Sanhedrin Nursery – Garden Blog

• Chrysanthemums come in bright fall colors to give you instant color in flower beds and containers.

• Cover newly planted vegetable starts to protect them from birds. Spray cabbage and broccoli plants with BT to control cabbage worms which make holes in the leaves.

• Replace tired petunias with bright pansies, snapdragons, calendulas and stock for garden color this fall and winter.

• If you have dogwood, walnut, birches and maple trees, these should be pruned in late summer or fall because these will bleed sap when pruned in early spring or late winter.

• Lettuce can be planted from starts for a quick fall crop.

Enjoy a Taste Treat with Asian Greens

Chinese cabbage is the common name given to many different kinds of leafy Asian vegetables. They are grouped based on size, shape, heading and non-heading.

If you have a little extra space in your fall garden, try growing some Chinese cabbages. Although related to cabbage, they don’t taste much like cabbage. They are more sweetly flavored, with large, crisp, lettuce-like leaves. They are used in salads, sautéed, or pickled in Korean kimchee.

Chinese cabbage requires cool weather for most of its growing season, so fall planting works best. Spring planting usually results in the plants bolting and going to flower before they make edible heads.

Plants do best in a rich, light loamy soil. Apply plenty of compost or well-rotted manure before planting. It is important for the plants to grow quickly, so keep the soil moist and cultivate frequently to keep down weeds and save moisture. Set plants out about 10 inches apart. They will be ready to harvest in about two months.

Pak choy is a popular Asian vegetable which belongs to the loose-leaf cabbage family and resembles Swiss chard. It develops large, glossy dark green leaves with wide white celery-like midribs. It is tender and delicious either cooked or quick fried in oil. It is used extensively in Chinese restaurants in Chow Mein, Chop Suey and soups.

Baby Bok Choy has become the most used vegetables in various Asian dishes due to its excellent flavor, texture and size. This fast-growing vegetable can be ready for harvest in 3-4 weeks. Young leaves and petioles are very tender and crisp, and they are good for stir-fry cooking.

Nappa cabbage, or Wong Bok, makes large, tight, cylindrical heads with broad round smooth leaves. It is very tender with a mild flavor. In much of the world, this is the vegetable referred to as “Chinese cabbage.” It is used in stir fries, soups and kimchee.

To harvest Chinese cabbage, cut the entire plant at ground level when the heads are compact and firm. A light frost is fine, but they should be harvested by Thanksgiving.

There are many other interesting Asian greens. Mizuna is a Japanese non-heading leaf type with narrow, dark-green, feathery leaves. It is very decorative in salads and popular in stir-fry. Tatsoi is a loose -headed variety similar to Pak choy, with a large, bulbous celery-like base. It holds well into winter. Tendergreen mustard-spinach is a leaf type with flat glossy dark-green leaves that grow fast and hold well into the winter months.

Try adding some Asian greens to your garden and your diet, and treat your taste buds to some interesting new flavors this fall and winter.

• Choose chrysanthemums in a variety of colors now. They are hardy perennials which will brighten your garden each fall.

• When blackberry vines are done fruiting, prune back the canes which bore fruit this summer. Twine young canes around the fence or trellis.

• Garlic should be planted now for an easy crop that you can harvest next spring. Choose from Early White, Late Pink, Spanish Roja or Elephant Garlic.

• It’s time to divide overgrown perennials that bloomed in the spring or early summer. It’s also a good time to choose and plant some new varieties.

• Apples, pears and other fruit trees can be planted in the fall from containers to get a head start on next spring.

Cheery Snapdragons

Snapdragons are colorful bedding plants that thrive in the cool weather of fall and spring. If you plant them this month they will begin blooming in just a few weeks and give you more flowers next spring.

Natives of the Mediterranean region, there are many fine varieties of ‘snaps’ in almost any size from 8-inch dwarfs to 3-foot giants. Snapdragons bear their flowers on spikes. These are tall stems lined with flower buds. The lower flowers open first, then those above and so on until the entire spike has bloomed.

Snapdragons are a particular favorite of children who like to pinch the tiny individual blossoms and make the “dragon mouth” open and close. But some snapdragons don’t “snap.” They are the open-mouthed flowers and double azalea-flowered types.

The flowers come in lavish colors. There are bright yellows, rich reds, pleasing pinks, vivid oranges and pure whites. They all bloom over a long season here. Some even have a soft, sweet fragrance.

