With October here, I’m starting to think about fall sowing and what to put in for overwintering. In past years I’ve had good luck with garlic and hardy greens like kale. What are the rest of you sowing right now? And is there anything new you’re trying for the first time this fall?
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I have garlic in the ground already:
- on a plot someone is letting me farm, I made three contiguous beds into a row, planting 33 cloves across all three - mostly planting Korean Fire, Georgian, and I think German White?)
- at home I have two beds with 12 cloves each, with a mix of varieties from Garlicana (Chimyan, Navatria, Ivora, Athshe, Bei Ilai, and a mysterious bonus 3rd gen of W6-26779a)
I have more Garlicana cloves to plant, and more coming from Southern Exposure Seed Exchange. Garlicana this first season will be mostly for breeding, SESE garlic will be just for eating.
I will probably also be planting some potato onion bulbs (and saving some indoors just in case for spring planting). Same for shallots and Egyptian walking onions.
I don’t think kale will over-winter here (it got down to -20s F / -29 C) last winter, it was bad enough that schools closed and everyone just stayed inside for a few days. That said, I have several kale plants in the garden that were sown in the late summer and have grown quite large. I’ll deeply mulch them and hope for the best (it’s my first year gardening in this climate).
Here’s my kale (sown June 20th, but sat dormant and didn’t germinate until late summer / early fall):
Here are some of the fall-sown things I’m eating now:
the left half are daikon radishes, the right half are Wasabina mustard greens (Brassica juncea) from Hudson Valley
These were all sown Aug 25th.
I’ve been reading Carol Deppe’s Breed Your Own Vegetable Varieties, and her love of mustard greens has inspired me, and I’ve come to realize I too love mustard greens. In particular their taste reminds me of a good broccoli rabe flavor, I realized I prefer that taste to kale.
bonus of the daikon radish:
this is my other fall-sown bed:
I should probably harvest the radishes soon, first frost is coming possibly this weekend.
- The left mix are from combined kale seeds from various mixes I’ve bought in the past - Red Russian dominates as usual.
- The middle is a home-made mix of varieties (Rouge d’Hiver, Sierra Lettuce, Black-Seeded Simpson),
- the right are from a Dutch-Siberian Napus kale grex.
These were also sown Aug 25th.
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I haphazardly scattered some seeds: parsnip, turnip greens, radishes, kale, carrots, onions. So far seen one carrot, some turnip greens and a few radishes. Happy to see if any more of that comes up in the spring. Haven’t got my garlic in yet, wanted to try some different kinds of onions this time of year as well. Just gotta prepare the area. My garlic (and a lot of things) didn’t get up to size the first year in this spot, I’m not 100% sure what the issue was but I have 5 more varieties I’ll be trying.
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