PNW - 2015 September

Hey everyone! Here's what gardenate suggests for September plantings:

7a:

Beans - broad beans, fava beans (also Fava bean) -- Plant in garden.
Beetroot (also Beets) -- Plant in garden.
Cabbage -- Plant in garden.
Carrot -- Plant in garden.
Celeriac -- Plant in garden.
Chives (also Garden chives) -- Plant in garden.
Collards (also Collard greens, Borekale) -- Plant in garden.
Garlic -- Plant in garden.
Kohlrabi -- Plant in garden.
Leeks -- Plant in garden.
Lettuce -- Plant in garden.
Mustard greens (also gai choy) -- Plant in garden.
Onion Plant in garden.
Pak Choy (also Pak choi) -- Plant in garden.
Radish -- Plant in garden.
Rocket (also Arugula/Rucola) -- Plant in garden.
Rutabaga (also Swedes) -- Plant in garden.
Spinach (also English spinach) -- Plant in garden.
Spring onions (also Scallions, Bunching onions, Welsh onion) -- Plant in garden.
Turnip

In 7b:

Add in cauliflower

How are you all doing so far this month?

Not long ago, we were having nights in the 90's for the first few hours, and in the high 80's for a good bit after that. Just a week ago, I was sweating in bed and having to throw the sheet partially off to cool down. The last few nights have hit 50 degrees! An amazingly quick change. We'll still have some scorchers, I'm sure, but summer is on its way out.

P.S.: I know there are more zones than 7a and 7b. Too many, in fact, to keep this post a general guide rather than a mass of confusion. Pacific Northwest people, look up your own region and do the planting that's suited to it. It may be quite different from what I've posted here as a starting point for a whole (very large) region.

I tried direct planting a few of those a couple weeks ago - too early/hot. Now would probably be perfect.
When is your first frost, Marc?
CC

November 21, if I recall correctly.

Kale has come up nicely from pods taken from last year's plant. I'll plant more. Caterpillars are coming out, though. The tops have already been eaten off some seedlings. gggggrrrrrrr!!!!

Overall, this season has been my worst for tomatoes in four years since I started getting back into gardening from when I was a kid. Very little fruit set, and now blight is working its way through the plants. I've had to do significant plucking and trimming. The delicious tomatoes I've been eating this year have almost entirely been from somebody else.

I will say that I've profited from sanderson's letting us know about Arkansas tomatoes, and that they're very heat-resistant. They were responsible for most of the very meager fruit set I've had, and they've been delicious. They've varied from golf-ball sized to a medium, Early Girl size, and for me have not been a large slicer, but I didn't expect them to be. I will make these a mainstay next year, as the combo of great flavor and heat resistance is exactly what I want.

I'm also going to concentrate on cherry tomatoes, as those almost always do well, and many will set in hotter temperatures than ordinary tomatoes -- sun gold will, for instance, and sweet millions. When you add up the volume produced, in good gardens and bad around here that I've seen, they never come out behind their larger cousins.

It's been a banner year for yellow banana peppers, so I'll plant more of them next year. But I'll plant them earlier, as my early-planted ones produced far more than the ones that I got on sale further into the season, which were already root-bound and never caught up.

Well I had six empty squares and planted two varieties each of lettuce, radishes, and spinach.  The next day I discovered that a squirrel had dug up and made a mess of the bed.  

I see squirrel stew in your future.....