The tall varieties make fine cut flowers. Snip the spikes to within several inches of the base to encourage the growth of additional flowering stems. Flowers are also visited by hummingbirds and bumble bees.

Well-liked cultivars include the low-growing Floral Showers series that reach 6 to 8 inches tall and make bushy plants with a compact mound-like habit. They make good container plants, colorful ground covers and walkway borders, and are nice to fill the gaps between spring-flowering bulbs or in mixed flower beds.

Sonnet Mix snapdragons are a taller variety that makes beautiful backdrops for shorter plants. The mix contains dark red, yellow, white, pink and orange shades. They grow 18”³ to 20”³ tall and can be planted 10-12 inches apart. This is a great medium sized snapdragon. It doesn’t need staking like the taller types, but is big enough to plant behind some other shorter flowers.

Madame Butterfly Mix has double azalea flowers that don’t ‘snap’ but look elegant on their tall, 28” stems. Open-faced double blooms average 1½ inches across on 8-inch long flower stalks. The plants are strong and sturdy with a good branching habit, and the blooms remain on plant for a very long time.

The handsome Rockets have tall, strong spikes of beautifully colored blooms rising on stately stems to 3 feet tall. Plant them in the back of the border where they will make a colorful backdrop for the other bedding plants. Stake them in windy areas and cut them often as cutting stimulates more flowers. Enjoy them in the and their spicy fragrance in the garden or the vase.

Snapdragons like full sun but they will tolerate some shade. They should be watered and fed regularly, and flower spikes should be cut off after they are done blooming so that seeds don’t develop, which signal the plant to stop flowering.

Whether you plant them for their stately cut flowers, or so the children can enjoy making them “snap,” don’t let your fall garden be without snapdragons.

• Plant snapdragons, pansies and violas for color this fall, winter and next spring.

• Plant cover crops in areas of the garden that have finished producing for the summer. Crimson clover, vetch and fava beans will grow over the winter and enrich the soil for next year.

• Set out rhubarb and artichoke plants now so you can enjoy their produce next spring.

• Fall is for Planting! Trees, shrubs, lawns, ground covers and bulbs get a jump on spring if you plant them now.

Preparing Garden Soils for Spring

Fall should not be viewed as the end of the gardening season, but as the beginning of next year’s garden. Proper soil preparation now will go a long way to improve next year’s harvest and reduce the amount of spring garden work.

You don’t have to be in a rush to clean out crops if you can still harvest some green tomatoes or a sweet pepper or two. But when the season is over, cleaning out the dead plants prevents the overwintering of diseases and harmful insects. As you finish harvesting, pull up the plants, place them in the compost pile or, if diseased, throw them in the garbage or the green waste.   

If weeds have gotten away from you and gone to seed, try to carefully cut off the seed heads first and put them in a garbage bag so they won’t disperse around the garden as you pull up the plants. For perennial weeds, make sure to remove any roots, or they will regrow next year.  Tilling them in will only break up the roots into many more pieces, multiplying your problem next season. 

If you can get the garden cleaned up by early fall, you can plant a cover crop.  This is simply a crop such as crimson clover or fava beans that will protect the soil from erosion, and add organic matter to the soil. It serves as “green manure” when it is tilled back into the soil next spring. If you are preparing a new area to be a garden space next year, plant annual ryegrass there to break up the soil with its deep roots.

If frosts have begun, it is probably too late to establish a cover crop before winter. In that case, add 1 to 2 inches of compost or manure on top of your beds and mulch the bare areas of the garden. Organic matter loosens heavy clay soils, adds nutrients and by attracting all those soil microorganisms, makes the soil healthier. Several inches of amendments added in both spring and fall, as well as the use of cover crops, will substantially enhance the quality of your soil.

When the garden season is over and done with, and everything is cleared out and put to bed, then it’s time to plant garlic! Break the bulb into cloves then make a furrow about 3 inches deep and place the cloves in it, 4-6 inches apart. Be sure to plant the cloves pointed end up. Make your rows 6-12 inches apart. Rake the soil back over the cloves, so that they are covered by 2 inches of soil, and water the bed well. Each clove will develop into a full head of garlic by next summer.

You can still plant crops like kale, collards and spinach from starts. Onions can be planted from seedlings and they produce next year. These vegetables don’t mind the cold weather and will give you fresh greens as the weather cools.

Enjoy the warm fall days by spending some time in your garden.