This is a reprise of an article I first posted in February. I have updated some of the fall dates, and added a few more vegetables. Right now, in early August, I am working on sowing seeds of carrots, beets and turnips, and planting previously started transplants of kale, collards, broccoli and cabbage. The full planting schedule, including spring dates and soil temperature information, can be found here. I also put a link to this page on the top menu bar.
seed packets (click on any image to enlarge)
In the table that follows ‘sow’ refers to direct seeding outdoors, and is usually done for peas, carrot, corn, mache, radish, spinach, beans, and turnip. ‘Start’ means starting seeds indoors in pots, soil blocks, flats, trays or cell packs, and is usually done for broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, tomato, pepper and eggplant. Things like beet, Swiss chard, lettuce, arugula, endive, kohlrabi, kale, squash, melons, pumpkin, cucumber and many of the Asian greens can either be direct seeded outdoors -or- started inside. I often start these vegetables inside under lights to get a jump on the growing season. ‘Plant’ means to plant transplants outside or to directly plant things like onion sets, garlic, sweet potato slips or seed potato pieces.
LATE JUNE
- Start fall broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, collard greens, kale, kohlrabi
LATE JULY/EARLY AUGUST
- Sow beans (snap), beets, carrot, chard, peas, turnip, kohlrabi
- Plant fall broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, collard greens, kale, kohlrabi
MID AUGUST-LATE SEPTEMBER
- Sow arugula, Asian greens, endive, lettuce, mache, radish, spinach
- Plant Asian greens, endive, lettuce
LATE OCTOBER/EARLY NOVEMBER
- plant garlic
I have to emphasize that the above dates for sowing and planting are guidelines only! Hopefully if you are planning on a fall garden, you will already have seeds available and plants started. If not, there’s still time to pick up seeds and transplants. Many garden centers have reduced prices on seeds this time of year. Local gardeners can get Fedco seeds on sale at the River City Food Co-op, while supplies last.
Happy Fall Growing to all!
I have a similar schedule on my site and realized I have been neglecting updates in the past few months! I need to get on that. I am about half way through my fall and winter crops planting and will be making a big push in the next two weeks to get the rest of it in. Lots of beds opened up with the harvests of other items – so there is garden real estate begging to be amended and planted up!
I wasn’t aware that you could grow a fall garden in your area. I thought that frost would kill it. Can you get cabbages to ripen before winter? Here in southern California, we wait until mid September and cooler weather to put in our winter crops.
Fall gardening is typically better than spring growing here, in my opinion. We typically don’t have hard freezes until close to Thanksgiving. We’ll have at least 90 days of frost free weather for the cabbage and broccoli. It’s true, we’ll have to baby the crops in the heat for about another months, but after that it is usually smooth sailing!
Great schedule Dave! I’ve also started my fall/winter garden. I’m just hoping things don’t start to bolt with our late summer weather!