|
FrontRangeLiving.com -> Garden -> Autumn Greens
 Autumn Garden:
A Second Chance
By Niki Hayden
By the time days shorten and storm clouds roll in, most gardeners look
wistfully at the remaining unripe tomatoes and dwindling green beans. Summer is
over. It’s time to put away hoe and trowel. Or, is it?
Autumn marks the end of tomatoes, peppers and eggplant—the tender and loved
produce of a long summer’s bounty. It’s easy to fall into a despondency,
knowing that at least nine months will pass before we plant our starts of
heirloom tomatoes or melons in the garden. Leaves are turning colors and the
mornings, crisp and cool, rarely allow the green tomatoes to ripen.
 I’ve learned that fall offers one more fling, a garden of lettuces,
radishes, mâche, arugula, spinach and chard before days of freezing
temperatures set in. And, if provided a temporary cover, a garden of exquisite
greens will last well into December. An autumn garden often thrives more
successfully than one planted by late spring or summer. Heat and drought are
more depleting than moist cold. Many greens, like spinach and kale, will last
into winter. Pests disappear. An autumn garden reminds us that nature allows a
second chance. It’s become my favorite time to eke out a last crop.
And, as a salad lover, there’s no garden that pleases me more than an array of
salad greenery.
 Lettuces, mâche (also called corn salad), spinach and arugula grow quickly.
Sow seeds each week and you’ll have row after row of fast growing salad
greens. The best managed salad gardens allow for harvesting a bowlful each day.
Two or three months will provide a wealth of greens with only a bit of planning.
As leaves fall, scatter them between the rows to mulch your greens.
When snow or freezing temperatures arrive, throw a blanket over your crops,
or make a small hoop frame to protect the garden at night. Remove the cover in
the morning and, with daytime temperatures hovering around 40 to 60 degrees, the
greens will grow week after week. If you want to extend the season a bit
further, count on spinach and kale, but begin sowing those seeds six weeks
before frost. If you’ve waited too late for those greens, corn salad, a tender
green favored by the French, actually germinates and grows in cooler
temperatures. Their peppery leaves add to any green salad. Imagination and some
garden tinkering will reveal the exact greens that will flourish in your autumn
garden.
 I love a sea of lettuces—loose leaf, butterhead and
romaine. To add color
in a sea of green, I plant pansies or violas alongside the lettuces. Like
greens, they prefer cool, moist soil and produce edible flowers. Violas also
self-seed. Long after the lettuces have been harvested, the violas will bloom
into the winter. Add their larger brethren, pansies, for an array of color.
Plant them in rows between your lettuces, or tuck transplants among the greens.
Either way, a greens garden delivers beauty and vitamins.
First decide what greens are best for you. Then, take a close look at your
garden. Has it been used all summer for beans and squash, tomatoes and peppers?
Then consider scratching some organic fertilizer on top. Alfalfa pellets or
cottonseed meal are good choices. Avoid manures or heavy chemical fertilizers.
Greens don’t ask for much in the way of fertilizers, but they do need evenly
moist soil with a mulch of grass clippings or fallen leaves. If slugs threaten,
mulch thickly with pine needles.
When you’ve finished planning the list of desirable greens, look at the
available space. Is there extra room for scallions and radishes? Do you want to
extend the season with kale and spinach? Is a quick harvest of mesclun lettuce
most desirable? Make a list and head to your favorite catalogue or garden
center.
Here are a few favorites:
Mustard Family--Radishes: French Breakfast—these small radishes are
old-fashioned and beautiful, with red shoulders and a white tip. In about three
weeks pop them from the soil. Do thin them when they first emerge; otherwise you’ll
get plenty of leafy growth but no root development.
Arugula, also sold as Roquette—a spicy green with a growing fan club.
Harvest outside leaves because this green will continue to grow even through the
first snowy storms.
In the same family is kale, nature’s toughest garden plant. Kale requires
some time to mature but in six weeks you’ll have mature leaves that will keep
into the early snows. Mulch kale, arugula and spinach to protect them from cold
spells.
Spinach: Plant alongside your lettuces. They will take colder temperatures
than lettuces, but will hold up better with some simple covering when frost
arrives. You also can sow spinach seeds in fall, let them winter over and watch
their tiny grass-like spikes emerge in March for an early crop.
Sunflower Family--Lettuces: simply sprinkle the soil around lettuce seeds
because they require light to germinate. Too tender to survive real cold, rely
on them to grow fast and harvest as immature lettuces.
Loose leaf--Red Sails—an, exquisite red-tipped lettuce. Cover
from frost. Most leaf lettuces are successful in an autumn garden. Harvest the
outside leaves so that the inner leaves will continue to mature. The old
standby, ‘Black-seeded Simpson’ matures in 45 days and can be harvested
before maturity. ‘Deertongue’ matures in 55 days; this heirloom lettuce is
lovely.
Butterhead lettuces require 50 days to mature, but who cares about letting
them mature? Harvest them as tiny heads whenever you please. ‘Tom Thumb’ is
a miniature. Also, look for butterhead lettuces touted for cool weather
planting. And the beautiful French heirloom, ‘Merveille des Quatre Saisons’
matures in 65 days, again worth harvesting before maturity.
Romaine lettuce takes some time to mature into an impressive head, perhaps 70
days. Again, like the butterhead, harvest Romaine when it is tiny.
Crisphead lettuces (like iceberg), usually grown for their mature heads, are the least
likely to adapt to an autumn garden.
Valerian Family: Mache or Corn Salad—these lovely rosettes grow best in
very cool weather and are ready within a month for harvest. Plant successive
sowings for continual harvest. Although garden books will suggest thinning, don’t
discard your thinnings. They will add to your mesclun salad.
Resources:
John Scheepers Kitchen Garden Seeds, 860-567-6086, www.kitchengardenseeds.com
Johnny’s Seeds, 207-861-3901, www.Johnnyseeds.com
Territorial Seed Company, 800-626-0866, www.territorial-seed.com
The Cook’s Garden, 800-457-9703, www.cooksgarden.com
|
