Fall Gardening: Keep your Plants Going this Autumn

Original photo by Steve Fareham, modifications made.

Make Your Autumn Garden the Best it Can Be

It's not over yet! Even though we've already felt the first breath of fall, you can keep your garden growing a little longer yet. Certain frost-hardy greens are great for growing in September, and you can use simple, time-honored methods to extend the life and production of many of your plants.

Plant New Seeds

Believe it or not, you may still have a little time to seed some cold-weather veggies. Here's a list of vegetables that you can still seed directly in your garden:

• Arugula
• Collard Greens
• Lettuce
• Mache
• Mustard Greens
• Peas
• Radishes
• Spinach 
• Turnips

 

Keep the Garden Going

There are some veggies you can plant this late in the season with no problem, and some that require a little extra work and care. These are often separated into two categories: hardy vegetable and half-hardy veggies. Hardy veggies can make it through a cold snap or frost relatively unscathed, while half-hardy veggies are more sensitive, and need to be shielded from frost and cold evenings.

Hardy Fall Vegetables (can survive frost): onion, spinach, broccoli, brussels sprouts, cabbage, collard, kale, leek, and kohlrabi

Half-Hardy Fall Vegetables (should not be exposed to more than a touch of frost): winter lettuce, celery, chard, cauliflower, mustard, radishes, chives and endive

Bulbs: Autumn is the time to plant perennial flower bulbs and onions for next spring, although Tulips and some other bulbs are best saved for planting in October.

Extend the Growing Season

Even though the evenings in September tend to be a little too cold for more fragile plants like tomatoes, there are ways to keep them warm and fruiting for several more weeks. There are a couple of simple ways to do this using coverings and greenhouses which you can build yourself from simple materials.

Coverings like cold frames and row covers can raise the temperature around your plants by 5-20 degrees, and are great for shielding plants on cold evenings. A cold frame is a protective box or enclosed area used to warm plants like a greenhouse, and is often made from recycled window frames, fiberglass, or other transparent materials. A low tunnel, used to cover whole garden rows, is basically just a sheet of plastic or garden fabric that you secure over a basic frame to cover the plants. A cloche is a word that just means any kind of transparent cover meant to warm the air and soil around a plant. You can make simple cloches from recycled plastic jugs and bottles (such as empty 2-liters or milk cartons).

Here are some guides for making your own DIY cold tunnels and frames:

• How to make a simple cold frame using hay bales and plastic cover
• Tutorialfor making a low cold tunnel greenhouse using PVC pipes and plastic sheeting
• Guide for making a low tunnel from wire fencing and plastic sheeting

Tips to Keep in Mind:

• Make sure your fall crops are in, so they can make the most of the shorter days and limited sunlight
• You will usually need to vent or remove your cold frames, tunnels, and cloches on warmer, sunny days
• Tunnels and frames trap extra moisture and humidity, so beware of over-watering the soil
• Cloth coverings are best for root vegetables, while plastic is best for greens
• To keep plants your plants going strong on extra-cold nights, you can use jugs of hot water to keep the air under your coverings even warmer. You can do this by leaving old plastic jugs full of water out in the sun during the day (you can even paint them black to make them absorb the the heat better), and then moving them into your greenhouse at night.
• In the words of Shelley Stonebrook from motherearthnews.com, “If a big freeze is coming, harvest like there's no tomorrow.”