While garden cleanup chores top many a gardener’s list these days, now is also time to start up a fall kitchen garden. What is a kitchen garden? I consider it a smaller vegetable garden, usually in containers, near the house. Typically, it is composed of herbs, salad greens, scallions and carrots, just a few simple veggies for soups and salads. But, it also can be a big deal out in the main garden if you wish.
Here are a few tips on getting started:
USE CONTAINERS: The beauty of using a few large containers, as opposed to growing vegetables in the ground, is that there is no weeding, no mess and no mud. Larger containers, say 18 inches or more wide and deep, can accommodate winter root crops like beets and carrots.
CONSIDER SOIL AND FERTILIZER: Using a top quality potting soil at the outset will assure success. About halfway after filling the container, add a thin layer of 4-4-4 all-purpose organic fertilizer. Then, scratch some in at the top after planting. This will last the entire life of the crop.
WATER: Until the rains begin in earnest frequent watering of young transplants is a must. Using a rice straw mulch after planting will help prevent the soil from drying out too much.
COLD IS GOOD: Chilly nights of autumn are good for cool season vegetables. Carrots are sweeter, crisper. Salad greens, kale and chard are extra sweet and crunchy, too.
PROVIDE PROTECTION: Fall-planted vegetables really take off during these warm, sunny afternoons. And late summer pests like white cabbage butterfly, flea beetle and leaf miner are also out and about to feed on young transplants. Row cover is a cheap, easy way to keep these pests at bay.
GET STARTED NOW: This time of year you will find a wide variety of salad greens, Asian greens and cole crops like broccoli, cabbage, kale. These days, nurseries offer a wide variety of locally grown transplants.
WATCH OUT: Slugs and snails are the only pests to keep an eye on. They will come creeping after an early rain, or dark mornings of heavy fog. Putting out organic slug bait at planting time and then again after rain arrives will keep them under control.
Terry Kramer is the retired site manager for the Humboldt Botanical Garden and a trained horticulturist and journalist. She has been writing a garden column for the Times-Standard since 1982. She currently runs a gardening consulting business. Contact her at 707-834-2661 or terrykramer90@gmail.com.
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