I have a question! Just moved to southwest Missouri from the San Francisco area and am getting ready to plant my first Missouri fall garden. I assumed that I could get a crop of fava beans before winter if I planted now (Mid August) but from the reading I've done here, people seem to be saying plant in early spring only. Since they take about three months to mature, couldn't I plant now for a crop mid-November; before it gets too cold? Help!!

Hi Don, You can plant any of the early spring crops that enjoy cooler weather. I usually grow radishes, spinach & lettuce for fall harvest. Some other choices are chard, cauliflower, peas, turnip, collards, kale, beans, etc. Here is an article on veggie gardening in the fall- Here is a link that might be useful: The Fall Vegetable Garden

Mike, read your post as I was headed out the door and decided that I would flip a couple of rocks. Under about as many rocks, I saw a very large gravid syspila (28"), an attractive 18" sypila and a racer. This is the time of the gravid females incubating. When we were in Cali, it was interesting how many things we were told we wouldn't see or would, or more generally, how many things were "always the case" and how many of those things we proved wrong. We left thinking, don't these people know their own species behaviors better than this? (even though we did receive great help overall out there)-- Anyway, the point is that we probably do the same thing out of "the season" because instead of testing as constantly as we do in April/May, we write it off as "season ended" and our knowledge base drops back to general and assumptive.

Thanks buddy. We're fighting the good fight. Those folks in that old farmhouse-the one where I tried to get water, had to laugh at all my work and struggles, as I started my project right behind their property. In truth, to the casual observer, I'm sure my plantings look like a part of their property as the farmhouse they live in was a part of the very farm my field belonged to. Funny thing is, if we stand down at the base of that field and look back up-slope towards their house (and this is really a moderate slope) you can hardly see the house any more- a big old brick two and a half story farm house-what with all the larch and spruce taking over the view. Pretty amazing what a hard-working person or two can accomplish in a short time. That's why I get so tired of always hearing people talk about how "they'll never live to see a new tree grow" or words to that effect. I say, try it! you will be pleasantly surprised at how fast trees really do grow. Speaking of work, one year-this was in the early going where I'd plant maybe 250 trees a spring-I got the bright idea to pre-dig the holes in the fall. Well, I dug and dug and dug. that's when they were chuckling at my efforts. Then spring came along a bit too dry and all those little piles of soil next to the holes were rock-hard. I had no backfill material, without chopping and chopping up hard dirt piles. Talk about a good idea that didn't work! Never will I do that again. But I learned.. Evidently, there's enough clay and silt in that ground to stick tightly together. When we machine-planted that big bunch, we accidentally ended up with trees too close to our lane, so all of those will have to be moved, perhaps a couple hundred trees. So I'm thinking I'll scatter then wherever we want a tree or two and maybe give a few to that guy in the farmhouse, if he is willing to take down a lone box elder that is continuously seeding into my plantation. As it is, I'm going to have to go up there this fall or winter and do cut-stump[ treatments on all of those @#$%^& box elder saplings coming up in my trees. Darn junk. And that's all from one medium-sized mother tree. I can relate to the weeds. That first year, the one where all the annual weeds came in, it was almost all lesser ragweed..Well, "lesser" in this case was about six feet tall in all the rain that year, and when I'd drive my vehicle down the lane to get to where I like to park, clouds of pollen would erupt so thickly it was like driving in a snowstorm! Good thing I'm not allergy-prone! Unbelievable...just clouds of ragweed pollen. Glad that's mostly gone now, replaced by the Solidago (goldenrod) and asters, etc. I'm fine with that change. Hey look, I'm running away with this thread too! +oM