Wednesday, November 18, 2015

Why Cool Season Vegetable Gardens are, Well, Just Plain Cool!

Black Seed Simpson Lettuce

Fall, just like Spring, can be a tricky time of year for veggie gardeners here in the desert. Either it stays cool too long in the Spring and heats up quickly leaving a short window for things to mature before summer, or the opposite happens in the Fall. 
This year our summer seemed endless and it was tough to get seeds to germinate and for plants to get nice and sturdy in the heat. 


Mustard Greens

Then the cold came in fast and hard. Dipping down in to the low 40 degrees immediately after record breaking high temperatures. 
Strange as it's been, the cool season vegetables are luckily pretty hardy as long as you've gotten some substantial growth on your seedlings.
As long as you've plated the season's appropriate edibles, you should have a pretty worry free cold season.

Dino Kale

This includes your leafy greens such as lettuces, kale, mustard, collards or chard.
Veggies like broccoli, cauliflower and root vegetables like carrots, parsnips or turnips will all do well this time of year.
Peas are another hardy cool season favorite and are a great addition to help add nitrogen into your soil naturally.

Peas

If you have young seedlings or tender greens like lettuce, it may do you some good to cover up those baby plants when our temperatures hover around freezing.
Burlap is a great insulator for these chilly nights.
Don't forget  to stake or anchor the burlap so that the wind doesn't carry it into your neighbor's yard.
Be sure to uncover the plants after the temperatures rise the next morning so that your veggies can gather as much sunlight as they can.


Beets

It's also a good idea to give your garden a nice long drink of water before a frost hits. 
Although it seems contrary to preventing plants from freezing up, watering your plants before it's supposed to freeze is the very thing that will keep them from freezing.
The amount of energy that is generated while the plant is actively taking up water is just enough to keep them warm for the night.

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