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Index : Vegetable Gardening
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- 23. Getting Ready to Fall Garden - Top
- Although the cooler weather of autumn is still several weeks away, it's time to think fall gardening. Planning and preparing now will insure your garden is ready to plant beginning next month.
Here in Tucson, autumn is an ideal time to grow cool season vegetables. Warm, sunny days and cool nights provide ideal growing conditions. Our first frost doesn't usually occur until Thanksgiving, and frost hardy cool season vegetables will keep growing into early winter.
The most popular cool season vegies include: cabbage, broccoli, leaf lettuce, cauliflower, onions, leeks and radishes. Others that do well are turnips, spinach, asparagus, carrots, brussel sprouts, collards, and mustard greens.
Before planting, choose and area suited to growing vegetables. The location should receive at least six hours of full sun each day. It should also be well away from trees and large shrubs and their competing roots.
If you're new to vegetable gardening, start small. There is a lot of hard work in establishing a garden, so don't take on too much at once. A small garden would be one of about 200 to 300 square feet. In subsequent seasons, if you wish, you can enlarge it.
Soil preparation is key to success with a vegetable garden here in the desert. Our soils, for the most part, are very alkaline. Vegetables prefer and slightly acid soil, with a ph of 6.5 to 6.9, not the 8.0 or higher ph that we have here in Tucson. Also vegetables like to grow in soils rich in organic matter, another thing we don't have.
Mix plenty of organic matter into the top foot of soil. You can use peat moss, organic peat, bagged manure or compost. Desert compost, made from trimmings from our local landscapes, and processed commercial, is available and is a great form of organic matter to mix into our desert soils. For the serious vegetable grower a home compost pile or source of manure is invaluable.
Along with the organic matter, mix in sulfur and fertilizer. Soil sulfur, applied at the rate of 5 lbs. for each 100-square feet of garden bed, will temporarily reduce the alkalinity of our soils and help plants grow better. The fertilizer, in the form of ammonium phosphate (16-20-0) applied at 2 lb. per 100-square feet, will provide the nutrients for you vegetable plants. You can also use organic fertilizers. Blood meal is a good source of nitrogen while bone meal can be used to supply phosphorous.
If you don't have room for a garden plot in your yard, try growing vegetables in pots and containers. Leaf lettuce, romaine, and green onions will grow in small pots six to eight inches in diameter and height. Carrots, spinach, broccoli and bib lettuce will grow in larger pots or planters ten inches in diameter and height. Relatively all vegetables, including those mentioned will grow in bushel size containers, roughly 18 inches in diameter and 12 inches in height.
Some vegetables are better started from seed planted directly in the fall garden. These include: turnip, mustard, leek, celery, kohlrabi, carrot, and kale. Others like broccoli, brussel sprouts, lettuce, collards, cabbage, and cauliflower are easily transplanted. These can be purchased as small plants or you can grow your own from seed in pots or flats for transplanting into the garden.
Now is the time to start transplants from seed. In four to six weeks they will be ready for transplanting into the garden. Seeds, potting soil and containers for growing your own transplants are now available at local garden centers and retail nurseries.
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Written by John Begeman, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, the University of Arizona, 520-626-5161.
Material originally appeared in Arizona Daily Star gardening column, on August 22, 1999
- Updated: August 22, 1999
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