Fall Vegetable Gardening: What to Plant in September

Are you the kind of gardener who thinks the season is over once your tomatoes ripen? Maybe life got in the way and you didn't plant a summer garden and think it's too late to grow anything? Well, I have good news for you. Fall vegetable gardening is a thing and here's what to plant in September.

The First Frost

The most important thing to consider when deciding what to plant in your garden in September is figuring out when the first fall frost happens in your gardening zone. For example, the Farmer's Almanac Frost Chart says that the first fall frost happens in Chicago on October 24. Figuring this date out is important because I know that if I plant seeds the first week of September (at the latest) I will have at least 54 growing days. Which is plenty of time for a lot of cool season crops.

Preparing the Garden for Fall Planting

Hate to the bearer of bad news but you're going to have to tear out the last of your summer crops if you need to make room for planting fall season crops and seedlings. That means tear out the tomatoes, peppers, melons and cucumbers that are limping along. Since your soil is depleted, it is a good idea to amend your garden soil with some fresh compost.  

Seeds to Sow in September for Fall Vegetable Gardening  

You won't have time to start seeds indoors for a fall vegetable garden so your best bet is to direct sowing seeds right in the soil. However, you should check with your local garden centers to see what seedlings and starts may be available in your area for planting.

To get a great fall harvest stick to crops that mature in 40 days or less. Fast-growing crops like greens and root crops will make planting a fall vegetable garden worth it and extend your growing season.

Radishes
Arugula
Mustard
Spinach
Turnips
Carrots
Green onions
Tatsoi
Mizuna
Beets
Broccoli
Kale
Cabbage
Swiss chard
Brussels sprouts
Lettuce
Collards

Caring for your Fall Garden

Don't let the cooler temps and rainy weather of fall lull you into a false sense of security. You will need to water your seedlings and starts. Newly amended soil looks darker, and sometimes you don't get enough rain to really soak the ground. The soil may look like it's really moist on the surface, but be really dry if you go deeper than an inch.

If you're really worried about a frost killing your fall vegetable garden, you can cover your crops with a blanket, sheets or buy dedicated row covers. If you're growing in a raised bed, you could even build a dedicated cold frame to protect your plants. However, many fall crops--like Swiss chard--will taste sweeter if they're allowed to be "kissed" by frosts and some--like spinach--could overwinter with a bit of protection.

What's your favorite plant to grow in your fall vegetable garden?

Urban Farms Are a Threat To Garden Hegemony

If you read some gardening blogs you may come away with the impression that the biggest gardening trend is vertical gardening or removing lawns and creating garden designs that are more sustainable.  Open a newspaper and you’ll read about how vegetable gardening continues to rise in popularity in 2011 due in large part to a fallow economy and our feelings of uncertainty. Stories of cities like Chicago, Detroit, and Decatur, Ga., embracing the trend of urban agriculture and rewriting laws to encourage and protect community gardens and urban farming are as common as orange daylilies.  People want to grow their own food and they want to grow it close to home; in their front yards and their backyards, side-by-side with their neighbors. Yet there’s this segment of the population that sees this progress and is deciding to double-down and fight back against the tide by legislating away expressions of urban agriculture.

The most famous example this year is that of Julie Bass of Michigan whose plight was made popular after Colleen Vanderlinden wrote about it for TreeHugger and the internet descended on the story forcing lawmakers to backdown. For this trailer park homesteader the possibility of the property manager ending up on the six o’clock news was enough to allow her to keep her garden going.

Photos Adam Guerrero's Facebook page.

Lettuce 'Sea of Red'

Up until recently I'd never been the kind of gardener who thought of vegetables as beautiful. Sure, I believe that vegetable gardens as a whole can be beautiful, but taken individually the plants in vegetable gardens never struck me as beautiful. Does it even matter if your vegetables, fruits and herbs are beautiful? Don't they all end up looking the same after they've served their purpose? When I knew I would be growing petunia 'Black Cat' in my container garden this year I went in search of other things, primarily vegetables and herbs, I could grow around it that would compliment the dark hues of 'Black Cat.' Lettuce 'Sea of Red' is one of those vegetables with style.

Pollinating Cucumber Flowers

Cucumber plants are usually monoecious meaning the plants have separate male and female flowers on the same plant. The same is true for their relatives, squash, cantaloupes, and watermelons. The flowers on cucumbers are usually pollinated by insects, but in their absence you can hand-pollinate the female cucumber flowers yourself. In the illustrated guide below I'll show you how to identify the female cucumber flower and pollinate cucumber plants in your own garden.

Chitting Seed Potatoes Before Planting

Potatoes are usually grown from what is called "seed potatoes," seed potatoes are not true seeds. They're potatoes that are meant to be grown to produce more potatoes. Seed potatoes are dormant, like any other tuberous garden plant, when you buy them. Chitting is a method used to sprout seed potatoes before planting. Last year I grew my potatoes in a bucket on the porch and had great success, even though I never chitting involved. This year I decided to give chitting a try.

