Fall gardening

One thing that I always plan to do, and almost never do, or when I do get to it, is done poorly, is fall gardening.  Spring is considered the proper time to plant cool loving plants, like broccoli, cauliflower, peas, etc..  The problem is that if you don't get these crops in early enough, they don't mature until the middle of the summer when heat is hard on these crops.

Hence, the reason for fall gardening.  By planting cool crops in mid to late summer, these crops mature and bear during the ideal cool temps of early to late fall.

My hope had been to get these crops in at some point in July, but here it is a week in to August and I'm just getting to it.  This morning I planted more kohlrabi, spinach, broccoli, cauliflower, and peas.  I thickly sowed them to ensure adequate germination, and will come back later to thin.

With the peas, I ran in to some troubles because I'm running out of available garden space, and because deer will eat them, I need to keep them inside the area protected by electric fence.

Another problem with peas is they have to have a trellis or fence to hold them up and, once again, I always seem to be behind the game on that.  So, I decided to use what I have.  We have a large patch of sweet corn, some of which is nearly ripe.  I planted peas along the sweet corn in two ways.  In a few rows I inter planted within the corn row itself, using every other row in case I decide to chop down the alternating rows to let in more sunlight.  In other parts, I planted along side the rows of corn that border an opening.  On one end of the patch we have a gap in the corn where we planted onions.  I planted peas along the corn on each end of the onion patch. 

The hope is that, assuming I'm not planting too late, that the corn will provide two benefits to the peas.  First, it will provide some shade to the peas through the remaining hot weeks of August, and second, the trellis support for the peas.  Stay tuned.

Peas are planted along each row that borders the onion patch.  Peas are also interplanted in some of the corn rows.