July 15 - 30 I plant fall peas and beans, and one last round of summer squash. This article goes into detail about fall gardening but I will give you my planting schedule below. You can read my article Fall Gardens Are The Best to learn more about them. I start the process again in July to get ready for fall planting. In the past, I have traded work for flats of plants. I don’t raise any bedding plants per se – those flowers we think of going in pretty pots or window planters. You can also pot up your volunteers and sell them at the market, give them to friends, or trade. Marigolds are good companion plants for tomatoes and peppers. I have done this several times with marigolds. You can gently dig up the young seedlings and transplant them where you want them. If you save the seeds overwinter them in a cool location so they know there has been a winter. However, make sure you have open-pollinated heirloom varieties. You can also harvest the seed heads for planting next spring. If I’m on top of things I like to cover the area with about two inches of straw to protect them over winter. This gives the seeds time to ripen and dry out. To allow the flowers to self-sow stop deadheading and cutting in mid-August. The catch is that if you are rotating crops they may no longer be in a good location. Self-SeedingĬalendula, bachelor buttons, marigold are self-seeding and will come back year after year. Also, many flowers readily self-seed and do the work for you. Some such as zinnias and sunflowers often get direct sown in the garden. In a milder spring, I have started them in the greenhouse. I think they catch up easily and it doesn’t seem to make my blooming time that far off. Often, I just wait until the bulk of my veggie plants are in and then sow flowers. Since I have a small grow light area flowers often get pushed to the back. Calendula looks great and has medicinal properties as well. Nasturtiums have a wonderful peppery flavor that perks up a salad. They attract pollinators and other beneficial insects, my bees love them, and they are good companion plants for many vegetables. Secondly, flowers do some good work in your garden. A mix of annuals, perennials, and the wildflowers in my field make beautiful bouquets. I love to fill my house with them in summer. First, they are pretty, and I enjoy them. I plant Brussel Sprouts in early June as I want them to mature n the fall. In May I start planting summer lettuce varieties. I typically will plant beans and squashes every two weeks. Going into summer I will continue to fill in the gaps. A blessing after a very scary night spent with the dogs between two mattresses! So I still had spring lettuce and peas growing. However, my outside raised beds along the fence line were more protected and weathered the storm. Many of the plants growing inside it were beaten up by wind and rain. We had an outside animal enclosure get flattened (luckily no one was in it) and the greenhouse plastic was just shredded. In April of 2020, my farm was hit by an F1 tornado. My mother used to say “Don’t put all your eggs in one basket”! If cabbage lopers find the plants out in the garden, hopefully, the ones in the raised bed under garden fabric will have avoided them. Using different planting methods also will give you crop security. I want to find the best micro-climate for my plants and get the most production at the same time. Probably the biggest reason is that I love the variety and I am a scientist at heart. I use a number of different ways to start my seeds and different methods to grow crops. Why I Use Various Methods for Starting Seeds and Growing Plants I start seeds inside, direct seed them in the garden, and start them from either seeds or transplants in the greenhouse. I use a variety of ways to get plants started. Read my article Work That Plan to help you set goals for the garden. This is why when you look at my planting chart you will see a crop multiple times. That way you can continue to have nice fresh salads all year long. Some lettuce is very hardy in cool weather and some varieties will grow in summer (often with shade cloth). This works well with lettuce, beans, and corn. By planting early and late varieties of the same crop you can extend your harvest. You can also do the same crop successions. And when the warm weather crops are done have cool weather transplants ready to go such as cabbage and broccoli. When one crop is done replace it with another.Įarly crops such as cool weather lettuce, spinach, and radishes can be planted in March and done harvesting by May. Never leave a space empty during the growing season. Succession planting is one way to have an abundant harvest. As you start planting this year, keep in mind the importance of succession planting.
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