Essential Steps for Planting a Fall Garden

Comfortable weather, fewer bugs, less weeding. Tasty leafy green varieties that continually produce all season long, and are packed with nutrition. There’s so much to love about gardening in Autumn! Consider these simple tips before you plant, and this just might be your best fall garden yet.

Timing 

Make sure that what you’re about to plant is actually a cold-hardy variety - i.e., it can survive night time temperatures that may dip down into the 20’s. Just double check the label to be sure - there’s no harm in confirming that you aren’t wasting money planting a heat-loving summer variety at the wrong time of year. Leafy green varieties like lettuces, kale, collards, Swiss chard, and arugula are all examples of cold hardy edible varieties.

Those fall seedlings may look strong and eager on the shelf at the at the local garden center. But going from a gentle nursery environment where the intensity of wind and sunlight are heavily controlled, and professional growers water them frequently, out into the ‘real world’ in your backyard, can stress even the most vigorous plant starts. When you bring them home, ‘harden off’ your new seedlings by setting them in a sunny area protected from wind for an hour or so. As a general rule, you’ll want to double the amount of time that the seedlings spend in this sheltered outdoor area each day, for the next few days. Of course, you’ll need to make adjustments for any extreme weather that pops up, like an unusually hot day or severe thunderstorm.

When your seedlings are ready to be planted in the garden, choose a cloudy day or plant them late in the afternoon to help make the transition a little easier for them.

Sunlight

Your garden got plenty of sun this summer, but as we move into autumn, and the sun shifts lower in the sky - from directly East to West down to SouthEast to SouthWest - will it still get at least four hours of sunlight? Hopefully the answer is ‘yes’, but sometimes nearby buildings, a fence, or tree will shade a garden too much as the days shorten during the fall.

Soil 

If you’re planting a fall garden right on the heels of a summer garden, the soil will need to be replenished before you plant your fall seedlings. This crucial step is skipped surprisingly often by gardeners who know better. Think about it - how did those huge tomato, cucumber and squash plants get so big? Because they fed heavily on the nutrients in the soil all summer long. It doesn’t matter how much organic compost and fertilizer you mixed in before you planted in the spring, when the summer plants are cleared out of the garden, the soil is now spent ; there isn’t enough nutrition left to feed hungry fall varieties like kale and collards.  After clearing the summer plants from your garden beds, top-off the soil with an organic soil blend and fertilizer. Shop with your local nursery or garden center for the best quality organic soil and fertilizer - products there will be a step up from what you’ll get a Home Improvement center.

 

Water

Even healthy, hardened-off seedlings will experience some transplant shock. Minimize this with a generous watering them when you transplant them, and then frequent watering - perhaps even daily - for the first week. Consider that the root systems of your new fall seedlings are only a few inches deep, so you don’t need to shower them for twenty minutes at a time to soak their tiny root zones. The idea is to help them get established by keeping their roots evenly moist. Remember that overwatering can damage or kill any plant, so give your new fall seedlings enough water during that first week to help them get established in their new environment - don’t drown them.

Pests

One of the best things about fall gardening is that many insect pests taper off as the weather cools. But get too comfortable, because there are still a few fall garden insect pests that you’ll almost surely encounter, and cabbage worms are perhaps the most likely fall garden villain to watch out for. A white fluttering moth lays eggs on the undersides of the leaves of brassica varieties including cabbage, kale, collards, broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts and kohlrabi. These eggs hatch small worms that have a green color that closely matches the green color of brassica varieties. In fact, the similarity of the color is truly remarkable, and it’s easy to overlook cabbage worms that are sitting in plain view. So, inspect your plants frequently for cotton-colored eggs on the undersides of leaves, and for hatched, hungry cabbage worms, which are usually found along the center stems of the top sides of leaves. If you see damaged leaves on your broccoli and collards, it’s a good bet that cabbage worms aren’t far away. Inspect your plants often to find, and dispose of cabbage worms ; Like other insect pests, if left unchecked, they’ll quickly get a foothold in your garden. Once established, they can do serious damage and are much harder to eradicate.

