Fall planting

The past two days have felt fall-like... cool nights and mornings, crisp mid-day sun. These late days of August are trying to tell us that it's time to get those last fall crops in the ground.

In July we tried broccoli and cabbage again (I say "tried" because we didn't have much success earlier this season and are crossing our fingers with this planting). We sowed our fall root vegetables (carrots, beets, turnips, radish) by the first week of August, and have been succession sowing hardier greens every two weeks since then so we have a constant supply through November. These hardier greens include arugula, spinach, tatsoi cabbage, mustards, kale, bok choy and tendergreen. And we still have lettuce in the rotation.

We're also sowing buckwheat, a fast-growing smother crop, in three beds that will be used for garlic planting in October. Getting our hands on "seed" garlic has been tough, only because it is so expensive from many sources (e.g., 2 pounds for $39!). We'll try planting some of the garlic we've bought at local farmer's markets, and might just put in that expensive order, because garlic is just too good not to grow your own.