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Vegetable Gardening

Advice on what veggies I can plant this late in the season

mark_rabinowitz

14 years ago

Howdy, all! First post, here.

So here's the deal: I Just moved to East Hampton, NY and rented a house. The owners have kindly consented to allow me to remove some of their ground cover flowers and plant a small vegetable garden. I have 2 plots, each just shy of 4' x 30' At least one of them gets a fair amount of sunshine (the lousy weather lately, not withstanding). Since this is a new house for me and I can't spend a day watching the sunlight pattern in my yard, I am using an Easy Grow plant sensor (anyone have any thoughts on those?) to get a better idea of what might be suitable in my yard.

My questions for you are:

1. Considering how late it is in the season, what can I still plant?

2. Is it too late to plant anything from seed? Clearly I have a great deal of nurseries around here so I can buy more mature plants, but of course I'd rather try and grow from as young as possible.

3. There's a deer fence around my yard, but I do have rabbits, birds and squirrels and while I haven't seen any yet, I know the area had possums and is loaded with raccoons, so I'd love to know what I need to fence. Is there anything raccoons and squirrels don't eat?

4. Also, one area is right next to the pool. Will the chlorine in the pool affect my veggies?

Thanks!

Mark

Comments (5)

hatchjon
14 years ago
You can probably plant cucumbers and maybe some tomato seedlings, and beans. Next month you can plant broccoli, turnips, collards, kale, brussel sprouts, and others for a fall harvest.
iam3killerbs
14 years ago
Bush beans for sure.

Possibly an early-maturing variety of summer squash.

Definitely the fall greens as listed above. Lettuce and radishes too.

Maybe fall peas, but fall peas are always tricky since the plants can stand much more cold than the peas can.
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How about some spinach? It likes cooler weather. I just yanked out a couple of tired tomatoes and planted spinach in their place. I also planted some romaine lettuce from some seedlings I had planted about ten days ago. I planted more romaine from seed in another bed. I don't get frost until toward the end of October.
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Based upon what you're telling me it's feasible to plant warm weather veggies now, cucumbers and green beans. In fact, based upon what you've told me now is the ideal time to plant them. You also told me that it's possible to plant Romaine lettuce, carrots and turnips in July. My question is although you've recommended planting carrots, turnips, and romaine lettuce now, will the weather be too hot for them to grow and survive? Do you know of any tricks/tips to cool cool weather veggies down in hot weather? Essentially although you say I can plant them now, should I hold off and wait until later in the summer when it'll have cooled down, or will it not make a difference whether I plant them now or later towards the end of summer? I want to plant radishes and cabbage too, however would now be a bad time to plant them? Would the weather be too hot to plant them? Many of the seed packets say that you can plant cool weather veggies in mid-to-late summer, but I've no clue what constitutes as mid-to-late summer in Michigan, as I haven't lived here in years. Would it be too late to plant cabbage now or is it too hot to plant cabbage now? My concern with planting in later when it gets cooler is that it won't have enough time to mature before the snow sets in. The reason being is because it takes 70-90 days for the variety I have to mature, which doesn't include germination time, which is 7-10 days. I'm afraid if I plant cool weather veggies too soon, they'll just die due to weather being too hot and if I plant them too late then they won't mature until after winter starts, which at that point, they'll die due to weather being too cold.
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I've had spinach winter over and start growing again in the early spring without any covering. See if there are any local growers around who might have seedlings available. The backyard grower I get tomato plants from in spring is now offering seedlings for fall. Also, check with any gardening neighbors if you live in a hilly area. I'm in the colder part of zone 5 but because we're at a low elevation with hills on three sides, my garden gets a light frost around Sept 18. If I cover with something like Remay (I have a portable tunnel covered with Agribon) I can keep bush beans going for another couple of weeks. After a couple of cool nights, it usually gets warm again. Bush beans are about 6" high right now so I'm not sure I got them in early enough this year.
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if you have a more specific location (and microclimate details) that would help. But generally, but 8a in SC is generally more than plenty warm enough to start seeds in ground. If you have a thermometer measure of the soil, that will tell you. The ground just needs to maintain 60 for a week for most germination. And I'm sure you'll have that. You could start inside as well. Most brassicas (kale, broc, brussel sprouts, cabbage) as folks have mentioned. Garlic and their cousin - the leek is a favorite. Radish, carrots do well. If you throw up a frost cloth or plastic on a frame, you'll be fine with more fragiles like spinachy in milder freezes. I'm in VA and Kale, leeks, garlic, radish, carrots all make it through winter. If no hard freezes, all the listed brassicas make it.
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mark_rabinowitz
Original Author
14 years ago
Thanks so much, folks!

-M
walaa
14 years ago
I just today transplanted some tiny Great White tomatoes. I seeded some Ruby Queen corn, and some Golden zucchinis, so I sure hope its not too late!! We have crazy weather here, there was no way to start anything from seed even as late as first week in May, we were having 40 degree nights. I know lots of folks replanted squash, beans etc, that they lost from rain and cold in our area. I had the garden plowed and tilled WAY too early (April) so now it is overgrown with johnson grass and weeds, so its all I can do to clear out and plant a small patch each day! I have Silver queens that are sprouting and growing well, kandy Korn a foot or more high, so I thought i would get a 3rd flavor going! next week I seeding some Sugar Dots too. It may be late, but Im planting anyways! I see some corn and other plants here that are waist high, and others that are tiny, so lots of people planted late, so I think its okay to start whenever you can, just protect your plants later if it gets cold quick in your area, I know we wont have cold until at least Oct.
lantanascape
14 years ago
I just direct-sowed Okra yesterday. It's Anney Oakley variety and is only like 55 days to maturity.

If you want tomatoes and peppers, I'd buy plants at this point to ensure you get a harvest.

Many summer squashes are less than 50 days to maturity, so you could direct so those.

You could also grow some early sweet corn and green beans.

Start Brussels sprouts from seed for a fall crop now, and all the other winter crops in a month or so (cabbage, root crops and so on).

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