Scheduling what to plant and when...

Hi everyone. After planting my first SFG in a mad rush with no planning and forethought whatsoever it would seem I have gone in totally the opposite direction for my second one.

Its a 3x3 tabletop garden and I'm trying to get the most out of it (bearing in mind I live in New Brunswick, Canada. Not the longest growing season in teh world to be sure).

So created a little spreadsheet that has a row for each square and a column for each week left in the year. I have put in the varieties that I planted in the appropriate square and blocked off the weeks that each square will be occupied with that particular crop.

My earliest "free squares" come up in the week of September 19th and I would like to know what I can plant at that time that won't be harmed by impending winter weather, coldness etc as the fall frost date is just a week away.

Is there anything I can plant and harvest over the winter or am I just looking at planting things and holding my breath until 2012?

I really want to work hard at maximizing my garden for 2012 so I'm also in the process of trying to work out how much veg I would need to grow and how many squares I would need to grow it all in to be as self sufficient as possible. This will mean a lot of scheduled planting if I don't want to have my garden overrun by squares and as I'm a bit of a noob when it comes to gardening its all a bit daunting at the moment, but I figure if I can get teh rest of this year worked out, it will show me that next year is do-able if albeit on a bigger scale.

I don't know about where you are, but here in zone 6, I am overwintering carrots, arugula, mache, kohlrabi, tatsoi, spinach, sprouting broccoli, radishes, beets, parsley root and kale. Most of those don't even need a thick mulch as snow is insulating. We don't get feet and feet of snow, if we did I'd probably just cover them with a blanket that I could pick up and shake off when the weight got to be too much. Our ground doesn't freeze here at all.

I would be more concerned about your plants having enough sunlight to get a good start before the snows set in. You're pretty far north, sunlight-wise.

hankyknot,

If I remember correctly from a prior post, your first average frost date is 10/06.

With your first square being available September 19, that only gives you about 17 days until your first average frost date. That leaves you with crops that can survive light frost or overwinter.

You might consider broccoli (if you can start your transplants NOW)

Onions and garlic may overwinter for you also.