Ever Plant Vegetables in the Fall? — By a. Kmhm, 



EASILY GROWN CROPS THAT MAY BE GROWN THIS SEASON — SOME THINGS 

 TO PLANT FOR EARLY SPRING — HELPING THE EFFICIENT GARDEN 



Ohio 



THE average backyard gardener 

 "goes to sleep on the job" with 

 the approach of shorter days and 

 cool nights. This apparently, 

 is just what nature is doing and we mortals 

 are all too willing to accept things as they 

 seem, without stopping to investigate them 

 as. they really are. 



The regular appearance of "chance seed- 

 lings" of radishes, lettuce, spinach, toma- 

 toes and even beans started me thinking. 

 Year after year, a number of volunteers 

 would "pop up" somewhere in the garden. 

 These volunteer plants would yield results 

 from ten days to three weeks before the 

 regular crops. 



Whether the seeds from which these 

 plants started, were spilled at the last 

 regular sowing, or whether a stalk ran to 

 seeds and scattered them broadcast, mat- 

 ters little. The fact remains that they 

 proved to be sufficiently hardy and well 

 enough protected to stay in the ground all 

 winter, come up at the correct time in the 

 spring, and furnish the earliest vegetables 

 obtainable. 



It is this particular fact which I wish to 

 bring home to readers of The Garden 

 Magazine, together with definite sug- 



gestions how to "cash in" on this lesson. 

 Nature does a lot of planting every fall and 

 we have been all too slow to learn the 

 lessons. Before the leaves fall and the 

 remnants of the plants are knocked down 

 by storms, seeds fall and are buried in some 

 obscure way. The thing for us to find out 

 is, which seeds have the biggest chances for 

 a survival in the face of trying weather con- 

 ditions in different sections of the country. 

 I am only prepared to speak authorita- 

 tively for Ohio and states offering similar 

 climatic problems. But the observations 

 made here should prove a stimulus for 

 experiments elsewhere. At any rate, every- 

 thing is to be gained, very little can be 

 lost. 



A START FOR NEXT YEAR 



Start next year's vegetable garden now 

 by clearing the ground of all rubbish, dead 

 plants, stalks, etc. Rake everything in a 

 heap and burn it. Spade deeply, as in the 

 spring. This will bring to the surface some 

 of the now well-rotted manure dug under 

 last spring. Rake it carefully and wait 

 until the weather man predicts weather 

 that will freeze the ground hard. Just 

 before this happens, get busy and sow 



lettuce, mustard, spinach, carrot, smooth- 

 seeded peas and radishes. 



These are the particular vegetables that 

 have come through the experiment in 

 splendid condition in this section. Ignore 

 the fact that it is fall. Prepare the garden 

 just as you would in the spring, taking care 

 that all seeds are well covered. If Indian 

 summer should be unusually long and some 

 of the thriftier seeds should start growing, 

 it will save you the trouble of thinning out 

 the rows next spring. 



Of the vegetables mentioned, spinach 

 will make a good growth, sometimes, if 

 sown early in October. But since it is a 

 rather hardy vegetable anyway, this need 

 not discourage the gardener. Just scatter 

 coarse manure, four inches deep, over the 

 spinach rows and the plants will come 

 through the winter nicely to furnish the 

 first "greens" next spring. A particularly 

 frost-resisting sort of spinach is Munster- 

 land, with deeply laciniated leaves, not 

 unlike those of dandelion. 



In selecting sorts for fall sowing, please 

 keep in mind the season during which 

 these vegetables are to mature. It would 

 be waste of time and money to sow late 

 sorts which, in most cases, require a good 



This semi-coldframe in an Ohio garden, last fall was placed against the north fence and yielded crops well into the winter 



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