Now's the time to plant fall vegetables

“You’ve got to give fall vegetables time to mature before our first frost. For most fall crops, you’ve got to start planting now,” he said.

Ramsey, 65, tends 4,000 square feet of garden on his land near Athens and has gardened all of his life.

“I learned from my father. He plowed our garden with the neighbor’s mule and I remember walking behind my dad in the fields when I was 6 or 7 years old. I had my own garden to tend when I was 8 or 9, and I’ve had gardens ever since,” he said.

Ramsey works for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and he and colleague Nisha Moussakhani have been comparing garden stories all summer: whose tomatoes came in first, whose cucumbers peaked, whose blueberries were bearing the most fruit.

Moussakhani and her husband, Phillip, are planning a fall garden in their Lilburn backyard. Ramsey paid them a visit to offer advice gleaned over his six decades of vegetable gardening.

First, clear out the old plants and work the beds

Ramsey said the first step is to clean up the garden. Don’t compost the old plants; they can harbor lots of disease and bugs. He suggests they be put out for yard waste pickup instead. Get the beds weeded and work the soil to get it ready for the next crop.

Second, cool down the soil

“Broccoli, collards, lettuce and lots of other vegetables need cool temperatures to germinate and our August soil can be brutally hot,” Ramsey said. His trick for cooling off the soil? Dig out the area where you will plant your seeds. Make a trench 2 to 3 inches deep. Water the trench, and then cover the trench with a board.

Ideally, the board will sit right on top of the soil, shading it and keeping in the moisture. Since the Moussakhanis’ board was sitting on their raised bed rails, they would have to be extra vigilant about keeping the ground soaked.

Ramsey suggests uncovering the trench in the evening so the night air dissipates some of the heat. Soak the trench again in the morning and keep it shaded during the day. After 5 to 7 days, the soil temperature should be right for planting.

Third, plant seeds and cover lightly

Ramsey likes to plant many fall vegetables in wide bands, called broadcast sowing. Instead of one long thin row of lettuce, he’ll have a 12-inch wide band. Then he can thin out the lettuce as it grows, enjoying the thinnings in salad and ending up with lettuce plants spaced wide enough apart to grow to full size.

Whether in wide or narrow rows, cover the seeds with about a quarter inch of soil, moisten again and replace the board. Check the trench every day and as soon as the seedlings start to emerge, you can leave the board off.

“I like to prop up the board at an angle so it helps shade the seedlings during this really hot weather. That helps them survive the heat, too,” Ramsey said.

What to plant right now

Ramsey says now is the time to plant seeds of cabbage, Brussels sprouts, turnips, carrots, broccoli, collards, kale, kohlrabi and beets.

What can wait for September

Lettuce, radishes, mustard and spinach all mature quickly so you can plant some now, and plant more in September to extend the harvest, Ramsey said. Onion sets can go in now and will provide green onions all winter and bulb onions in the spring. Purchased seedlings of cabbage, collards and other fall crops can go into the ground in September, too.

Frost doesn’t mean the end of the garden

Like onions, cabbage, broccoli, mustard, kohlrabi and kale can survive our usually fairly mild winters. Ramsey suggests mounding them with autumn leaves to help protect them from some of the coldest spells.