What can I plant now?

[RedheadErin]

Yay! I finally have some time to plant a garden!

I am thinking to dig up one of my 4 X 8 raised beds and put in some late-summer veggies. I am in Zone 5. What do you think?

 

[canesisters]

GO For It!!

What are you thinking of planting?

 

[Ridgerunner]

Zone 5. You need someone in that zone to help you. There are a few on here that can definitely help though it might be beneficial if they knew a bit more about your location.

You can contact your county extension agent, in the phone book under county government, and chat with them. They should be able to tell you and maybe even help with varieties.

The two things that immediately come to mind are radishes and loose leaf lettuce. But Im not in that zone. I could be wrong very easily.

 

[digitS']

Zone 5 means subzero winters but doesn't really tell us anything about typical fall weather, including the first frost. Another thing that would make a difference is hours of sunlight. They are decreasing and the farther north, decreasing quickly! Right down to giving me about 8 hours of horizon-hugging sunlight on the first day of winter. Mountains or prairies make a difference, too.

I don't know about radish. I planted seed in full sun about a month ago --> Mostly, it has worked ! A few years ago, radish seed sown in afternoon shade during the summer never made bulbs. Lots of tops and long, stringy roots . . .

It is too late for lettuce here. I tried it with bok choy seed in August a few years ago and it never made enuf growth to amount to anything. Once the weather began to cool, the lettuce completely stopped growing. Really, it is too late for me to sow any more bok choy this year altho', there are seedlings to transplant

How about something for next year like spinach or garlic? Someone who grows these crops thru the winter would have to comment.

Steve

 

[Gardening with Rabbits]

It is too late for lettuce here.


Steve

I planted 3 or 4 different kinds and it is up, but now I wonder just how long it will take. I also planted beets and spinach. I have some older beets I planted around Aug. 1 and then some a week or so ago. The spinach I am worried about. I am not sure if it is still too hot, so I was going to plant some more in a couple of days and then when I plant garlic in Oct. I am thinking about planting spinach and mulching good.

 

[Chickie'sMomaInNH]

garlic you can plant soon, but that grows through winter and can be harvested next july/august. you could try some cool weather loving veggies but most times you want to get those started at the end of July or beginning of August. if you have some cold frames or low tunnel hoop houses you can help keep the frost from zapping some quick growing lettuce and cole crops like broccoli. there are some carrots and radishes that can grow quickly in tunnels too. Peas can tolerate cool weather and a light occasional frost. they just can't tolerate continuous frosts.

 

[Ridgerunner]

One of the problems I have with the fall garden is that things can tolerate light frost and all that, but they quit growing like Steve said. There is just not enough sunlight and warmth for them to continue to develop. The days are getting shorter and the air and ground cooler. The sunlight is weaker because its coming from further away through the earths atmosphere. Those days to maturity just dont mean the same in the fall.

Kale and chard can take a light frost and it helps the taste, but they dont grow back once I harvest the leaves, as an example. If I can get carrots to eating size, I can mulch them and have sweet carrots all winter, but they have to get to eating size. Its rough getting carrot seeds to sprout when it is in the upper 90s and hasnt rained in several weeks. Those tiny carrot seeds (or lettuce) are right on the top of the ground where it dries out really quickly. You can put a board or such on them to help hold the moisture in to sprout them, but when you remove that the tiny seedlings can dry out. Its a challenge to get some of those cool weather crops started in the heat of summer. I still try.

Ill put this one here. Im laughing about it but it still hurts. I struggled this year to find broccoli starts to transplant but finally found some. A rabbit immediately ate all six to the ground. Its too late to start any more with rabbit protection if I could even find them. Who said this stuff is easy? Theres always something!

 

[digitS']

I would like to have a home garden spinach salad very early in the growing season. Orache is a good alternative for me but it sure makes for a purple salad! Maybe I should try one of those varieties of orache that is a little more green.

I'd be more willing to start spinach now, and a lot of people have success with over-wintering it, but I'd like to transplant it later. I can't remember ever transplanting spinach and have had people tell me that it just encourages it to bolt . . . So, it would have to stay where it is and I'd have to do the early garden cultivation around it . Orache self-sows and it will be all-over-the-place! It does fine transplanted and certainly needs thinned - I try not to do too much of the thinning with a rototiller . But, if there are a dozen plants along the edge of a bed after I've gone thru and loosened the soil - those are for the kitchen. If there is some over near the compost pile out of traffic - those are for the kitchen. If MORE orache volunteers in the potato bed after the seed spuds have gone in the ground - those are for the kitchen.

Rabbits sure do like broccoli and cabbage in the spring. They virtually ate all of my cabbage this year so that when the cabbage came back to life, I'd already put the late-planted zucchini between them. There wasn't much of a race as to which would take over the bed. Now, I've got a few miserable cabbage plants overwhelmed by the zucchini. I really should have just pulled them out. But, you never know - the rabbit might want more and eating those rather than the beans . . :/ . . ♪ ♫ Kill the rabbit, kill the rabbit ♫ ♪ ♫ !

Oh! Gardening with Rabbits! I am curious how your beets will do . . . I've had trouble with getting 'em goin' in the summer heat. Yes, it would sure be nice to have a crop of something young & tender that would be big enuf to stumble over in October!

I've got beans drying on that greenhouse bench that I'm taking out and replacing with a bed of Asian greens. There are lots more beans to go in there but I think I can move them to the narrow front bench. I may add some seeds to the transplants in that greenhouse bed - maybe that would be a good place for some lettuce & spinach seed!!

Steve