The Garden Guru: It’s go-time for fall crops
By and large, spring gardens in North Texas were such washouts that many of us are embracing the arrival of summer’s heat as a second chance. The great news is that if you can just get through the struggles of making the plot ready and planting and nurturing seeds and transplants in the heat, it will only get easier as fall’s cooler weather rolls in.
Your tomatoes and pumpkins should have been planted one month ago; your peppers, a week or two back. Here are the crops that need to go into the ground in the next month.
The “now” list: late July/early August
Bush beans: These include snap beans (green, burgundy and yellow wax).
Sow seeds 1/2 inch deep and 2 or 3 inches apart in rows. Cover their shallow trenches with your planting soil, and water them thoroughly. They should germinate within the first seven to 10 days, and you should be harvesting beans by the end of September.
Spider mites are the prime nemesis in the spring garden, but you probably won’t see them at all during fall’s cooling conditions. Bush beans are a great crop for youngsters as well.
Cucumbers: Plant four or five seeds per “hill.” (This old term simply refers to the “planting spot,” not a raised area.) Grow them on a wire trellis or other support.
Squash bugs and spider mites aren’t likely to come visiting, and your fall-harvested cucumbers are likely to have better quality and flavor.
Squash: There are many kinds of squash, but for this planting period, I’m referring to the soft-skinned types known as “summer” squash, plus zucchinis. Again, squash bugs are much less of a problem in fall.
Space the planting spots 6 feet apart, as squash plants grow very large. Plant four or five seeds per spot.
Remember that the first flowers that squash plants produce are male — pollen only. That’s to ensure a good source of pollen once the plants start producing female flowers (primordial fruit at the base of each flower).
Corn: This may not be the ideal crop for a small urban garden. Corn is pollinated by wind, and to get good pollination and ears that are fully filled out with kernels, you need to have square plantings 15 or 20 feet on a side. One or two rows of corn simply won’t produce good ears.
If you have the space, and if you do decide to plant corn, stick with the fast-maturing varieties that will be ready in 75 or 80 days from the day they’re planted.
Irish potatoes: These are a long shot, because they would need to be planted from tubers left over from spring. Occasionally you’ll find “seed” potatoes in nurseries and feed stores this time of year, but spuds you buy in the grocery may have been sprayed with a growth inhibitor to keep them from developing sprouts.
If you have a few potatoes left over from your spring plantings, plant them now for a fall harvest. Cut larger ones in half and let them dry for a couple of days before planting, or plant whole ones if they are small.
Set them into well-prepared garden soil 18 inches apart in their rows and 4 inches deep into loose soil. Cover them with an inch of soil at planting, then fill in the rest after they have sprouted and started to grow.
Coming soon: mid-August plantings
Broccoli: This is one of the most productive of all fall vegetables. Buy vigorous transplants that have been growing in full sun, and plant them 24 inches apart in their rows. Keep them moist at all times, and wash off aphid populations, should they develop, with a hard stream of water.
Use Bacillus thuringiensis to eliminate cabbage looper caterpillars if you start to see small holes in the leaves. No other insecticide will control these common pests.
Cabbage: Grow your favorite types from transplants, using pretty much the same guidelines as for broccoli.
Cauliflower: Fall is a much more reliable time to grow this somewhat slower cole crop. Buy acclimated transplants mid-month, and keep them growing vigorously until the heads start to form.
You can rubber-band the top leaves over the heads to keep them blanched and pale, or you can let them develop with their normal green color. Flavor and nutrition will be the same.
Make a plan: crops for late August
The last plantings of the growing season go to leafy and root vegetables, including leaf lettuce, spinach, kale, radishes, carrots, beets, turnips and other vegetables of lesser popularity. Many of these are able to withstand frosts and light freezes, and they really need the cooler conditions to develop their best flavor and quality.
Neil Sperry publishes Gardens magazine and hosts “Texas Gardening” from 8 to 10 a.m. Sundays on WBAP/820 AM. Reach him during those hours at 800-288-9227. Online: http://neilsperry.com.
Get smart about seeds
Here is a simple tip to improve your seed-sowing success. Local soils can develop a challenging surface as they dry out and that hard “skin” of amended North Texas clay can present quite a challenge to seeds that are trying to germinate through it.
The solution? Once you have the soil rototilled and amended with additional organic matter, rake it smooth. Use the corner of a hoe head to cut a shallow V-groove where you’ll be planting seeds in rows. Fill that shallow groove with loose potting soil. It will help hold the moisture, and it will allow the seeds to crack through and start growing.
Sperry on the Web
Neil Sperry’s Gardens magazine made the switch to digital this month and is now being published online every month instead of in print 10 times per year. Catch a free sneak peek at Gardens’ first-ever digital version at https://magazine.neilsperry.com/issues/july-2015.
Also, Sperry has been compiling a long list of Texas gardeners’ most-asked questions for more than four decades. Link to those questions — and his answers — at http://neilsperry.com/faq.
If Sunday mornings often find you out in your garden rather than tuned to the radio, you can still catch podcasts of his WBAP/820 AM radio show, Neil Sperry’s Texas Gardening, at http://neilsperry.com/podcasts.
This story was originally published July 26, 2015 at 3:11 PM with the headline "The Garden Guru: It’s go-time for fall crops."