Video: Plant Fall Crops

fall crops, peas

Three weeks ago, I shot a video about planting a fall garden. Unfortunately, it was still too warm to plant my fall crops. I finally was able to plant them just in time for this week’s video. Whew!

You’ll get to see everything I planted and learn some helpful tips along the way.

In the initial video, I gave all sorts of suggestions for crops that are cold-tolerant. I’ll include that video underneath this new one.

Here’s a list of the fall crops I planted:

  • ‘Short Stuff’ Chantenay carrots
  • ‘Mikado’ turnips
  • ‘Purple Plum’ radishes
  • ‘Cylindrical’ beets
  • ‘Bauer’ lettuce
  • ‘Batavian Full Heart’ endive
  • ‘Giant Winter’ spinach
  • ‘Green Jewel’ pak choi
  • ‘Cascadia’ snap peas

The first four in the list are root crops and I planted them all in a single raised bed. But before I did that, I added some bonemeal to the soil. Bonemeal is high in phosphorus (the middle number on fertilizer packages) which is perfect for root crops. That’s because phosphorus promotes root growth.

The last five crops in the list will benefit from nitrogen. A couple of weeks ago, I added some organic composted chicken manure which is a perfect source for that.

There are a few extra steps that I took in the video while planting everything. I wanted to explain those in a bit more detail here.

  • I demonstrated the “board method” for planting carrots. After planting the seeds and watering them in, I covered that row with some scrap wood. It keeps the soil moisture more constant, which in turn helps the seeds germinate later. (carrot seeds are really slow to sprout!) After 7-10 days, I remove the board and (hopefully) little seedlings will start emerging about a week after that.
  • I also mentioned the “burlap method” for planting carrots. You might recall that I used this for the first time last year and it worked great. (I also used it for my spring planting) After I planted and watered-in the row of carrot seeds, I covered the whole bed with a sheet of burlap. My burlap came from JoAnn’s and you can use it year after year. Next, I used some metal pins to hold it down. Again, the purpose is to keep the soil moisture constant to help with germination. After 7-10 days, I removed it and ended up with a great percentage of sprouts.
  • The reason I didn’t use the burlap method this year is because I only planted a single row of carrots. It just wasn’t feasible to use the burlap. So that’s why I opted for the board method.
  • Because we have California quail and a wild cottontail rabbit, I also decided seedlings would need extra protection. I placed hoops and floating row cover over the root crop bed. I covered the lettuce/spinach/endive/pea/pak choi bed with agricultural insect netting. Once the peas are a bit taller, I’ll remove that end of the cover since they won’t need it.

Here’s this week’s video:

And here’s the original video where I encouraged you to plant a fall garden. Remember that you can watch any of my videos by going to my YouTube channel.