How to Clean Outdoor Cedar Projects

All exterior wood projects will eventually weather and fade from exposure to the elements -  even wood that’s been stained, painted, or sealed. And even though its reputation for outdoor durability is well deserved, red cedar is no exception ;  a cedar garden bed or greenhouse in a sunny location will fade from red to silver in a matter of weeks from UV exposure. Fortunately most people seem to delight in the attractive silver color of weathered cedar, and their new cedar project couldn’t fade from red to sliver fast enough.  Give it few years, though, and you may want to freshen up the appearance of the wood a little. And if you do decide to clean your cedar garden beds, chicken coop, or potting bench, here are two ways to approach the task that will help keep your cedar wood project intact and help protect your family and landscape. 

Wood Cleaners

The most important consideration with wood cleaners is the impact the product will have on nearby plants and trees, not to mention pets and your family. This can’t be overstated, and stories abound of overzealous homeowners killing trees and landscape plants with harsh wood cleaners that contained bleach or toxic chemicals. If your cedar project has become shabby enough to need a heavy-duty, toxic cleaner, it may be time to replace the wood instead of trying to clean it.

Non-toxic cedar cleaning products that contain no bleach - like Wash Safe Cedar Wash or Strip & Brite from Timber Pro Coatings -  are your best bet. Both are powerful cleaners with no harmful fumes, and that are safe to use around people, pets, and vegetation.  Strip & Brite is a two-step cleaner for outdoor wood surfaces brightens heavily weathered, discolored wood. It’ll wash away mildew and strip off transparent and semi-transparent oil-based stains, but won’t strip acrylic stains, silicone or latex products, urethane, or paint. Choose one of these non-toxic wood cleaning products, and your plants and trees will love you for it! 

Pressure Washer

A pressure washer may just be the way to go, but before you begin, remember ;  pressure washers are powerful tools, and if you’re not careful, can damage your cedar project. Start slow and take it easy - you’re gently cleaning the wood surface, not etching your grocery list on it. For soft woods like cedar and pine, use the lowest pressure setting that still gets the job done - 500 or 600 PSI should be about right, but never go above 1200 PSI when cleaning wood. And you probably won’t even need to add a cleaning solution to get the results you want -  try cleaning with just water, first, and see how it goes.

The goal is an evenly clean appearance, with no missed spots or small strips of dirty wood. To achieve this, use a fan-tip with a 40-60 degree spread, and move the wand with a sweeping motion, with the tip at least 6” away from the surface of the wood. Spray with the wood grain, and move your body and arm laterally, back and forth to help maintain a consistent distance between the spray tip and the surface of the wood. 

Tareq Amin's Organic Garden

Tareq Amin has a thoughtful expression and gentle smile that could charm a saltwater crocodile, and the elegance and warmth of the family’s new home feels like an extension of this positive energy

And we were happy to find that the gently sloping area that Tareq had already scouted, was well suited for an organic garden.

With well over six hours of direct sunlight each day, and a gentle slope for good drainage, this garden site could grow any edible variety - even heat-loving summer vegetables like tomatoes, peppers, and eggplant - and would never become soggy during the rainier months of the year.

Plus, it was close to the kitchen. In fact, it’s just a short walk from the back door, past the swimming pool, and over to the next harvest of fresh organic produce. After all, a good organic garden site should be as convenient to the kitchen as possible. Who wants to hike a mile across the entire backyard just for some salad greens?

Tareq Amin's Organic Garden from Microfarm Organic Gardens on Vimeo.

 

Now, Tareq’s home may be new, but he’s been growing edible produce since he was a child, and he already had an expansive list of edible varieties that just had to find a place in his new garden. So we designed a raised bed layout with lots of garden area, and that could easily be expanded in the future. 

Tareq loved the Kitchen Garden raised bed design for the same reasons that seem to delight every owner ; the 18” height that makes gardening much more comfortable than lower raised bed designs, and the sturdy, all-cedar construction. Each one of the L-shaped raised beds in Tareq’s garden measure 3’ wide and 6’ long on the outer sides, and the square-shaped raised bed in the center measures 3’x 3’.

 

With a harmony of elegant proportion and pleasing lines, Tareq’s builder and landscape architect set the bar for visual appeal on his property very high. And since this raised bed design sits in a prominent area of the backyard - right behind the house, and beside the property line - we dressed it up with an elegant border of steel edging, and filled the area with white pea gravel that perfectly matches an existing pathway.

