Do you ever wish you could serve your family fresh vegetables right from your own backyard? Or, do you plant a spring and summer edible garden every year but not a fall garden?
Here is an Oklahoma gardening secret: Some of the best-quality garden vegetables are produced and harvested during the fall season when warm, sunny days are followed by cool, humid nights. Under these climatic conditions, plant soil metabolism is low, therefore more of the food manufactured by the plant becomes a high-quality vegetable product.
Some of the most beautiful Oklahoma vegetable gardens I have ever grown were produced in the fall season.
Although we are experiencing the hottest part of summer right now, it is actually time to start thinking about getting ready for fall gardening and fall lawn tasks.
There is so much to do in the fall, and timing is key on most of these activities.
To ensure a bountiful harvest in the fall, gardeners need to start getting ready now. As with any garden, adequate soil preparation is important for the garden to succeed.
The answer to improve almost any soil condition is organic material like compost. Organic matter needs to be incorporated into sandy soil to help reduce the drying of the soil and improve the water and nutrient holding capacity. Heavy clay soil combined with organic matter will improve soil aeration, water absorption and drainage.
If you do not have access to your own compost, consider purchasing some from a local materials company, municipal composting facility or even getting bagged products to add to your new or existing garden soil.
Many cool-season fall crops need to be sown from seed in mid-August, including beets, carrots, leaf lettuce, collard greens and radishes. Wait until Sept. 1 to seed spinach and kale since the soil needs to cool slightly for best germination.
You can also successfully sow some summer warm-season crops like cucumber, summer squash and green beans for fall harvesting during the first three weeks of August.
As a gardening rule of thumb, vegetable seeds should be planted no deeper than three times the diameter of the seed. With small seed such as carrots, this would be no more than ¼ inch deep. High soil temperature would be problematic for seeds planted at this depth.
Unless the soil remains moist at the depth where the seeds have been planted, germination will not take place. This is especially true with carrots. Applying mulch over the row following planting and watering with soaker hose or drip irrigation should overcome the germination problems. Remove the mulch after seedlings emerge.
Broccoli, cauliflower and cabbage will all do wonderfully in the fall garden, often much better than in the spring, but must be grown from four- or five-week-old transplants — and plan to plant by mid-August. Remember to water these deeply and often just after transplanting to help the transplants get started.
For you garlic lovers, garlic cloves should be planted sometime in September for an early summer garlic harvest next year. Garden centers definitely will have these bulbs in stock for you to purchase. Separate and plant each clove about 4 inches apart and cover with about 2 inches of soil.
The Oklahoma State University Extension Service has a great fact sheet on fall gardening that provides planting times and tips for all the best fall-planted crops (HLA-6009 Fall Gardening.) This fact sheet and many other helpful ones can be found at http://factsheets.okstate.edu/ or stop by your County Extension office to pick them up.
Get more Oklahoma garden tips on The Oklahoman.
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