The Reference Shelf Leigh on 22 Jul 2010 07:47 am
Wow, Fall Planting? Already?
My Grandmother always said time speeds up dramatically as you get older. But I confess, I thought she meant when I got HER age, not mine now! Wrong. Time is going so fast my head spins. But come to think about it….I guess I could have grandkids, pretty respectably, at my age. Dang, that’s sobering…. Back to GARDENING!
Many of you know that I injured my right shoulder this spring somehow with a combination of digging rocks/tilling rocks/planting trees in rocky soil/breaking ground on new garden spot/ and a non-ergonomic desk set up. As bad as the digging sounds, the desk may have been a primary offender! Thanks to a miracle-worker of a holistic physical therapist, a gifted massage therapist, and living with a master swimmer (who is getting me and my formerly-injured shoulder in the pool despite my natural tendency to love swimming as much as your average house cat)—I’m starting to believe my gardening days may continue into ripe old age, despite the speeding clocks apparently located there.
But how DID it get to be time for Fall Planting already?!
Since today is an official resting-the-shoulder-day I popped over to one of my favorite garden blogs, Skippy’s Vegetable Garden, and checked out the personalized planting calendar she has developed. You can put in your local frost date and generate a spring or fall planting calendar of several types of garden vegetables. (When you visit the calendar generating page, note there are separate links for fall/spring plantings.) I entered a frost date of 10/30 for Fayetteville and got these dates:
I’ve never been much of a fall gardener, but want to turn over a new leaf, so to speak. Skippy’s garden is up in the Northeast…so I’m wondering if there are needed adjustments to make here in the northwest corner of Arkansas. Hmmm. Think I’ll send this post over to my gardening mentors Calvin and Jennifer and ask for advice. I’ll let you know what I find out. In the meantime, do you plant in the fall? What are the dates you start your favorite fall crops? Please post them in the comments if you are reading online, or reply to the email if you are getting this via email subscription! More later on this, but I feel very lucky to have gotten a new bush-bean bed planted just day before yesterday! We’ll see what happens.
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3 Responses to “Wow, Fall Planting? Already?”
on 22 Jul 2010 at 9:15 am # Liz
That is so cool that they have a techno-savvy calendar. But will it get my butt out there in Arkansas August temps? For a fall garden I want to be working in fall weather! Is there a widget for that?
on 22 Jul 2010 at 10:22 am # Anne
Very cool — I’m going to have to check out the calendar. One of my to-do list items was figure out when it was time to plant for the fall. I’ve never had a fall crop, just a raised bed full of summer veggies, but this year I really want to try my hand at fall gardening. You saved me some research time — thanks! I suppose our timeline would probably be close.
I did plant one kale plant last year, and it did fine except after the first harvest there wasn’t any new growth.
Keep us posted on your progress!
on 22 Jul 2010 at 7:28 pm # jennifer
seems like a lot of that is pretty right on, although in my experience, brassicas (kale, collards, cabbage, etc.) take such a beating from the harlequin bugs here that i don’t attempt them until later. probably closer to september unless you want to keep them under reemay until then! we already seeded out our first carrot bed- if you get them just about up to size before winter really sets in, then you can just harvest as you need them all the way through the winter! same with parsnips and beets.
and if you start all your fall and winter salad greens in flats, you can transplant out all through the season with just a simple row cover for protection and have salads all winter long! you’d be amazed how sturdy arugula, spinach, and lettuce are!