The Not So Fall Garden

The air is filled with the scent of damp leaves, smoke, and wet dirt. The breeze has a bit of a nip to it, and dark clouds scuttle across the sky, promising rain and sweaters and cups of tea shared with friends. The garden is dying, giving the last squash, the last corn, the last apples. The straggling green tomatoes get picked and you spend the weekend putting the rest of your garden to sleep for the year, for frost is coming and you don't want wandering spirits tripping over a tangled garden. 

LOOKIT VERMONT. I don't live here. I wish I did sometimes.

This would be the correct way to describe an October garden.

If you lived on the east coast or even the midwest.

But ohhhh no, I don't live in a canopy of ever changing leaves and cocoa scented air.

NOPE.

I live in Southern California, where the weather man happily (damn him) informs us that 'it's another beautiful 80 degree day' in October. And November. And Usually December now.

Sooooo great. <---imagine the heaviest sarcasm you can. With much eye rolling.


However to counteract the very sad and unfortunate inability to have, you know, seasons, I'm blessed instead with year round gardening. Which, for better or worse, is why California is such a great place for urban homesteading. Year round food, your chickens don't get cold (too much), and your apple trees constantly think it's spring (No? Just mine?) and produce flowers/apples year round.

Now, I'll be fair, SoCal (that's Southern California for those not from here) does have a form of winter. It's just mild. And rain is practically a myth here now (thanks global warming!). So when I grew tomatoes last year they survived our 'winter' and continued to produce a ton more tomatoes in February.

Yes. February.

It gets cool enough that we can plant garlic and broccoli and peas, only we don't have to fear frost--which is nice! I looked up frost dates for my area by the way, and basically the Farmer's Almanac website just laughed at me. Cool.

So let's get to the main event: WHAT THE HELL AM I PLANTING FOR THE 'FALL' GARDEN!?

Well my friends. WELL. Let me show you. I used state of the art phone technology. Picaso would be proud, that's how good it is! Here's my plan:

Corn & Pumpkins on the far left, herb bed across from it, dying tomatoes nearest us

Behold the power of technology!!

Okay so I didn't graduate from an art college. But basically, those green grid lines are going to be trellis/tunnels that I'm making out of wire fencing and zip ties and the purple squiggles are going to be produce!

......

IT'LL BE PRETTIER THAN IT SOUNDS.

Imagine it friends: When I go to walk in between my raised bed one will host purple peas and purple beans dripping down, and the other one (the one closest to us in the picture) will be filled with Corsican gourds! IT'LL BE SO BEAUTIFUL AND INSTAGRAM WORTHY!

But what am I growing in my garden for fall?!

I TOOK (better) PICTURES FOR YOU!

Because you guys like pictures right? Right.

I've broken it down into 'raised beds' for everyone's convenience!

RAISED BED 1 (aka where the corn is, aka soon to be kitchen garden)

I was....going through a purple period when I bought my veggies. I was mourning--what I thought was--the death of my elderberry tree. Turns out it sprung back to life and there was no need to mourn it's loss with purple veggies. So now I have a healthy elderberry tree AND purple produce.

A kitchen garden, if you don't know, is the food you grow for daily use in the kitchen etc. So in MY kitchen garden I'll be planting Sugar Magnolia Peas (purple, growing on the trellis), Royal Burgandy green beans (purple, grown on the other side of the trellis from the peas), Black Nebula carrots (tastes just like an orange one), Kalediscope colored carrots, Russian Kale (it's my fav!), Detroit Red beets, and three kinds of delicious lettuce, two that I'll be using as come and cut again lettuce, which I did successfully last year! I'm also going to be growing broccoli here!

RAISED BED 2: HERB BED

I'm keeping my herb bed an herb bed and not rotating it. This is because the soil is really healthy and supports the herbs, who don't take as much (and in fact often times give BACK to the soil, so it's fine). I'm going to be buying a few french thyme plants, and also planting a couple of Calendula plants at the borders (for medicinal use). My last "wild herb" attempt didn't work out so well, so I'm going to be a bit more organized this time around! Live and learn!

RAISED BED 3: GARLIC. GARLIC. Oh, and Onions

This bed is where my struggling/dying tomatoes are. Man, these poor tomatoes have just suffered SO much. Mainly because of ants, aphids, and blossom end rot. I tried giving them a final shot but the bugs are just awful, so out they must sadly go. In their place is going to be delicious white onions (oh oops, I need to start those now!), and garlic. AN ENTIRE BED OF IT. I don't think you know how much I love garlic. I love it enough to dedicate the whole bed to it. THAT MUCH. The gourds are actually going to be planted on the 4th raised bed (its not in the picture) and arch over into the garlic bed on a trellis, so I put it here in this pic.

RAISED BED 4: Tomatoes for days!

 

I was too ambitious with my first tomato bed. I planted seven varieties. Yeah. It didn't go well. The only ones to produce were the Tigers eye and the Green Zebra. Everything else kinda just...failed. But I swear most of it was because of aphids and ants okay!? But anyways, I learned my lesson. So fewer tomato plants, more trellising, and hopefully a lot healthier tomatoes! I'm growing these 3 varieties specifically for making tomato sauce and diced tomatoes for canning! EVERYONE CROSS YOUR FINGERS AND PRAY TO THE TOMATO GODS FOR A GOOD HARVEST THIS TIME AROUND!!

And that's about it! I've also go artichoke seedlings growing, and those I'm planting in the tiny strip of actual ground dirt I'm allowed to plant them in. So YAY. I have 3 healthy plants and 4th that I'm not too sure will make it. But we'll see.

OH.

RIGHT.

I forgot! I made a long flower box (not well) and int it I'm going to be planting THESE:

Aren't they so pretty!?!?

There's nothing like baby's breath, fall colored small sunflowers, and butterfly seed mix (all my lovely lovely cosmos you guys!) to make a fall garden in California look fall like!

If I can't have fall colored leaves, I can at least have fall colored flowers, dammit!

So there you go, that's my fall garden! The kitchen garden won't get planted until the corn and the pumpkins have grown, but everything else will get planted sometime this weekend (probably?).

FUN FACT: You don't have to rotate your crops in raised beds if you're taking proper care of the soil, adding fresh soil and amendments (like manure and compost). Enough fresh soil and nutrients will, by and large, keep your soil from becoming unbalanced and so rotating isn't really need too often!


What's growing in your garden!? Do you live on the East  Coast or Midwest? The South? What can you grow in the fall? Are there things you can still grow in October or is it kind of a lost cause until next spring? I'd love to know!