Fall Garden

I always eagerly anticipate the planting of an early spring garden. I love spending the summer harvesting and enjoying the fruits of my hard work of keeping the weeds at bay. I love being able to share the first fresh leaves of lettuce, lovely yellow squash and cucumbers. I eagerly wait for the very first red tomatoes.

By the end of summer I have begun to tire of some of the things in my garden. A body can only eat so many bowls of salad before it begins to revolt. I was actually sort of happy when the lettuce began to bolt in the coming heat of July. We haven't had a craving for or the want of a salad since then. I know very soon I will be dreaming of those crisp fresh leaves of lettuce to go with the last of the struggling tomato vines trying to make it until the first frost comes in November. So for fall lettuce is a must have.

This week after cutting the grass and mowing and cleaning up around my barns in preparation for the coming wintry months I got busy with the overrun plants in what is left of my summer garden. Out came all of the dwindling eggplants, okra, cabbage, squash and bean vines. I tilled the earth, turning it over fresh and clean.

A new canvas was ready to paint with the beautiful colors of fall seedlings. Rows of purples from cabbage, deep greens from collards, vibrant bright green from romaine lettuce and the mixed blue-ish greens of brocolloi, kale and brussel sprouts.

The tree on the edge of the garden is a mulberry tree. The kids love the fruits in the spring. So do the birds as is evident by all of their mulberry colored and staining poop. I have another mulberry tree much larger close by the garden as well. I am told and from what I read my larger mulberry is defying the laws of mulberry trees and should have come to the end of its live by now. It is a very large tree. I trim the low branches to keep them out of my way when mowing and tilling. I then take the branches and put them in the goat field. The goats can clean an entire limb of leaves in just a couple minutes. They eat like hogs!

Yesterday morning I began filling that clean slate with some of the vegetables that grow so beautifully in the fall.

I planted:

9 hills of brussel sprouts, 9 hills of broccoli, 9 heads green cabbage, 9 heads purple cabbage, 27 hills of collards, 27 heads of romaine lettuce

Yeah, I am planning on my appetite for salad to return in full swing very soon.

Are you planting a fall garden? It's not too late to get started in most parts of the country. Even in more wintery places there is something that will grow even in a cold frame or long flower pots in a sunny window.

I have grown lettuce in hanging baskets in front of a big bay window. I have. LOL

You can, too.