Fall Vegetable Gardening

First of all, just like in Spring, clean up your gardening space. Pull out poorly producing or diseased summer plants. Be ruthless! For example, most determinate tomatoes have slowed or finished production by now and should be ripped out. Put plants in the compost pile unless they are diseased---if diseased, put them in "yard waste" to avoid spreading pathogens into your compost.

Next, till or rake in new compost. By now last year's leaves have broken down into a rich, black, crumbly soil. If you did not maintain a compost pile, there are sources for it. Commercial, for-profit compost suppliers are Brentwood Material, 968-0184, and St Louis Composting, 636-861-3344. Not-for-profit sources include the cities of Clayton (behind the high school) and University City (in Heman Park), which provide free compost to their residents.

Now is also a good time to test your soil, especially if you grew any "heavy feeder" summer vegetables like corn or watermelon. Most plant nurseries sell "soil testing kits" for the do-it-yourself-er. The Missouri Botanical Garden also does soil testing at its Kemper Center for a small fee. Remember, most vegetables and herbs thrive in soils with a pH of 6.0-7.0.

If planting "starts", now is the time to plant broccoli, Brussel Sprouts, cauliflower, collards, and cabbage. Because these take so long to start from seed, it is much easier to buy from a plant nursery, like Garden Heights. In general, our Fall weather is too hot for successful Brusselsprouts, but in those rare cool Autumns they flourish and you have never eaten a sweeter vegetable "ripened" by a Fall frost.

If planting seeds, some good choices are beets, kale, leaf lettuces or Mesclun mixes, peas, radishes, spinach, and Swiss Chard (a relative of beets). Chip Tynan, garden writer for the Post/Dispatch, suggests putting spinach seeds in the refrigerator for one week before planting to hasten their germination.

For more tips on Fall Vegetable Gardening, please attend the next meeting of the Richmond Heights Garden Club on Tuesday, August 14, 7:00p.m., at the Richmond Heights Community Center. There, this blogger ( former Master Gardener) will give more tips in his talk, "Fall Vegetable Gardening", and a handout. Hope to see you there!