The Beginnings of the Fall Garden

We had planted butternut squash and tomatoes and cucumbers from seed and transplanted the young seedlings into the garden.  With promptness, worms ate up the cucumbers.  We've since replanted the cukes and transplanted the seedlings into the garden under the trellis.  The butternut squash are mostly doing fine in the side yard garden.  We lost the spaghetti squash to the heat and dry conditions.  So it goes.  You win some and you lose some.

The very first seeds were direct seeded into the garden last week.  We have a two rows of broccoli and one row of cauliflower and two rows of cabbage.  They are all up and about an inch tall, about to put on their first true leaves.  Here's the beginning of that process.  I didn't get the finished photos.  You can see one of the roosters standing guard.

The tomatoes have been planted in the garden and the experiment with fall Irish potatoes grown in landscape tubs.  We'll see how that goes.  In the next week or two I'll plan on planting the following:

Beets                    Lettuce                Mustard greens        Turnips        Radishes
Kohlrabi               Swiss Chard        Sugar Snap Peas      Spinach       Carrots

My problem is that I am running out of space in the garden as some of my summer crop is still producing.  Crops like okra and Southern Peas take up a lot of space in the garden.  Other crops like sweet potatoes won't be ready to harvest until a couple more weeks.  Once that happens, it'll free up a lot of room for those items I need to plant.  

One thing I'm trying new this year is proper plant spacing.  I always have a hard time pruning back plants to proper spacing between plants.  The reason is that I hate to pinch off and kill a perfectly good plant.  But if you don't they crowd each other out and compete for nutrients and you don't get quality produce.  This year I vow to do something different.  As the plants grow, I'll dig up those plants that are too close to one another and plant them in the side yard garden where the Blackeyes and Ozark Razorback peas are finishing up.  It will be a win-win situation.  

As I look at the barn and the hen house to the south of it, I also plan to use more of our natural fertilizer this year that I've harvested from beneath the roosting bars in the henhouse.  I went in there with a big tub and shovel, scraped off the top layer of chicken litter and got down to the older, composted stuff.  I shoveled a big tub full of it and moved it into the garden.  I've been slowly amending the soil with it and have noticed greener leaves on the snap beans.  They are full of blooms right now.

The weather is absolutely gorgeous right now.  Perfect time for gardening!