New year, new things, new plans… Soooooo excited! I can feel down in my gardener’s bones that it’s going to be a good one.
This month we can get a few warm weather things into the garden – BUT BE PREPARED TO PROTECT THEM! We might not have had any ‘winter’ yet, but we’re far from being out of the woods for some plant killing weather – frost or even a freeze… ya just never know.
WARM WEATHER PLANTS(GET SEEDS STARTED IN POTS SO THAT THEY WILL BE READY TO TRANSPLANT INTO YOUR GARDEN IN 4-6 WEEKS)
Eggplants
Peppers
Tomatoes
Watermelons
COOL WEATHER PLANTS
Beets
Broccoli
Cabbage
Carrots
Cauliflower
Celery
Chinese Cabbage
Collards
Endive/Escrole
Kale
Kohlrabi
Leek
Lettuce
Mustard
Onion – multiplier and bunching, but not bulb
Peas
Potatoes
Radish
Turnips
Garlic
Spinach isn’t on the “official” list but you could try it anyway
If you didn’t get finished with your October planting, you get a reprieve this month. What you can plant is exactly the same as last month.
Other planting things are going on this month too. It’s a good time for planting trees – they grow their root systems over the winter and are ready to leaf out come spring.
Many herbs like the cooler weather and are good to plant now. Some of those include:
Cilantro
Dill
Parsley
Fennel
Garlic
Oregano
Rosemary
Sage
Thyme
Lots of harvesting is going on this month. There are obvious things like your warm weather veggies and many of your tropical-ish fruits like papayas. But, don’t forget your citrus. Though it’s still green colored or mottled green and orange, and doesn’t look ready to eat, it is ripe. Citrus needs a certain amount of cold for the color of the peel to turn orange or yellow (the cold breaks down the green colored chlorophyll allowing the orange or yellow color to show). The only way to know for sure is to pick one and try it.
Days are getting noticeably cooler and many CFG Newsletter readers are worried about how much cold their veggies can take. In general, none of your warm weather plants can tolerate freezing temperatures or even a touch of frost (frost can happen when temps are above freezing)
All of your cool weather plants can take frost and some freezing… some more than others. It’s amazing to visit your garden in the morning after a frost/freeze and see everything stiff as a board. The plants will appear translucent and you may expect them to collaps into a pile of mush once they warm up. But they won’t. Just leave them alone and after they thaw they’ll be good as new… for the most part. Some of the leafy ones like lettuce may get the equivalent of ‘freezer burn’
Plan to protect your tropical-ish plants soon. Get ready to move them or cover them at any hint of frost in the forecast. We don’t expect any until December, but you never know.
Warm Weather Plants
NONE!
Cool Weather Plants
Beets
Broccoli
Brussels Sprouts
Cabbage
Carrots
Cauliflower
Celery
Chinese Cabbage
Collards
Kale
Kohlrabi
Leek
Lettuce
Mustard
Onion – bulb, multiplier, bunching
Peas
Potatoes (only if VERY protected)
Radish
Spinach
Turnips
Garlic
Strawberry
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Frost sensitive (Harvest these plants when the temperature dips to 32°F or less)
Very frost hardy (Don’t rush to harvest these; they’ll be fine at 28° or colder)
Leeks Scallions Chives Brussels sprouts Broccoli Kale Parsley Beets Carrots Winter squash (plant will die but the squash will be fine) Pumpkins (plant will die but the pumpkin will be fine) Sage
Barely seems like it’s autumn out there in your garden yet, but it is. A little crisper, a little dryer (except for all the rain we’re having right now… if it wasn’t raining, there would be a little less humidity), and a few degrees cooler. We can’t tell a lot of difference but the plants can. They notice the days are shorter and that the temperatures are moving smidgeon by smidgeon toward the cooler side of the mercury and it gets all kinds of little plant hormones flowing in preparation for ‘winter’
What does that mean for you? Too late to plant any of those warmth loving veggies – unless you plant them where you can provide extra heat and light, such as in containers in an enclosed space, but they should have a flush of blooming and producing… which equals some ramped up harvesting for you.
