Fresh Start for the Vegetable Garden: Fall 2017 Goals

Plan What You Sow!

(You can also read about how I planned my spring-time garden here:  Planning, Preparation, and Planting - Part 1 .)

Good to Go and Ready to Sow!

At the very least, sort your seeds.

So, while the cover crop of cow peas were doing their thing this summer I got to do my thing:

 Plan out the garden.

 This is probably one of my favorite parts of the whole gardening process.  It is a time of excitement for me.  Each harvest feels a little bit like Christmas - you never know what you'll get but it's all a gift.  It also is a time for second chances.  So what if something didn't grow well last season?  Start fresh!  Try anew!

I just love it.  

Things to Consider

Goals for the fall/winter garden

I want a simple, easy to maintain garden this fall.  Nothing fancy.  I also want some of the plants to be able to carry into the winter and maybe into the spring.

I need to ensure that the garden will be easily maintained to leave plenty of time to play kickball or frisbee with Reese.

Obviously.

Crop rotation

Planting a cover crop helps give me a fresh start.  It's like having a blank canvas.  I looked at the types of plants most commonly planted in the fall:  leaves and roots.  So, in order to keep rotation as easy as possible from here on out (fingers crossed), I decided to go with leaves on the left and roots on the right.

Plants

Once I knew my categories I could pick plants within them.  I looked at all my leafy vegetable seeds.  Broccoli and cauliflower have been very difficult to grow.  I wanted a sense of success this go 'round so I just said, nah.  I did have some turnip green, kale, arugula, and lettuce seeds that I thought I might plant.  Roots were just as easy.  Carrots and radishes were past winners and therefore clear choices.  I also had some rutabaga seeds.  Despite my trepidation, I decided to include onion seeds, even though I've never had any success with them, generally speaking.

Hey, what about that cover crop?

Glad you asked!  The cow peas grew very well.  They were spread just by scattering them across the garden.  We did weed a little bit before we planted them, but not much.  Incidentally we only used the cover crop on half the garden.  Initially, we forgot to do the back portion.  But, honestly, as the summer wore on, we just didn't care anymore.  Good enough was going to have to be good enough.

With the way it spread, it didn't matter a lot that the entire garden wasn't seeded.  The cow peas thoroughly covered EVERYTHING in its path.  It definitely choked out weeds as well as the sunflowers I planted.  I had hoped the vine would just climb up, not over, the sunflower stems.  Turns out that was a bad pairing.  The cow peas did not bloom until very late in the summer/early fall, which is fine (perhaps even good) because I really didn't want them to start producing - they were just there for cover.  I absolutely would plant it again.

How do you prepare for the new season?  What's growing on with you?

Take care,

Rebecca