Cool Season Vegetables

Plant cool season veggie starts like broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, chard, lettuce, spinach, brussels sprouts, onions and leeks in soil enriched with 4-6" of compost as summer vegetable crops will have used up much of your soil’s nutrients.

You can sow seeds of beets, carrots, radishes, spinach, arugula, mustard and peas directly in the ground.
If you aren’t going to grow vegetables in the garden this fall consider planting a cover crop like crimson clover after you’ve harvested your summer vegetables.  Next month I’ll talk about how to go about doing this and how this benefits your soil.

This is also the time to start perennial flowers seeds so that they’ll  be mature enough to bloom next year. 

 Now through October, divide summer blooming perennials like agapanthus, coreopsis, daylilies and penstemons that are overgrown and not flowering well.  You can also divide spring blooming perennials like candytuft, columbine, astilbe, bergenia and bleeding heart but sometimes they don’t bloom the first spring afterwards due to the energy they use re-establishing themselves.  If you’re on  a roll out in the garden, though, go for it now.  You never know what other projects you may be working on next spring. 

Enjoy our early fall weather out in your garden.