It has been another hard summer for gardeners, with the dry weather, oppressive heat, and high nighttime temperatures.
These have been difficult circumstances to keep gardens productive. If your summer garden has you stressed and ready to throw in the towel, you may want to try a fall garden.
We are getting close to the time to be setting out seeds and even transplants.
Timing is important when planting your fall garden.
Heat tolerant/cold sensitive plants need to be planted in time to mature before cold weather slows growth and cool season/heat sensitive crops must be planted late enough to avoid the worst of the heat, but early enough to be established to withstand the first frost of the winter.
Like this summer, our winter is predicted to be warmer than average, this is actually good for fall gardens as it may extend our growing season.
Most fall plantings need to be made anywhere from 8 to 16 weeks before the average first freeze date. According to the experts, the average first freeze date for Comanche County is December 01; I would play it on the safe side and figure sometime between mid-November and December 01.
This still leaves you with time to get some seed or transplants in the ground for a fall harvest.
Many vegetables can be transplanted into fall gardens, but finding transplants in the middle of the summer is very difficult.
Your best option is starting your own transplants from seed. Some common fall vegetables that are easily transplanted include: beets, broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, chard, lettuce, onions, and tomatoes. Others that do not transplant well and are better seeded include beans, peas, turnips, carrots, and spinach.
If your summer planted tomatoes are still alive, but look the worse for wear, try cutting them back.
They can and should put on some new foliage and start producing tomatoes again. If our temperatures stay warm, you can expect tomatoes through late fall.
Whatever you decide to plant you will need to be sure and provide adequate water and possibly a little shade, to help the young plants get through the remaining dog days of summer.
Young vegetable plants will typically survive the summer heat and full sun if they have adequate moisture.
Insects can be a bit more difficult to control in a fall garden and we have an extremely healthy population of grasshoppers this year. You will have to constantly treat for grasshoppers and other insects or they will eat your seedlings before they have a chance to grow. You will have to actively scout for insects and damage and be ready to treat if damage starts getting out of hand.
The rewards of fresh home produce this fall is a great pay off for the extra efforts of planting a fall garden. For a copy of the Texas Home Vegetable Gardening Guide, call or come by the office or go to our website: https:// comanche. agrilife. org/, for this and other good vegetable publications.