Time To Plant Your Fall Garden

In Alpharetta we enjoy relatively mild winters and can keep growing many vegetables straight through the winter. All you need to do is choose the right crops, time the planting right, and use a few smart techniques.

Growing Fall Tomatoes 
You can grow an abundant crop of fall tomatoes, but where can you buy young tomato plants in the middle of the summer? The easiest way to solve that problem is to cut small suckers from spring-planted tomatoes and let them grow to full-size plants.

You may have pinched out suckers at the first of the season, but some have grown back in the axil of the stems. The suckers should be 4 to 6 inches long and have a growing point with several leaves. In the next few days, go out and cut the suckers from the plant, remove the lower leaves up to the bud and place the suckers in a jar of water for an hour or two. Then plant them in pots for later transplanting or plant them directly into the garden. Keep them watered heavily for a few days until they've taken root.

Your tomato plants will not survive a frost. If we get an early frost it is best to pick any unripe fruits before the frost and let them ripen inside.

Other Plants to Grow 
All of the brassicas (broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, kale, brussels sprouts, collards, turnips, bok choy) are great candidates for overwintering. So are root crops (carrots, radishes, parsnips, beets, onions, potatoes and leeks). Many greens (lettuce, spinach, mustard, mache and Swiss chard) like it cold, too.

When to Plant 
Plants that are close to 90 percent grown will endure cold temperatures well. To know when to sow seed or transplant crops you want to grow over the winter, you need to do a little figuring. Start with the variety's days to maturity (which is usually on the seed packet), then add 10 days to allow for the shorter growing days of fall. Now count back that number of days from your average first frost date (from my experience, we usually get our first frost the first week of November)—the date that results from counting back is when to direct-seed or transplant.

Now cover your bets against the unpredictable fall weather by staggering your plantings over a two-week period and grow several different varieties. Also, make sure to have some row covers handy just in case we get an early frost.

Organic Gardening - Winter Vegetable Gardening
Photo credit: George Bosela