Fall is a great time to harvest vegetables. The weather is cooler, the bugs not as bad, you still have some sunlight and the rain is a little more regular than summer. To have a fall vegetable harvest you need to do a little planning to time your harvest to the frost date. Our frost free date in Hocking is around the middle of October. As of July 9th, we have around a little under 100 days of growing left. Honestly that means you can still grow almost anything.
Start right now:
- Asian cabbage, heading cabbage, broccoli and cauliflower – under the lights would be best. I will start mine shortly in my Seed Start Grow Station. Starting them indoors avoids high summer heat on fragile cabbage family transplants. They will go out around Labor Day. They do not mind cool weather and are improved by a touch of frost.
Lettuce and Asian cabbages are great plants to start with when you are learning to start seeds. They germinate rapidly and reliably and take to transplanting very well.
- Feel free to start some lettuce indoors now as well. A dozen heads of lettuce to start, and then repeat that every two weeks for the next month or two. You might lose some if August is blazing or you might have homegrown lettuce to go with your BLT.
- Plant another row of green beans as well as start another few zucchini/yellow squash plants. You have plenty of time to mature them, trust me.
- Direct seed some green onions and carrots now. These will be tricky because they both take weeks to germinate as well as do not like to break through a hard dry soil crust. They both tolerate cold later on and you get a harvest into October or November.
- If you did not do potatoes early on and you have some space go ahead and plant seed potatoes. They will be buried under soil and mulch and you will have some in fall.
- Hold off a little bit for sugar snap peas, maybe another two weeks, then start them as well.
- You can direct seed another round of cucumbers now. Then you have some to go with your lettuce and tomatoes for a nice fall salad.
- Hold off about 3-4 weeks before you start radishes and beets. They both grow pretty fast and taste way better when they mature in the fall.
- Direct seed another round of Basil right now. Then you have some later in the season that you are not having to cut all the time to keep in under control
Just a few ideas to get you started. Mix in some row cover on some of the veggies and you can have a harvest that easily lasts to Thanksgiving.