Four-season gardening
by Pamela White

This year saw a resurgence of interest in home gardening. Driven by the economy and by concerns about the nutritional value and safety of manufactured and imported food, people rolled up their sleeves and turned portions of their yards into vegetable gardens, causing a spike in seed sales of almost 50 percent in some places.

Now summer has gone, and the first frost is around the corner. So is it over?

Heck, no. While the amateurs are watching their gardens go to seed and wondering why the only thing they grew in quantity was zucchini, more experienced gardeners and farmers are thinking about cool weather crops, fall planting and improving their soil for next spring. They’re also reflecting on what was learned this year and making plans for next year.

Natalie Condon of Isabelle Farm, a family-owned, community-supported organic farm in Lafayette, says that the cooler weather means that some plants that struggle in the heat will bounce back and continue to produce. Those include brassicas — brussels sprouts, broccoli, kale, cabbage.

“We’ve planted a lot of stuff that will continue to produce straight through November,” Condon says. “We still have to row-cover a lot of stuff. We row cover our lettuce. We’ll row cover our tomatoes for a while.”

Condon she and her husband Jason are planting carrots and spinach now. While some gardeners and farmers have already replanted greens for fall harvest, Condon over-winters spinach for an early spring harvest.

“You can put it in now, and by early, early spring you’ll have spinach,” she says.
Early to mid-October is a good time to plant garlic and shallots for harvest next summer, she says.

Elaine Andrews of Andrews Family Organic Farm, a community-supported farm located on Jay Road outside Boulder, says she and her husband, Rich, are hoping for another harvest of certain crops soon.

I did plant some late-season vegetables, probably not early enough,” she says. “We’re hoping to get kale and a couple kinds of lettuce and arugula and cilantro. If it doesn’t frost, we’ll have those by the end of September.”

In milder falls, it’s possible for some plants to continue producing for extended periods of time.

“Last year, it was a warm fall, and so we were able to get longer production on winter squashes, pumpkins and potatoes,” Andrews says. “We didn’t have to rush to get those things harvested last year.”

What will happen this autumn is anyone’s guess. But there are things gardeners can do to extend their growing seasons, even growing food in the cold of winter.

“For us, season extension means to be able to offer winter squash through November,” Condon says. “But I have friends who grow things throughout the winter. I have friends who grow a lot of arugula and mâche all through winter.”
It doesn’t take a greenhouse, Condon says — or at least not a conventional greenhouse.

“Make a trip to ReSource 2000, and buy a glass door, she says. “You grow under the glass door. You pick it up and harvest from underneath it. And you can do it here [in Colorado].”

For serious gardeners, fall also means it’s time to nurture the soil that nurtured them. But it’s a more complicated matter than simply tilling compost into the ground.

Condon recommends getting a soil testing kit from McGuckin and checking the pH of your garden’s soil. Once you know what the pH is, you can compare that with the optimal pH needed to grow the plants you hope to grow. Most seed packets and seed catalogues will indicate the optimal pH for each kind of plant.

“It’s kind of a fun little science project almost, trying to figure out what’s going to grow well because of a specific pH,” she says. “And it’s not that difficult. Between the seed catalogues and the little soil pH test, it’s pretty easy.”

People like Condon and Andrews who farm on a large scale will use cover crops to improve their soil, planting things like hairy vetch that add nitrogen to the soil, then tilling those plants into the earth.

But most backyard gardeners would be better served by purchasing soil amendments from garden stores that sell organic compost. Condon recommends the Flower Bin in Longmont.

Condon suggests testing the soil this fall, adding compost as appropriate, then re-testing the pH in the spring.
Andrews says they’ve done a variety of things to enrich their soil, from using their own compost to mulching with comfrey leaves, which add nitrogen to the soil.

If all of this isn’t enough to keep urban homesteaders busy, there’s also planning for spring — what to plant, whether to buy seedlings or grow them from seed indoors at home, when and where to plant them, and how to get the most out of their gardens through techniques like succession planting.

Failures shouldn’t be viewed as a sign from Mother Nature that you’ve got a black thumb, but rather as an opportunity to learn, perhaps even take a class or two.

Andrews, who had no real experience farming before she and her husband started their organic operation, says there’s a certain amount of trial and error involved, even for experienced, lifelong farmers.

“It’s a fun learning game,” says Condon, who grew up spending summers in Switzerland on her cousins’ large-scale farm. “People can have so much fun with this. It’s a great way to teach your kids about a lot of stuff.”

Neither Condon nor Andrews could say exactly how many mouths their farms feed.

“Today we picked 1,500 pounds of tomatoes for a guy who does organic canning,” Condon says. “That’s just our wholesale order. That has nothing to do with what we’re bringing to market tonight or our scheduled CSA pickup tonight.”

Andrews’ farm has 24 members, most of them working members, with each share feeding an estimated four people. But some people eat more vegetables than others, and some people split shares.

But neither doubt that it’s possible for people to grow much of the food their families eat in their own backyards
Says Andrews: “It’s miraculous what nature can do.”