The growing season doesn’t have to end …
In fact, this is one of my favorites. There’s no shortage of supplies, plants are on sale and the cool weather makes working in the garden so much more pleasant. If you’re tucking your summer garden into bed this week, I hope you’ll read on to see how you can keep growing even just a little bit of food.
Cleanup
This first step is the most overwhelming in my own personal garden. I have clients and gardener friends who love this step, though, they find cleaning out the garden so satisfying. In the same way I approach cutting down a plant in pieces, I approach this in steps. I spend about 20 minutes at a time if I feel overwhelmed just snipping away the tops of my plants. Yesterday, I did this while on the phone and while chatting with my neighbors.
The tomatoes I took out while chatting with my neighbors :)
There’s no real approach to cutting out huge tomato plants, so I say just start going for it. If you want to harvest a pile of green tomatoes or small peppers to ripen indoors, this is the time to do it. Tip: Throw those huge plants on a compost pile or cut them up with your weed wacker or lawn mower so they decompose faster. They’ll provide awesome “green manure” for your garden beds.
Amendments
Speaking of manure, your soil has been busy working all summer long to produce gorgeous fruits and veggies. It’s going to need a good drink of nutritious vitamins and minerals to get back to growing for the fall season. I love to topdress all my clean beds with a layer of organic compost, and after I plant, I give everyone a drink of compost tea.
After you’ve planted what you want to for the season, I plant a cover crop in the rest of my in-ground beds, add a soil conditioner to my raised beds or throw in the bags of leaves that my neighbors put out on the street if I know their trees haven’t been sprayed with any chemicals. Mulching with leaves is free and it keeps the soil temps warm if you’re going to cover your beds with plastic or cold frames.
Cool Season Plants
At this point in the season, you can buy plant starts and seeds from last season on sale. I like to plant cabbages, broccolis, cauliflowers and kale from starts, and then I start carrots, radishes and beets from seed. I sow seeds every couple weeks for a continuous harvest, and I keep an eye on my starts for any watering issues just until we have to turn the sprinklers off for the year.
Cool season plants in my year-round raised bed
Covering it up
We’re getting our first taste of the 30s mid-week at night, so I’ve been thinking about row covers. I’m going to teach my coaching clients how to cover their beds this week and host a workshop for those comfortable in a group setting. Boise doesn’t have cold winters, but we do get snow sometimes, and it can be really wet in town. I like to cover my fall/winter season beds with plastic sheeting or cold frames just so I can regulate the amount of moisture and the temperatures.
There you have it! The growing season doesn’t have to end, and I’d love to walk you through how to transform your own summer garden into one that produces all year long. Contact me to set something up or ask me any questions you’d like covered on the blog.