Saturday, October 30, 2010

Fall Garden: The First Attempt

This post is a recap of the fall planting, intended for our record-keeping.

For the fall garden, we sowed some seeds and planted starts from the Chattanooga Food Bank's Fall Planting Workshop on September 8, 2010. The plant list is at the end of this post.

The Food
Bank's workshop was great in some ways: for $15, we started 4 whole flats - and they kept in the greenhouse until the were ready to transplant. Given the pace of the fall semester, it was especially nice that we didn't have to baby the seedlings! We picked up the seedlings on October 5th and planted them within a couple of days.

We didn't know exactly what to expect from the weeks ahead...

I thought that we'd get to harvest more before the dark days of winter... boy, were we wrong! Although there we were able to pick cilantro and lettuce, there was just not enough time between early October and the first cold weather for most plants to mature.

For future reference: if we want a fall crop of brassicas (broccoli, kale) we need to start them in August and have them in the ground by mid-September. The Food Bank's workshop will be useful for acquiring cold-hardy starts (broccoli, kale, onions and garlic). But: we will expect these plants to overwinter for a March harvest. At some point, I'll write another post to discuss our first experience of overwintering crops.


Fall/Winter Plant List:

Sown: lettuce (several varieties), kale (lacinato; blue scotch), peas, and carrots.

Transplants: lettuce (red romaine), kale (redbor), onions (purple; copra), cilantro, broccoli (Blue Wind)

Planted: Garlic, elephant garlic, and bunching onions.

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