Phillips: Fall planting

Kind of hard to believe that August is almost over and gardening is slowing down. Do a search of “first frost date in 63780”, which is the Scott City area code. It comes up the middle of October. So, we have less than two months of growing time here in the Scott City area before the average first frost. Who knows, it may frost the beginning of October but it may wait until up into November. The key is plant frost-hardy plants or plants that mature quickly.

We normally plant purple top turnips the middle of August. They will germinate in a few days, and with a little moisture they will grow like weeds. Turnips have a natural weed suppressant in them, making them ideal cover crops. We try to plant most of our garden to turnips in the fall. Turnips are frost-hardy as well, and turnips will stay good to eat until the temps get down into the single digits. Make sure they are purple top turnips. Cabbage or Swiss chard or collards are also good for fall crops. All three are frost-hardy. Another fall crop is beets. I’ve had beets here in Missouri winter over in the ground, and most will still be good in the spring. Fall is a perfect time to plant some Chinese cabbage. There is a gentleman here locally who always has an abundant crop of Chinese cabbage. We usually plant carrots in the spring, but I wonder how they’d do in the fall? Might have to try that.

An excellent fall crop is green beans. Most green beans will mature in 50 to 70 days. We like Contender green beans and Jade. Jade is a tad longer, and the bush gets a little bigger. Both have an excellent taste, and both will can up in quart jars very well. If you plant about now, they should be good to make by the first frost in October. If it would happen to frost early, simply cover the row with a frost blanket. Most years, after a frost or two it warms up into "Indian summer".

I like to plant cucumbers about right now. Cucumbers usually take about 60 days from plant to harvest. I like to start my cucumbers in peat pots and when they are up and growing, transplant them into the garden. Where it’s fall like it is, I wouldn’t plant them to grow vertically. Plant them on the ground and let them spread out. I planted 24 peat pots recently of Sweet Success cucumbers. They are listed as 52 days, so they should make. Sweet Success is a burpless almost seedless cucumber that is never bitter. I’ll plant them to spread on the ground so I can cover them. There isn’t much better than the crunch of a cucumber on a cool fall morning. Talk about good and crunch! Radishes are always a quick grow, as is lettuce.

About this time of the year, you should be picking tomatoes and peppers. If you have heirlooms or open-pollinated tomatoes or peppers, watch for outstanding examples of both. Do a taste test to make sure the tomato is good and tasty, or the pepper has a definite sweet pepper taste. Then save the seeds. Peppers are easy. Scrape the seeds onto a paper towel and let dry. Store them in a paper envelope, and I like to then store them in the freezer. Take the seeds from the tomato, add a couple spoons of water and then let them sit for several days till they mold. Rinse until the water is clear, then dry and store in a paper envelope in the freezer. Be sure to label them.

I like to also order the seed that I definitely want to plant next year about this time of year. Some things I’ll wait until early spring to order, but things such as green beans, certain heirloom tomatoes, some cucumbers as well as other veggies seem to sell out, and they aren’t available the following year or so late in the summer they are worthless. The only seed I’ve had trouble germinating as it ages are some flower seeds.

Phillips began life as a cowboy, then husband and father, carpenter, a minister, gardener and writer. He may be reached at phillipsrb@hotmail.com.