Fall Garden Update

Font Size » Large | Small

My first fall garden is doing well.

I planted lettuce, cabbage, broccoli, brussel sprouts, turnips, and pea’s. The pea’s are coming up nicely – nothing for picking yet. Lettuce was planted from seed and is doing fantastic – fresh salad already. Cabbage not to good – infested with something eating it up. Turnip’s look like they are not enjoying themselves – struggling. Everything else is still growing and looking pretty good.

Having never had a Fall garden before – I am pleased. Continuing to add to my experience and knowledge of gardening. Next fall will try some additional crops such as carrots.

Unbelievably – I even have a watermelon plant growing (Sugar Baby) and it is doing very well.

Rourke

Tags: Gardening, survival gardening

Gardening | Rourke October 23, 2010

6 Comments to “Fall Garden Update”

By Kevin, October 23, 2010 @ 1:51 am

Looks like you’ve got a nice plot for planting there. A little bigger than what we had growing up. No room and lousy exposure where we are now. Hope to change that someday soon. Good luck!
By Dann in Ohio, October 23, 2010 @ 11:31 pm

I thought you’d find this old military film “Living off the Land” interesting.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEym5vqwrzE&feature=channel

Dann in Ohio
By Six, October 24, 2010 @ 8:03 pm

Very nice Rourke. Nothing like experience as a teacher.
By suek, October 25, 2010 @ 6:17 pm

You might want to consider some cold frames.

I don’t know what climate zone you’re in, but if you get any freezes, you’ll lose the lettuce and most of the leaved plants. Cabbage will survive in freezing weather, but it won’t grow much. If it survives whatever is eating it. Probably cabbage moths…they lay their eggs in the stems, the larvae hatch as worms or worm looking things, and then they eat the stem on the inside, killing the plant.

In the old days, they had cold frames and hot frames. The cold frames were used simply for protection from freezing. They’re like simple mini-greenhouses. The hot frames were a bit more labor intense – you had to dig out the area beneath the frame to a depth of a couple of feet, then put fresh animal manure in, covered with dirt, in which you planted your seeds to prepare for spring planting. The decomposition of the manure supplied the heat to enable the plants to get an early start. Much easier to use heating pads that are available these days, but if you want to do it the hard way, it’s a skill to learn!
By Beprepared, October 25, 2010 @ 8:58 pm

As to what is eating your cabbage, any number of worms could be the culprit. Drive on down to your local Co-op and get a bag of Dipel Dust. This is a bacteria that sits on the leaves and destroys worms from the inside out after eating your cabbage.

Totally organic, no pesticides.

You can stray the same thing, only this is called Thuricide, same BT bacterium.

Good luck.
By Rourke, October 26, 2010 @ 12:02 am

Thanks for the info – the cabbage might be to far gone. Will check out my local Famers Exchange this weekend.

Rourke