Planting Cool Season Vegetables
Don’t throw in the trowel! There’s still plenty of time to plant cool season veggies by seed. Cool season veggies like broccoli, flourish in the fall, Swiss chard and kale develop their best flavor! Lettuce and spinach grow juicy and tender, they will germinate easily and will not bolt quickly (go to seed).
Your tomatoes and peppers will be ripe this fall so bring on the rest of the salad fixings!
Seeds that can be sown in August include: Kale, sugar snap peas, snow peas, shelling peas, turnip greens, mixed Japanese greens, mustard greens, collard greens, mizuna, spinach, brussel sprouts, broccoli and broccoli raab.
Pesche’s Garden Center has an excellent supply of seed from the following companies:
Prepare seed beds by turning over the soil, then rake level.
Apply Espoma Plant Tone at the rate of 4lbs per 100 sq ft. Broadcast this fine dry organic fertilizer evenly to the surface of planting area and chop it into the top 3” of soil with a rake and level off. http://www.espoma.com
Read the back of your seed packs; information includes planting depth, thinning distance, sun requirements, germination time and days to maturity. Follow the directions! Save empty seed packs and put them into a ziplock baggie and seal well. Staple the pack to a wooden stake; this makes the perfect plant marker.
Keep seed beds evenly moist daily to assure germination.
If heavy frost is predicted, cover your planting with Gardener’s Harvest-Guard Protective Garden Cover. Harvest–Guard allows sunlight, air and water to plantings and insulates against frost damage.
Spinach can be grown even if there is snow on the ground! Establish a bed of spinach before frost sets in. Heavily mulch the beds with leaves. As snow approaches, push 1 foot of covering of leaves over the spinach. When you want to harvest simply push the leaf covering back, take some cuttings and replace the mulch. If all goes right, you can carry spinach over till spring!
Enjoy your fall harvest of tasty, healthful, homegrown vegetables.
