Let’s Talk About Fall Gardens!

• Swiss Chard.  I look at chard as pretty kale.  As I have little use for plants I can’t eat, I planted rainbow chard in some barrel planters that we have up near the street.  My mom was just proud that I didn’t dig up the mums to plant peas like I wanted to.

Something has been nibbling on my chard…

I love the pretty stems!

• Greens.  We live in Alabama.  The word “greens” can mean a lot of different things.  Often though, it refers to collards, mustard, and turnips.  It took me years to gain a appreciation for greens, but they really are yummy if you cook them right!  Plant some.
• Cruciferous vegetables.  Broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, kohlrabi.  I have about 18 broccoli plants and 8 savoy cabbage plants growing like weeds in the garden right now.  

Savoy Cabbage

Broccoli

• Peas.  The kids and I love English peas, so they are a must in the spring and fall!  I am currently re-using some bamboo tomato cages for my peas to climb up.  

Dwarf  “Wando” English Peas

• Lettuce and Spinach.  If you missed my lettuce post, you can find it here.

Spinach

Mesclun Lettuce Blend

• Root Veggies.  Turnips, (yep, these are listed in 2 categories, grown for their root as well as their greens!) radishes, carrots, and beets all fall in this category.
• Alliums.  This is your delicious, stinky, onion family.  I am planting Georgia onions (hopefully like Vidalia’s) Egyptian walking onions, perennial leeks and garlic.  There are enough options in this category alone to make your head spin!
• Herbs.  My summer cilantro has long since bolted, so it is time to plant that again.  I have also had trouble with the rosemary plants that I have bought since we moved here.  We used them in place of shrubbery at the old house because, well, you can eat rosemary, but not boxwood or azaleas.  Why bother?  They do get big though, so I held back on planting one in my square foot garden before, but since my front yard seems a bit too shady for it, I have put one in a corner of a garden that already contained most of my herbs and it will just be an herb garden from now on.  

This rosemary is tiny now, hopefully it will be huge by this time next year!

This is by no means an exhaustive list, but it does outline some of your fall gardening options.  I’m personally having a bit of a space conundrum because the tomatoes, that I was just about to pull up to make more space,  seem to have gotten a second wind.  They have tons of new growth and even new blooms.  If a cold snap doesn’t get them, I just might get a few more tomatoes, a thought that is just too tempting to rip from the ground!  As always, I’ll either make do or make more Square Foot Garden beds!  

Happy gardening everyone!