As always, our Kitchen Garden raised beds are filled with a premium organic soil and amendment blend that will never become compacted over time or have to be replaced. In the course of a year, the soil will settle a few inches, and a few bags of organic soil and a scoop or two of fertilizer between seasonal plantings are all that’s needed to keep the garden beds topped off with fertile soil, and the garden thriving.

And because this garden site has so much direct sunlight exposure, drip irrigation was essential. So we fitted the raised beds with 1/2” drip irrigation tubing that has clog-free emitters spaced 12” apart, that each deliver about a gallon of water per hour. The irrigation system is joined neatly underground between all of the garden beds, and connected to the property’s existing irrigation system. 

Five raised beds is a generous amount of garden, but Tareq is a vegetarian, and we know that the Amin family uses a LOT of fresh produce. So it was no surprise when we got the call to extend the back of the garden to add two more 3’x6’ raised beds.

We were more than happy to add those two new garden beds and extend the edging and gravel a little further - after all, that’s what we’re here for. And even though the new, larger garden has enough room to grow just about anything, we know how much Tareq loves gardening. And when the time comes to extend the garden just a little bit further, we’ll be ready.

Simple Steps for Storing and Saving Seeds

Saving and storing seeds from edible plants are perhaps the most satisfying skills a grower can master. Once you master this process, the beautiful organic produce from your garden is sure to be more rewarding, on top of better tasting and more nutritious. Seed saving is a skill worth learning, and if you’re ready to give it a try, or just need a refresher, you’ll find this short tutorial useful. 

Before you begin, consider that every plant must first be pollinated before it can produce seeds. Some plants are equipped to pollinate themselves, and others are pollinated by wind or insects, like bees, that carry pollen between plants. 

Self-pollinating annuals are usually the most consistent when it comes to producing seed with the same traits as the parent plant - things like taste, color, size, etc. Biennial varieties like cabbage, collards, and kale, flower or set seed during their second year, and sometimes need a little protection to survive harsh winters. Seeds from many perennial varieties can also be saved and stored.

Consider that only healthy plants yield high quality seeds, thus the seed saving process really begins with the soil and growing conditions in your garden. Collect seed only from the most vigorous plants - the best specimen from each variety. And remember that many plant diseases are seed-borne, so never collect seed from a diseased plant. Select parent plants based on desirable traits like early yield, insect and disease resistance, vigor, flavor, size, etc.

With almost all plant varieties, it’s necessary to wait until the seeds are completely ripe before collecting them, and usually, this means that the fruit itself will be long past ripe in terms of harvesting for food. But seeds harvested too soon have a low germination rate and tend to be less vigorous, so it’s important to wait even at the expense of a small amount of edible produce. Tomatoes, lettuce, and spinach are a few exceptions to this rule, and their seed germination rates don’t seem to suffer when the fruit is harvested a little under-ripe.

COLLECTING SEEDS

The method of collecting seeds will depend on the plant variety... 

TINY SEEDS from varieties like lettuce and onions are released as soon as the plant matures, and many growers tie a small paper bag over the seed heads to collect the tiny seeds as they’re released from the plant.

SEED PODS contain the seeds of varieties like beans and peas. Remove these pods from the plant, gently split them open, and spread the seeds out over paper to dry. 

FRUITS like melons and squash should be a little past ripe before their seeds are collected. Gently separate the seeds from the flesh, soaking them in water if needed to remove any remaining fruit residue, which can hold moisture and reduce the storage life of the seed. Thoroughly air-dry the cleaned seeds before storing. 

DRYING & STORING SEEDS

Harvesting seeds from healthy plants at the right time is only half of the process of seed saving. Remember that the viability and storage life of your seeds will also largely depend on the drying process and storage conditions. 

Spread your seeds out on clean paper in a dry area, sheltered from wind, for about one week. Many growers hang an incandescent light bulb or similar small heat source above the seeds to gently increase the temperature and reduce the humidity of the seed-drying area. Just remember that drying seeds too quickly can damage them, so adjust the conditions of your drying area as needed. 

