Preparing For My Fall Crops

Collecting and Storing Seeds
The cost of seeds can add up quickly, even if you’re gardening in a small space. Save money on next year’s garden by collecting and storing this year’s seeds.

Fall Vegetable Garden
If you can’t bear to see the season come to an end, plant a fall vegetable garden. As your garden starts to wind down, plant a variety of cold weather crops in August that you can begin harvesting in September through November. There are many vegetables that are cold hardy, including Asian greens, lettuces, cabbage, and arugula.


In getting a jump on my fall garden I purchased the following seeds from Seed Savers Exchange.

I chose some interesting seeds, mostly for experimental purposes: Red Malabar Spinach, Cherry Roma Tomatoes and Rossa Bianca Eggplant.

I can hardly wait to get my fall garden started. Here are highlights from my summer garden.

Show and Tell

From time to time my blog will feature guest gardeners. First gardener, my brother Kermit Allen, from Crowley, La.


Bell Pepper

Sugar cane (on the left) and yard long peas

Purple bell peppers

Okra

Yard long peas

Our next featured gardener Nathan Allen hails from Chesapeake, VA.

Beans

Cucumber

Poor Ben picked the wrong garden to feast on.

Healthy Harvest

HEALTHY HARVESTS from your own back yard...

WELCOME TO MY BLOG:

FOR ME, GARDENING started as nothing else but a hobby...now it is a way of life. I was clueless about plants. But with a lot of persistence, a little bit of reading, tips from my master gardener brother Kermit and some experimenting, I have something special. I am completely hooked on growing my own vegetables. I started small, but I am gradually expanding as I continue building skills and knowledge along the way.

Helpful advice
Save empty cardboard toilet-paper rolls throughout the year and use them in the spring for seed-starting pots. To use them more efficiently, cut them in half. Up to 66 halves fit snugly on a metal baking sheet. The rolls are easy to fill with soil and to plant seeds in. When the seedlings are ready to be transplanted, slide them partially down through the tubes, soil and all. When planted in the ground, the upper parts of the tubes that stick up above the soil line provide little, warm protective enclosures for the delicate seedlings, and the lower parts of the tubes serve as protection against destructive cutworms. The tubes decompose as the season progresses, when the seedlings no longer need their support and protection.

Control pests organically
Many plants can keep pest at bay. Aphids, for example, love tomatoes but stay away when fragrant herbs, such as basil, are planted nearby. Marigolds also shoo away borers and beetles.

Say “no” to chemical fertilizers
Chemical fertilizers gained popularity in the early to mid-20th century. After decades of use, it’s clear that these products can harm our fertile soil and produce substandard, nutrient-depleted produce. Get rid of the chemical fertilizers and feed your vegetables (especially heavy feeders like lettuce) with additives such as compost tea, worm castings, and seaweed. Each is organic, easy to use and healthy for the environment.

Start composting
Nothing is greener or more earth-friendly than composting your leaves, grass clippings, and kitchen scraps. An easy way to do this is by placing these materials into a homemade, wire-fence cylinder. For the richest compost, make sure that there is more green/wet material (grass, kitchen scraps) than brown/dry material (leaves, straw) in the bin. Shredding the leaves can speed up the composting process. After less than a year, you will have rich compost to use in your garden.

Happy Gardening!!!!!