BY LINDA SCHREIBER
The days are getting shorter, football practice has started, and many songbirds have begun their vacation flights south. Have you noticed fall is coming? It will arrive—astronomically—Sept. 23.
Plant cool-season crops
My gardening guides and prompts indicate it’s not too late to plant. Lettuce, arugula, mustard greens, baby leaf salad greens, radishes, salad turnips and spinach can still go in the ground for a fall garden.
The spinach you plant in the fall can even survive winter. Just mulch it with straw or use a row cover. In the spring when the snow thaws, remove the mulch/row cover to allow it to regrow. Spinach harvest can happen until May. If you want to harvest throughout the winter, it will be necessary to cover with hoops and row cover or plastic. Weigh the edges down and clip the cover with clamps. Propping the hoops up will prevent the cover from damaging the leaves and will make a small greenhouse. Hoops can be made of PVC or metal wire or conduit.
Don’t know how to make a hoop cover? These short videos explain the process:
Additional September garden activities
- Add color to the landscape with mums and pansies
- Improve your garden soil by adding compost, shredded leaves, other organic matter
- Plant spring flowering bulbs
- Clean up plant material from your vegetable gardens
- Bring houseplants that have been vacationing outside all summer into the house – watch for insects and treat immediately
- Dry flowers
- Improve your lawn with aeration and fertilizer, reseeding, or repair/seeding of bald spots
September is also harvest time
As you pick your vegetables, you will need to make decisions about donations as well as determine how you will store the bounty of your garden. Johnson County has multiple donation points conveniently located – check the JCMG Growing Together Grant for more information.
Tomatoes can easily be blanched to remove the skins and canned. Gardeners may also decide to roast the tomatoes, freeze them and make sauce later. https://awaytogarden.com/skins-easy-tomato-sauce-freeze/.
Maybe you have lots of green beans, corn and zucchini. Freezing vegetables is very easy to do – wash, cut, blanch, and freeze. The internet has suggestions too numerous to list.
Too many cucumbers? How about making a refrigerator dill or maybe a hot-pack bread and butter pickle? You can freeze herbs (freeze chopped herbs in water in ice cube trays to use in soups all winter) or make them into pestos to freeze. Google how to make flavored vinegars and herbed salts for unique and personal holiday gifts.
Enjoy the fall. You know what’s ahead!
Johnson County Master Gardeners of Iowa 