Growing Potatoes In Buckets Or Trash Cans

When I think of potatoes I don’t often think about growing them on a porch in a city and I certainly don’t think about them growing in buckets or trash cans. The last couple of years there has been a lot written about growing spuds in trash cans and buckets in urban gardens and part of the reason I decided to grow them for the first time above ground. Growing potatoes in buckets or trash cans is so easy that I’d recommend it for any small-space urban gardeners and for container gardening enthusiasts. While not as glamorous as growing tomatoes in small spaces growing your own potatoes is just as rewarding when you sit down and take a bite of spuds you grew yourself.

Ornamental Sweet Potato Vine Propagation

Ornamental sweet potato vine, Ipomoea batatas, are regular fixtures in many gardens and public plantings all over. Their drought tolerant nature make them ideal low-maintenance plants, perfect for container gardens, hanging baskets and mass planting in beds. Ornamental sweet potato vines are grown mostly for their foliage, but I really enjoy their flowers. Especially the flowers of sweet potato cultivars like 'Blackie.'

 

The Garden Patch Grow Box

The Garden Patch Grow Box is similar to the Deluxe Grow Box I reviewed in a previous post. While smaller and with a few more pieces to assemble, the Garden Patch's Grow Box is still an attractive option for small-space gardeners, urban farmers and container gardeners. After testing both of these Grow Boxes for review on this blog I don't think I can go back to standard garden containers. The "self-watering" containers make vegetable gardening in small spaces rather foolproof. The dimensions of this Grow Box are smaller than the Deluxe Grow Box, but don't let that stop you from choosing this version.

Deluxe Grow Box Self-Watering Planter

I previous blogged about how I experimented with a homemade self-watering container made out of two Styrofoam coolers. While I consider my attempt at making something similar to the Earthbox and the Grow Box a success, I wanted to know what it would be like to use the real thing. I'm talkinga bout one with like a brand name and everything. So, the good folks at Clean Air Gardening set me up with a Deluxe Grow Box to try on my porch garden and review.

How to Pollinate Strawberry Plants

Strawberries are self-fertile. Strawberry plants will pollinate themselves, but they usually need the assistance of wind or pollinators, such as bees, to do the work of transferring the pollen from the stamens, the male parts of the flowers, to the stigma, the female part of the flower. Once you can identify the stamen you'll be on your way to learning how to pollinate your strawberry plants.

This year has seen a dramatic decrease in honeybees visiting my ornamental garden, which is causing me to worry about the vegetables and herbs I'm growing that rely on pollinators like bees on the balcony garden. My strawberry plants began to bloom in the container garden and the lack of bees has meant that I've had a lot of strawberry blooms to go waste. They've opened and withered without setting fruit, until I stepped in and act as the pollinator.

Homemade Sub-Irrigation Planter Like The EarthBox and Grow Box

Last summer, at a farmers market, I met a photographer who was telling me about what it was like to be a professional photographer. As a gardener, his most interesting story was about traveling with a rock band ( I forget which one) that was socially conscious and liked to fund agriculture products in developing countries. They would start gardens in an Earthbox and auction them off at their concert stops. I'd heard about the EarthBox before and even the Grow Box before but the thought of these rockers starting gardens in them made them more appealing.

Grow Your Own Drugs And Great Grub

Grow Your Own Drugs and Grow Great Grub: Good garden books for beginner gardeners.
Ever since I first visited the medicinal plant garden in Chicago I've wanted to create a garden where I could grow many herbs, annuals and perennials that are used in alternative medicines. The idea of being able to create all-natural remedies from ingredients I'd grow and harvest right in my own garden really appeals to the urban homesteader inside me. It is a shame that with every successive generation we move further and further away from growing pharmacies in our gardens like our ancestors did, heck our grandparents did.

Chicago Spring Fling In Pictures

Didn't get a chance to take a lot of photos during Spring Fling but here are a few that I liked. My pictures of the Rick Bayless garden are over on my garden blog for ChicagoNow.com: Chicago Garden and my other post on the subject of Spring Fling is: Chicago Spring Fling in Words. Links in this post open in new window. If you hover your mouse over one of the garden photos you should get a description.

Parking lot Farm

Every once in a while I come across an unusual planting in Chicago and in most of those instances I never have a camera with me to document it. I always get a kick out of the weird places that people will grow a plant- be it edible or ornamental. Last summer I often would pass by a house where the home owner had converted his front stoop into a chili pepper farm of sorts. All ten steps were covered in old buckets growing many varieties of peppers. It was a sight to behold, if not a safety hazard. I never managed to take a picture no matter how many mental notes I made. I've been trying to do better at documenting these "extreme" instances of gardening this year. So far my record is not that great but here's one weird place for veggies that I noticed in Chicago.