planner to print out.
[url=http://littlehouseinthesuburbs.com/2009/01/free-printable-o-rama-herbs-fall-and.html

http://littlehouseinthesuburbs.com/2009/01/free-printable-o-rama-herbs-fall-and.html[/quote[/url]]

Thank you for reposting this link. I used the printable as a basis for my plan last year and saved the link - on my work computer. I left my work in August last year - and my link was left behind. Fortunatley I transfered all the valuable into into and excel spreadsheet, printed it out - front and back and laminated it. That is what I have been working off, but recentely I have been wanting to recreate the electronic version and edit it and just hadn't gotten around to finding the website again. I know I posted the link last year, just been too lazy to look so thanks for that.

To those who haven't used the link before - it is worth the effort - it gives you a week by week planing guide of when to plant seeds indoors, when to plant seeds outdoors, and when to transplant seedlings out doors - it is FABULOUS! (imo) :!:

Thanks for the reminder Kiwirose, I need to put the planner on disk and save the link in my garden notebook (Office Notebook-love it), that fall planner is a booger to find, the spring one is searchable. This one is hidden inside another post.

Oh - and last time I used the planner - I don't remember it being in excel - I think it was just the PDF and I cut and paste into excel - it took me a half a morning I think but was so proud of the results - this time it is all done for me how exciting.

I swear - the laminated sheet walks around the house with me - and lo and behold anyone who moves it or hides it - I look at it daily in peak planting times and at least weekly the rest of the time Someone should give the person who created it a medal - a great big gold one

I have a 3-ring binder for papers and a calendar for notes, I put articles in there for future reference too. Then I use Office One Note for a computer notebook, copying and pasting articles as well as posts from here, and links in it. There is a little book on Little House in the Suburbs that is pdf for a planner, and then she also has some excel sheets, I'm not real big on excel, I just learned how to use it, I prefer Open Office, that is free and has a pdf converter within it-LOVE IT!!! I lost 2 computers this year, so now I save almost nothing on my computer, it all goes to flash drive or disk. I put lines on the back side of each page of the planner, then cut the pages in half and stapled them, that way I have more than enough room for notations, and what to do notes.

I also have a "garden box" that has everything I "might" need out there; hammer, gloves, cinnamon for ants, twine, plant stakes, u-pins, hose gaskets, rip ties, you name it. I haul it out there everytime I go out. I also have a tote bag from Gardenerd.com that I got for helping them put together a sheet for schools, I just sent them some info on my area. It has the bug bottle, which is just a 2-liter bottle with the top cut off right at the top of the lable, and top turned inside the bottle. Bugs get picked off, put in, and then fed to the chickens. I call my tote bag my produce bag, it's what I use to haul the harvest back in with.

ohhh - you know what I just noticed has changed, it no longer has the timing for sowing seeds indoors - not that it is THAT hard to figure out - it was just convenient to have it all right there

I just went back to find the other links where the indoor seed planting dates were included . The new link is soooo nice and convenient - the old link is much more cumbersome - now I have revisited it I do remember all the cutting and pasting to get to almost the same result as in the new links

https://squarefoot.forumotion.com/t1513-planting-schedule - but if you don't want to cound back, scroll to the bottom two posts in this link and it will take you to the original files that contain the same info and a little but more - warning - not as user friendly love the new format!

While we are talking planners and dates, here is a Day of the Year Calendar.
http://www.vpcalendar.net/Julian_Date.html

I used this in the spring to guesstamate the aprox harvest date. To use; find the day of the year for the date you planted example, today is the 176th day of the year, if you planted radishes (28 days) add 28 to 176, and you get 204, that is July 23rd. You can make a note on that weeks planner to check radishes.