I just started to plant my fall vegetables. I planted broccoli, cauliflower, and brussels sprouts. In a couple of weeks I will be planting peas, carrots, lettuce, and spinach. Where I live, and this applies to most climates, Fall is the best time to harvest these cool season vegetables. By maturing in the cool Fall temperatures, the vegetables taste better, in my opinion, and the plant will not bolt or go to seed and ruin any further harvest. Most of the people I talk to don’t realize that you can plant for Fall harvest let alone that they actually can do better than the Spring.

So what is the secret to Fall planting? In my opinion it is the timing. You want to direct seed into the garden early enough to take advantage of the warm summer to grow the vegetable quickly, yet you want it to mature right before the first frosts come. Therefore, take the days to maturity from your seed packet and subtract back from your first frost date in the Fall to establish your plant date. I always add about 2 additional weeks for a buffer. Therefore, if you have a 80 day broccoli then you would add 14 days for a total of 94 days. My first frost date is about Oct 15th so I would go back 94 days and then plant, so about July 10th.

Remember that the maturity dates are calculated from germination or transplant, therefore, you need to give yourself the additional days to germinate the seed to properly calculate the days. Since this doesn’t have to be exact and I already added a 2 week buffer I didn’t bother to put this in the calculation above, but you should know about it.

A better way to do this is just to get an account at VegeNag.com and it does all the work for you. Just say what you are planting and you will get an email when you are supposed to plant. The dates are also located on the planting guides for each respective vegetable after you have created an account.

Custom Planting guides at VegeNag.com

• Carrots
• Beets
• Melons
• Squash
• Beans
• Peas
• Cucumbers
• And more

This doesn’t mean you cannot start them indoors, it just means that they either do better with direct seed or there are not really any advantages to starting indoors.

When direct seeding you should plant in prepared soil to a depth of 2-3 times the diameter of your seed. Most people plant too deep, and then they wait forever to get their seeds up. Once your seeds are planted, water them immediately with a sprinkler or some other way of watering them without washing the freshly planted seeds out. You will want to water every day until the seeds are germinated. I usually run the sprinkler on top of the seeds everyday for 20 minutes or so to fill this requirement.

When you plant I advice to plant more seeds than you need. When planting rows, add seeds in a line and then thin out later instead of just planting one seed exactly where you want one plant to go. This will make sure that you get the plants germinated and allows you to pick the most vigorous plants while thinning out the smaller ones.

When planting seeds that you just need one plant for like squash, cucumber or melons, then plant in a mound by mounding up dirt where you want the plant to go and then planting 5-6 seeds in the mound. When they all come up, you pick the best two and then when they get a bit bigger, pick the best one.

The next consideration is soil temperature. If the soil is not warm enough the seed won’t germinate. Most seeds need the soil to be 60 degrees or more. Some can do less, but this is a good standard to go by. This means that there is really no point in planting, or at least expecting immediate germination, if the soil is not warm enough. If you need to get an early start you may consider row covers in order to help warm the soil.

Another consideration is soil texture. It is best to have a loamy or crumbly soil so that the plant can push through easily. While this is ideal, many plants are pretty tough when it come to pushing through. The best way to enhance your soil texture is to add soil amendments. I like to add compost or peat moss. Doing this also add nutrients to the soil.

The last thing to consider is fertilizer. You should fertilize your soil before planting. I have a video and blog post on the subject. Seeds can be planted immediately after fertilizing so you do not need to wait.

Good luck.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ks_Ptn0kmSA

For more information on seed starting indoors check out the seed starting feed

www.youtube.com/watch?v=cL4j1zFPoyY

For more information on starting seeds indoors go to my seed starting feed.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ps5xI3QwvJw

For a copy of the plans for light stands click the links below

Small light stand

Large light stand

For more information on starting seeds go to the seed starting feed.

VegeNag planting dates After you click the link, check your downloads folder for the spreadsheet.

Note: if there is no seed start date on the chart, that means you should not start indoors, but you should plant directly outdoors.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=sHVPKDsCsiI

For more information on how to start seeds indoors go to my seed starting feed.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=7EVj_VNDlwU

To get your frost free date chart, go to the National Weather Service website. For more information on planting dates go to the planting guides category.

