The Fall Garden

This appeared in the September 30, 2021 edition of The Fish Wrap.

Summer is coming to an end, but it doesn’t have to be the end of fresh produce. A fall garden continues the abundant blessings of summer. With a little planning and an almanac, you can harvest vegetables into January. A crop that germinates in the waning summer heat could be harvested just before a snowstorm!

The key to a fall garden is to have a mature crop by the time day length has shortened to just 10 hours of daylight. In central Illinois, that day is November 14. By that date, day length and sunlight angle are such that it will take a month to grow what would take a week in August. Plant growth is powered by sunlight and photosynthesis but many plants are hardy enough to stay alive in fall and winter temperatures.

September is when most veggie crops need to be planted so that they reach maturity by November 14. After that, with a little support, plants will stay alive and you can harvest off them until Christmas dinner! Support consists of row covers to keep the frost off and add a little insulation. Fabric that allows sun and water to pass through needs some kind of support system that keeps it from touching the plants and some weights to hold it down.

This month, we’re coming to the end of hot weather crops like tomatoes, squash and peppers. At RLF, we’ve planted fall crops including carrots, beets, turnips, radishes, spinach, lettuce and bok choy. They’ll have plenty of time to ‘beet-up’ etc. before mid-November. Kale sneers at frost and it has grown too tall for row covers anyway. It will be just fine into the new year. Wouldn’t it be amazing to bring a big salad or roasted beets fresh from the garden to Thanksgiving dinner?