I attended this morning's seminar on Fall Vegetable Gardening by Bill Finch, which included a look at his own vegetable garden.
He emphasized that winter is really a wonderful time to garden here, though you don't hear much about it. I heartily agree. Even though I've only lived here two years, I learned pretty quickly that cool-season gardening is my favorite time of year, and the grueling height of summer my bête noire - pretty much the opposite of the midwestern climate I was used to.
To sum up, there were pretty much two principles Bill emphasized for winter gardening.
- Timing - that's why you want to start NOW.
- Enrich your soil with organic matter (obviously this applies no matter what the season).
For timing, there's a very handy and attractive chart that's available online at the Press-Register: The Plain Garden Planting Cycle (PDF). It's specifically designed for Mobile and the immediate area. The chart contains a lot of information that was reviewed during the seminar.
There are things you can start from seed now in pots, like broccoli and greens, and other plants you'll want to start later, like chard and onions. Others can be sown directly in the ground in September and October, even into December (for snap peas).
Some people asked about varieties, and for some plants - garlic, for example - it is important to get ones that are suited to our climate. But otherwise you can use most any reliable seed catalog, since as Mr. Finch pointed out the plants we're growing here in the winter are the ones the rest of the country grows during warmer seasons.
A couple of specific sources that were mentioned:
- Filaree Farm for garlic; look for the turban varieties.
- Southern Exposure Seed Exchange for seeds.
Be sure to order your seeds promptly, particularly this year, since the victory garden craze and anxiety over food costs have caused seed companies to sell out much more quickly. Garlic in particular is a fast mover, and a glance at Filaree Farm shows that several varieties are already sold out for this fall.
Enriching your soil through the addition of organic matter was addressed in a February Garden column (sorry, the links have expired). Mr. Finch's preferred method is to pile leaves on the bed several feet deep, and let them slowly decompose into rich topsoil. When you need to plant you can brush the top layers aside. As evidenced by the lush, healthy garden we toured, this method works quite well.
Below is a photo of a bed covered with composting leaves so you can get an idea of the volume. These are pretty well composted at this point.
The audience of around 50 (I believe the Botanical Garden sold almost all its tickets for the event) had plenty of questions, and I gleaned some tidbits for you about common questions regarding the summer garden.
You can still plant pole beans and bush beans NOW for another crop before winter. Get out there and get planting!
For summer gardening, choice of variety - or at least, knowing what NOT to grow - is more important. For example:
- Dwarf okra doesn't do well here because it doesn't have a big enough root system to hold up to the nematodes. Stick with older, full-sized varieties.
- If you're a frustrated tomato grower, you may want to try cherry tomatoes instead. Leaf-footed bugs don't bother them as badly (as they certainly did my tomato crop).
- If you're a frustrated squash grower, try solid-necked varieties like Tromboncino and Seminole pumpkin. Pick them small and treat them like the standard summer squashes. Yellow squash and zucchini, which are hollow-necked varieties, are plagued by the squash vine borer; solid-necked ones aren't as susceptible.
Frustrated cilantro growers may want to try the herb papalo, which most of us had a taste of. It's a Mexican herb that's more suited to our climate, and can be used as a substitute for cilantro. It doesn't taste like cilantro, but it has a warm, spicy flavor which I recalled pleasantly the rest of the day. It has soft, grey-green leaves and an attractive upright growth habit. Looking online, I've found photos of two somewhat different plants; one that looks like the one I've photographed below, and another with more pointed leaves and sparser growth. I don't know if both are truly papalo.
Bill Finch writes to say that the plant in his garden (and pictured here) is most certainly a strain of Porophyllum ruderale, commonly called papalo. There are other species in the genus which are aromatic, and there is some confusion here in North America about which is which.