First, do it early. Seed growers only have a certain amount of seeds and when they run out they can’t produce more until next year. Also you want to get them shipped to you in a timely manner so that you have them on hand to begin growing when it comes time.

Next, look at different catalogs. While I only ordered from 2 different catalogs, each catalog had something different to offer that met my particular needs. Many times I will focus on some special thing I am looking for and then if the price is right, I will order the other stuff from them that is the same in most other catalogs.

For example, I am trying to get broccoli and cauliflower to grow in the Spring here in Utah. This is very difficult and I have not yet had great success since it gets too hot, too early, so I looked for the earliest ones I could find. I found ‘Major’ broccolli at 43 days from transplant and ‘Silver Cup’ cauliflower at 40 days. Both were at PineTree Garden Seeds. They have great prices so I also ordered my carrots, beets, peas and so forth from them.This will be my first year ordering from them, so I will let you know if I have any problems with fulfillment or service etc.

Prices is another consideration when deciding who to order from. Some have good prices, but high shipping rates. Some have high prices, but give large coupons like Henry Fields. They give $25 off an order of $50 making it 50% off everything. And some have high prices, but very reliable service, selection and premium seeds. I would put Stokes in that category. In the end, seeds are really cheap. I got everything I needed for a huge garden for a whole year and I will have a ton of extra seeds for about $35. Therefore, I wouldn’t concern yourself with seed prices, check for shipping rates and such since that could be a bigger hit in the end. I spent 25% this year just on shipping.

Last, try new stuff and don’t get stuck with one variety just because it comes with a ton of seeds. If you want to try two different onions like a red onion and a yellow onion then order both. I know that they each come with 300 seeds, but they are only $1-2 each.

I just ordered 5 different kinds of tomatoes, one early variety, 2 beefsteak variety, one paste variety and one cherry tomato. I will get about 25 seeds per pack for 125 seeds. I am only growing 6 different plants. Assuming no loss, that would take me over 20 years to plant all the seeds. I estimate that I will grow over 400 tomatoes from the $12 that I spent on the seeds. Don’t worry about wasting seeds, give them away or throw away, but have fun with growing different varieties.

Please let me know your experiences this year or in year’s past with seed companies. I have ordered from a handful, but would love to hear about your experiences.

The reason why I like their catalog so much is because I felt like they had a lot of varieties that other catalogs do not. Many of the mainstream catalogs all seem to carry the same stuff with little deviation. This one filled in a gap I was looking for with special varieties. For example, I have been looking for a really early broccoli and cauliflower to grow in the spring since we have such a short spring crop season here. This one provided me with varieties for both that are about 10 days earlier than ones I could find in other catalogs. I also found a number of banana pepper options, most others give you one.

I also found really good prices. For example, I want to grow a mild or sweet jalapeno this year since I love the taste, but not the hot. They have a variety called Fooled You Pepper for $1.65 a packet. Stokes also came out this year with a sweet jalapeno called Dulce, yet it costs $5.75 a packet. As you can see, they are a great option.

I have updated my seed catalog post from last year so that you have a good list to choose from. If you are new to vegetable gardening, then you should click the link and order all the catalogs you want. Even if you aren’t new, you may find one that serves you much I like I found PineTree Garden seeds.

I planted broccoli, cauliflower, head lettuce, romaine lettuce, spinach, swiss chard, and onions. The broccoli, cauliflower, and head lettuce are more of an experiment since they don’t do as well in the Spring as they do in the Fall. I have already seeded carrots and peas.

Note: I planted some seeds I didn’t use for starts at the same time out in the garden to compare with my indoor starts. Obviously they didn’t grow as well, but I wanted to know how much of a disparity there would be. The results were significant. With each vegetable that I planted in the garden, they were barely even up with seed leaves while my starts were 3-4 inches tall with 4-6 true leaves and an established root system.

This is highly significant for anyone trying to get Spring crops out of crops such as head lettuce, broccoli and cauliflower. These crops will “bolt” when it gets to hot, therefore, unless you get a jump on the season by using starts, you pretty much don’t have a chance in Utah by direct seeding in the Spring. You should do well in the Fall though.

For anyone looking for information on spacing, thinning, watering requirements and such please refer to the planting guides or read some of my other posts.