Gently bend a seed to determine if it’s completely dry. Seeds that flex and snap back need to dry a little longer. Seeds that break, are fully dried and ready for storage. 

The main factors that affect the storage life of seeds are their moisture content, variety and quality, the drying process, and storage conditions. It’s essential that seeds be kept cool and dry during storage, or they’ll sprout or rot. Ideal storage conditions are a temperature between 32 and 41 degrees, with 20-40% humidity. This environment will prevent premature sprouting, and maintain a healthy seed moisture content of around 5-8%. To absorb excess moisture and help maintain this humidity range, some growers place silica gel in the storage container with the seeds. 

To be sure, saving and storing seeds isn’t the easiest task in the garden. It does require a little more foresight, planning, and patience than simply buying seeds every year, and the robust commercial seed market must be some testament to that. But nothing about organic gardening is really easy, is it? So go for it, and give seed saving a try. Start small with your seed collecting adventure - maybe just one favorite variety to begin with - and see where it takes you!

How to Brew Compost Tea in Just Three Easy Steps

Mixing organic compost into your garden’s soil is one of the best ways to deliver balanced nutrition to your plants - and arguably the best way to maintain soil fertility. But it does take a little time for roots to absorb all those beneficial nutrients, and for healthy improvement to show in the plants. There may be times when your plants need need a faster boost of nutrients, and when they do, it’s time to brew up a batch of healthy tea…compost tea. 

Brewing compost tea is a lot like brewing a cup of chamomile tea at bedtime. Compost tea recipes vary from ultra simple to elaborate, but in all of them the idea is the same ; leaching nutrients from the solid material in your compost pile into water that can then be sprayed directly onto plant foliage. 

The basic compost tea recipe below will set you on the path to success, but with a batch or two under your belt, you may want to experiment. We say, go for it!

STEP 1

Shovel a few pounds of finished compost into a porous cloth sack. An old pillowcase, flour sack, or similar cloth item with tightly woven material will work just fine. Serious compost tea brewers may opt for a specially-designed compost tea brewing bag with 400 micron sized pores that allows more of the nutrients, and beneficial organisms to pass through the material and into the compost tea. But an old pair of pantyhose works good, too.

STEP 2

Once you’ve filled and securely tied off the bag, set it in a 5 gallon bucket, or similar sized container. If you have a large garden with lots of needy plants, consider a larger container with a correspondingly larger compost “tea bag”. 

STEP 3

Fill the bucket with untreated rainwater. If this isn’t available, first fill the bucket with tap water and allow it to sit uncovered for a few days, then put in the bag of compost; this step allows much of the chlorine and other chemicals that are often present in tap water to evaporate away. The beneficial biodiversity in compost is sensitive to the chemicals in treated water, and the goal is to preserve as much of this as possible in your compost tea.

Many compost tea recipes suggest using a submersible aerator like the ones used in fish aquariums, while the tea brews . This isn’t absolutely necessary to brew compost tea, but it does provide additional oxygen to the hardworking aerobic bacteria in the tea. Without enough oxygen, anaerobic bacteria can sometimes steal the show and produce a bad-smelling tea that could do more harm than good to your garden. If you plan on making compost tea on a regular basis, invest in a submersible aerator - there are plenty to choose from, they aren’t that expensive, and will help ensure a successful batch of tea every time.

But if you do happen brew a smelly batch of compost tea, don’t use it on your garden plants - just discard it somewhere outdoors.

The ideal compost tea brewing temperature is around 70 degrees, but keep it somewhere between 55 and 95, and you should be fine.

And some compost tea recipes also call for adding a few tablespoons of horticultural molasses to the solution as food for aerobic bacteria. This step isn’t necessary, but if can nurture beneficial aerobic microorganisms while the tea brews. If you do add sugar or molasses, just remember to mix it in towards the end of the brewing process. Adding sugars like horticultural molasses to the tea too soon in the brewing phase, can cause those hardworking aerobic microorganisms to burn through the available nutrients too fast.

After two or three days, your compost tea should be ready to go. Simply pour the liquid into a pump sprayer, apply the solution to the tops and undersides of leaves, and stems of your plants, and smile as your garden springs back to life.