THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, August 13, 1995 TAG: 9508130121
SECTION: HOME PAGE: G1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: ROBERT STIFFLER
LENGTH: Medium: 59 lines
The break in the heat last week got many people thinking gardening again, and it's a good thing, because it's time to start fall gardens. Some vegetables do their best in the fall.
The late Fred Heutte called fall the most productive period for Hampton Roads vegetable gardens. ``Before Tidewater became a highly urban area, it led the Eastern Seaboard in truck gardening, with much produce harvested and marketed all winter,'' he once said.
Soil preparation is important for fall gardens. Because summer vegetables have depleted the soil, you should apply fertilizer and till it in before planting. Use a special vegetable fertilizer or 10-10-10. In fall, an organic fertilizer will provide slow, continuous feeding.
As far as what to plant, there are many choices. Green bush beans will produce another crop before frost if you replant right away.
Other vegetables that like the cooler days of fall include lettuce, spinach, Chinese cabbage, onions and radishes. You can plant salad crops every two weeks for a continuous harvest.
Spinach and Chinese cabbage seem to like fall even better than spring. Spinach seed does best if you put it in the freezer for 24 hours before sowing. It's slow to germinate and must be kept damp until it sprouts. If you're short of space, it will grow easily in any kind of container on a deck or patio.
Root crops also do well in the fall, including parsnips, carrots, turnips and white Chinese radishes.
Once your seedlings are up, try to give them shade during the hottest part of the day. Water regularly or the seedlings will die in hot, dry weather.
In the brassica family, you can plant seed at once or buy plants from a garden center later on. Those that do well include cabbage, (plant small-headed varieties that mature in 60 days), broccoli, cauliflower and brussels sprouts, as well as collards and kale. Don't forget parsley, which also does best when planted in the fall.
When you plant, dampen the soil by sprinkling the bottom of the row. Then keep the soil damp for two weeks. Some old-timers lay burlap over rows and wet it to keep the soil cool and damp.
Cool air tends to settle in low-lying areas so a garden in a low spot may suffer frost damage earlier in the fall than a garden on higher ground. To put it another way, the growing season will be shorter down in the hollow than up on the neighboring hill.
If you're beginning to think about seeding a fall lawn, keep in mind that the summer heat wave extended into the Pacific Northwest where most grass seed is grown. That has already driven seed prices up, and there may be a shortage, so you may want to buy now. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
ROBERT STIFFLER
White radishes, like many plants in the mustard family, grow best in
fall gardens.
by CNB