This month will see a lot of landscape vegetation starting to decline and that translates into material for your compost pile.
So lets just get to it…
Warm Weather Plants
NONE!
Cool Weather Plants
Beets
Broccoli
Brussels Sprouts
Cabbage
Carrots
Cauliflower
Celery
Chinese Cabbage
Collards
Kale
Kohlrabi
Leek
Lettuce
Mustard
Onion – bulb, multiplier, bunching
Peas
Potatoes
Radish
Spinach
Turnips
Garlic
Strawberry
Though potatoes aren’t on the official list of things that can be planted (the official list says January and February) I know a lot of people plant them now– worth the experiment if you have sprouting potatoes in your kitchen.
Can you feel a difference in the weather yet… you know, that autumn’s coming thing. Lots of work to do in the September… in addition to major planting. All the heat and rain and humidity has made it unpleasant to work outside. The consequences are weeds and disease and bugs and soil in dire need of amendment, maybe even some waterlogged areas. All things that have to be dealt with before you can get those September seeds and plants in the ground.
And then there’s hurricanes. Please CLICK HERE or on “Hurricanes” in the menu bar up there in the right corner and find out what to do to prepare your garden for one and what to do afterward
Here’s the vegetable planting list for September’s garden:
Warm Weather Plants
(THIS IS THE LAST MONTH FOR PLANTING THESE — BEST TO GET THEM IN THE GROUND AS EARLY IN THE MONTH AS POSSIBLE… LIKE NOW)
Need to get finished preparing your planting beds, containers, seeds planted in flats or pots for transplanting FAST!
It’s still waaaay hot out there for your cool weather loving plants, but it is time to start getting your heat loving fall garden vegetables plants in the ground this month. Some will be transplants and some will be seeds.
Next month you will plant the last of your warm weather plants (there still are a bunch of them that can go in the garden in September) and a LOT more of the cool weather plants. So be sure to have your veggie beds ready.
Most herbs can be planted now
Might try planting some Malabar spinach if you have a very warm protected area, or plant it in a container so that it can be moved to a warm/hot area later in the season. It grows well hydroponically too.
You can transplant fruit trees and bushes growing in containers into the ground now.
Out in the garden you can start planting the following veggies
WARM WEATHER PLANTS
Beans – Pole – pole beans take a little longer to produce and they produce over a longer period of time so we plant them earlier than bush beans
Corn
Eggplant (transplants)
Southern Peas
Peppers (transplants)
Pumpkin
Summer Squash
Tomato (last of the month)
Winter Squash
Watermelon
Sweet potatoes – IF YOU DO IT RIGHT NOW
Okra – IF YOU DO IT RIGHT NOW
Malabar spinach – IF YOU DO IT RIGHT NOW like mentioned above
COOL WEATHER PLANTS
Broccoli – transplants or seeds
Celery
Collards
Onion – Multiplier and Bunching (but not bulbing onions)
Chances are your garden is looking pretty pitiful about now. The lovely rain, heat, humidity combined with the slower pace has made everything grow… plants as well as bugs and disease organisms. Rain has been a bit spotty this year so your garden may get a good watering then get a bit droughty and need watering, then rain, drought, water… Puts a lot of stress on your plants.
This isn’t a bad thing though. It’s the end of our season and the timing is perfect. It’s a signal that it’s time to start preparing for your fall and winter garden. Seriously.
Fall planting starts in August. There’s just enough time to get parepared for it.
Rip out everything that’s not healthy, growing well, and producing.
Add amendments to your soil to build it up – good stuff, organic matter… not chemicals.
Fluff that soil and keep it moist and let the microbes get to work making everything fertile.
