Fall in the Garden

Now that it is officially Autumn in my garden, I have taken my Summer blinders off and noticed that it actually is beginning to look like Fall.

 

The trees in the background are just beginning to turn colors. Several of the beds are empty now after their residents have been harvested. The white row cover in the middle is protecting new fall cabbage from those awful cabbage moths that produce the even more awful cabbage worms that I struggled with last Fall. Several beds have been re-seeded with lettuce and spinach.

All that's left to harvest from the Summer's bounty is sweet potatoes and the last of the green beans, potatoes, tomatoes and peppers. Soon it will be time to turn our attention to the Fall/Winter crops in the  greenhouse.

I guess I must admit, Fall is actually here.

Building Stoop Houses to help with Frost Protection

In last week's post I showed you my broccoli plants and this week the heads have continued getting larger. We have been lucky enough to have no frost this week, so the leaves have not been damaged any further.

The Cabbage and lettuce beds are also looking great.

Frost is coming back tonight however, and we are in for a very cold week or longer. If I keep only using the row covers over the broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage and lettuce, the season will finally be over.

I don't want harvest season to end, so today I put up more hoops and plastic sheeting to make mini greenhouses. In The 12-Month Gardener, Jeff Ashton calls this type of frost protection a "Stoop House".

That name is appropriate because to tend to the vegetables, you lift up the side of the plastic and "stoop" down.

How to Make a Simple Stoop House:

My raised beds are framed with untreated 4x6 lumber and are four feet wide. Ten foot PVC pipes bend over the four foot span to make nice hoops. The key to doing this is providing a way to attach the pipe. I used 3/4" diameter pipe and attached pipe brackets to the outside of the raised beds.

I found it to work best if I put two brackets per pipe on each side. The top bracket was the 3/4" size and the bottom one was the 1" size. This kept the arch at the correct angle.

After getting the brackets attached, I slip one side of the pipe in.

Then I bend it down and slip it in the brackets on the other side. A pipe should be place every three to four feet. One of my stoop houses is covering a 4 foot by 12 foot bed and the other covers two beds that are four by four.

After the hoops were up, I put the row covers back on to add a second layer of protection.

Then I put the 6 mil plastic sheeting on. Greenhouse plastic is best, but I just used normal plastic sheeting from the hardware store. I have greenhouse plastic I could use because I bought extra when we built our greenhouse last month. I'm saving that plastic to expand the actual greenhouse next season. Besides, these stoop houses are temporary and will work just as well with regular plastic.

I staple the plastic directly to the wood frame on one side.

I only staple to one side, not the other or the ends. That way I can easily vent one side or take the plastic completely off during sunny days. You don't want to keep the plants completely covered on sunny days because the hoop house can quickly heat up and damage or kill the plants. Remember, these stoop houses contain cold-tolerant vegetables. The main purpose of these mini greenhouse poly tunnels is to keep frost off of the plants. At least until it gets really cold, I will probably pull back the plastic each morning, and batten down the hatches every evening. This is what the stoophouses will look like every night:

I sure hope they work. I want to be able to still be eating fresh salads and broccoli in December.

Fall Gardening Continues

This week the weather is going to be nice, but last week's low temperatures got down in the 20s. I have been keeping everything covered with row covers.

The hoops are there to put plastic over when it gets really cold. I still need to cut a piece of greenhouse plastic to go on them.

This is one of the beds that broccoli is growing in.

I did cover the hoops with a small piece of plastic and sheets on the coldest nights, but we have had frost several other nights with just the row cover as protection. The broccoli florettes still look good, but some of the leaves were damaged by the frost.

A few of the broccoli heads are large enough to pick now, but there are others that still need a week or so. Next weekend we will undoubtedly be eating fresh broccoli and broccoli casserole. Hopefully, there will still be plenty left at the end of the month as well for Thanksgiving. Yum!

First Fall Frosts; Gardening Continues!

Our first Fall frost hit pretty much on schedule, and now three out of the last four nights we have seen heavy frost.

For my friends and neighbors who have a vegetable garden, this marks the absolute end of the season as they peer out at their now dead tomato plants.

For me however, vegetable gardening continues. Frost simply marks the beginning of an exciting Fall garden. This weekend my family transplanted the last of our broccoli and cauliflower plants, planted garlic and potato onions and harvested lettuce and other greens. My daughter enjoyed planting the garlic.

We have lots of cabbage and broccoli coming on, but full heads won't be ready for another week or so.

Our best Fall garden success so far has been with salad crops. In just a couple 4x4 square foot beds we have been picking all the salad we can eat for the past month, and hope to continue for at least another month.

Lettuce, greens and Brassicas all grow well when it is cool. Many gardeners raise them in the Spring but don't think of growing them in the Fall. Now that it is freezing at night though, the trick is to keep the plants from freezing. This week it is only getting down into the thirties, so covering them with row covers is enough protection.

Soon I will cover the beds with hoops and plastic or cold frames for added protection. The last of the lettuce transplants will be planted inside the insulated greenhouse beds to hopefully extend salad season into December.

Growing vegetables in the Fall and Winter is a little extra work, but I think it is worth it. It was pretty neat being out in the garden in the cool air this weekend as the Canadian Geese sang above me on their journey south.

The geese show that nature is getting ready for Winter, so I must ready my garden for it as well.

How about you? Those of you who are also headed into the cold season, do you continue growing or harvesting in the Fall and Winter? All tips and pointers are welcome.

Thanksgiving Snow on the Cabbages

Here in Kentucky, we got to enjoy a few Thanksgiving snow flurries. For many, it put them into the Christmas spirit and made them want to go shopping early on "Black Friday". For me, it made me want to go see how the garden is doing. While the masses were up early fighting the crowds at the stores, I was taking these pictures of the snow on our cabbages.

Now that it is getting colder, I wish I would have made the cold frames that I planned to. With the aid of cold frames, you can grow keep the garden growing practically all year long. I plan to build many coldframes this winter and be ready to use them for early spring sowing. I will let you know when those are built.

Without the cold frames, I still have broccoli, cabbage, Brussels sprouts and carrots in the garden. Of course, my main crop is still compost.

This pile below has cooled off and is ready to be turned. It is easy to tell since the snow that fell on it didn't melt.

See how the snow didn't stick to the top of this pile:

That's because the top of this pile is made of used bedding from our Guinea Pigs and what's left of the jack-o-lanterns. Both are decaying rapidly and are still warm.

I hope to make another sizable compost pile soon. I have plenty of brown material available and since it hasn't been very cold here for very long, green grass is also still available. If I bag up some grass and mix it with leaves and dead garden plant material, I will have a really hot compost pile in which no snow will stick.

I doubt I'll get that accomplished this weekend. I plan to spend what's left of Thanksgiving weekend with my family actually being thankful for all we have but do not deserve. As for Christmas shopping, I'll do my part by staying out of the way of those frantic shoppers!