Lettuce And Spinach And Beets, Oh My!

It’s somewhat frustrating, that the best time to start our seedlings for a fall harvest is right as we are busy harvesting and preserving the bounty of our summer gardens. Besides extending our opportunity for home grown fresh produce, fall harvested beets, broccoli, and carrots are often both sweeter and milder than spring planted crops.

If your local gardening center carries vegetable starts your planting season can be mid -September. When starting with seeds it’s best to get them started 4 to 6 weeks before they go in the garden around the second week of September.

Photo:  The Guardian.com

 Many of the same vegetables that we plant in the spring can be planted in the fall as well:

Beans, beets, broccoli, cabbage, carrots, cauliflower, kale, lettuce, peas, spinach, and squash.

Maybe you don’t want to plant a full vegetable garden in the fall, why not try a couple of your favorites. Parsnips, beets, and Swiss chard are on my experimentation list this fall. NMSU has a wonderful circular with information about fall planting. Check it out: https://aces.nmsu.edu/pubs/_circulars/CR457B.pdf.