Could try some solarization to kill off bad juju stuff in the soil (clear plastic on moist soil with the edges anchored down and left to ‘cook’ in the sun for 6 weeks or so)
I’m going to be trying the bacillus thuringiensis israelensis in my soil for nematodes (they’re baaaaack) (update… no nematodes evident where I’ve used Bti)
It’s time to be getting any seeds for plants you want in your fall/winter garden. You will need to be starting them soon so that they will be just the right size for transplanting when the time comes – things like tomatoes and peppers and melons.
I’ve got LOTS of work to do out there and I knooooow you do too. Remember to work early or late and stay hydrated and don’t get too much sun – try a wide brimmed hat. The right hat looks lovely on you ladies and a Panama hat is oh so handsome on you gents.
Summer ‘officially’ starts this month and so does the Hurricane Season… June is a month of waiting… waiting for it to reeeallly get hot, waiting to see if we’ll have any hurricanes, waiting for those afternoon thunderstorms and hoping they’re not too violent, waiting to harvest, waiting for your soil solarization to work, waiting for the right time to start seedlings for the fall garden (our second spring), waiting waiting waiting…
There isn’t much to plant this month so your time will be best spent doing maintenance and preparatory things like tool repair/sharpening, soil solarization, composting, building and preparing new beds, gathering the seeds that you want to plant in your fall garden…
Here is what you can plant while you wait
Cool Weather Plants
NONE
Warm Weather Plants
Okra
Southern Peas – black-eyed, yard long, crowder
Peanuts
Sweet Potatoes
New Zealand and Malabar Spinach (neither of which are really spinach)
It’s here, the summer slump… technically it’s here anyway. There may be a slump in what you can plant for the next few months, but there is absolutely no slump in what needs to be done in the garden.
Lots of other things are happening in the garden(s) too. Lots of harvesting going on, egg laying by garden friendly creatures: lizards, birds, toads – usually the toads start singing after the first rain in May… this year they started singing mid April.
The heat and humidity starting in May is going to put a real damper on the garden. It will be interfering with pollen viability which will lower production, and it creates an environment that bugs and disease totally love.
It is best if you do not work in your garden when it is wet because the chances of spreading disease goes waaaaaay up.
Be on the lookout for fungus… particularly powdery mildew!
Here’s the skimpy planting prospects for May (and June and July!)
Malabar and New Zealand spinach (not really spinach but a good substitute)
Peanuts
Maybe squash
Maybe watermelon
Maybe mustard and turnip (for the greens) – After you pick them they will need to spend some time in the refrigerator or freezer to give them some sweetness and good flavor
Some advice:
Don’t work in the heat of the day – do it early or do it late. You can even do it at night if you can rig up some lighting in your garden.
The high humidity is dangerous for you too because your body can’t use sweat evaporation to keep you cool.
If parts of your garden are in shade part of the day, work in the shaded areas and then move with the shade (for example, my whole garden is in shade in the early morning. Sun first appears at the west side then moves across the garden to the east side. So, I start my gardening on the west side and then as the sun creeps in, I retreat bit by bit to the east and stay in the shade.
Stay hydrated – big glass of ice water or sweet ice tea works well, or even lemonade.
Wear a hat (some sun is very very good – vitamin D3 production – but too much should be avoided).
Use some bug repellant (something natural like citronella – get a little bottle of citronella essential oil from a health food store, put a couple of drops on the palm of your hand, rub your hands together, then rub your hands all over the exposed parts of your body – ankles, arms, neck, face, hair… works for me).
Another near winterless year for most of us. Plants are loving it… so are the bugs and diseases. With no cold weather kill-off, seems like they are getting a major head start. Spider mites, thrips, aphids, powdery mildew, early blight – just to mention a few – have made themselves at home for many weeks already.
We will be running a series on controlling pests and diseases in the newsletter this month… something you will definitely want so if you’ve not signed up for it yet, do so now! Put your name and e-mail in the form at the top of the right sidebar!
Though we didn’t have much in the way of winter this year, temperatures are dropping below the normal average frequently. Because of that, you could experiment with pulling from the “March In The Vegetable Garden” list a little bit into April. April’s list is stingy.
