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solorya

What to plant now?

Solorya
10 years ago

I have about 2 sq ft left in two raised garden beds where lettuce and chard failed to sprout (or maybe the torrential rains washed the seeds away). Being new to Okie gardening, I'm not sure what to plant there. Normally I fill in the gaps with carrots and lettuce, but I don't know if it is too late in the season to do that here. Suggestions?

Comments (4)

  • Okiedawn OK Zone 7
    10 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Solorya,

    It is far too late to sow carrot seed or lettuce seed for spring/summer production. The OSU-recommended planting dates for them are February 15 - March 10th, and the summer/fall dates to plant them for an autumn/winter harvest are months away. Lettuce just melts away in the high heat here. Carrots, even planted this late, will grow just fine. They will sprout and they will grow, but the heat just kills their sweetness.

    Because the space you have is so limited, there is not necessarily a lot you can plant right now,but these are the veggies for which we still remain within the OSU-recommended planting period: cucumber, eggplant, okra, pepper, pumpkins, southern peas, summer squash or winter squash. I have planted mini-melons, often referred to as refrigerator melons, and cantaloupes both as late as mid-June and gotten a harvest from them in August through October. It would be hard to grow either one in a one square foot space but you can put a tall tomato cage around them and train them to climb the cage and grow them in a small space that way.

    If you enjoy using fresh herbs, you still can plant pretty much any herb you choose now....basil, borage, lemon balm, Texas tarragon/Mexican Mint Marigold, sage, rosemary, thyme, etc. For a few cool-season herbs like cilantro, chives, dill and parsley, even though we normally plant them in cooler weather, I always sow some at this time of the year for fall and they sprout and grow just fine. The cilantro will try to bolt during intense heat, but I just succession sow more every couple of weeks so I always have a new clump of it coming along.

    If we could be sure that the June through August temperatures would stay cooler than average, you could sow bush beans...but their performance becomes iffy here as the summer goes on and the temperatures rise. In an average to cooler-than-average summer, you sometimes can succession-sow bush beans all summer for a continuous harvest, but in an hotter-than-average summer like we had in 2011 and 2012, the high temperatures make their blossoms drop without forming beans during the worst of the summer heat. That makes them iffy for summer production. I wouldn't use limited space for bush beans at this time of year simply because they are iffy, but would wait and sow seed in mid-summer for a fall harvest.

    You probably could sow Swiss chard again and get plants and a harvest. I just sowed seeds a couple of weeks ago to replace last year's Swiss Chard plants which were bolting, and those plants have sprouted and are a couple of inches tall now. As long as you keep them well-watered, and harvest the leaves young and tender in the summer, they are fine as a summer crop, being more heat-tolerant than lettuce and other greens are.

    I'm going to link the OSU Garden Planning Guide below to give you an idea of the recommended planting dates for late winter through late spring here in OK.

    Dawn

    Here is a link that might be useful: Oklahoma Garden Planning Guide

  • Okiedawn OK Zone 7
    10 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    RIght now we are in the awkward time of the planting season where there's only a few crops you can sow for a summer harvest, but it is too early to plant for a fall harvest. However, I thought I'd come back here and link the Fall Planning Guide, so you can keep its' recommended planting dates in mind as the summer goes on.

    I always start sowing fall crops as much on schedule as possible as the harvest of summer crops begins to leave bare spots in the garden. With careful planning and planting, you can be harvesting from your fall garden through November or December, or even later if you use floating row cover to protect crops from occasional very cold nights. We kept last fall's lettuce planting covered with row covering on nights when the temperatures were forecast to drop below 25 degrees, and were still harvesting from those fall lettuce plants even in March and April. Our spring lettuce was producing before our fall lettuce stopped producing. Had we not covered it up, it likely would have frozen in December or January.

    Fall gardening sounds harder than it is. The hard part is to plant seeds or transplants in hot weather and get them off to a good start. It is important to plant them on time, as recommended by OSU even if it sounds ridiculously early, so that they can produce on time and you can be harvesting in fall and winter. When we talk about the fall garden, it mostly is in terms of harvesting....the actual planting for most items occurs in the summer, though for a few items you don't plant until September or October.

    Dawn

    Here is a link that might be useful: Fall Garden Planning Guide

  • Solorya
    Original Author
    10 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Thank you Dawn! This is immensely helpful! I think I will try chard again--I plant by the "nature abhors a vacuum" method and if nothing I want is growing there...something I don't want will be!

  • Okiedawn OK Zone 7
    10 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    You're welcome, Solorya.

    I plant by the same "nature abhors a vacuum" philosophy as well. If I leave any bare ground, Ma Nature is likely to plant some weeds there that I don't want.

    Usually I succession plant mostly veggies and just preserve the excess. Well, last year I preserved the excess produce so well that I put up a two year or longer supply of almost everything, so this year I am trying to cut myself some slack and spend much less time in the kitchen preserving produce. So, except for my plan to succession sow some southern peas when all the cabbage comes out, I am going to spend much of the rest of June and July succession sowing flowers and herbs for a change.

    I'll plant a fall garden filled with edible plants too, but am aiming for growing more in moderation and not in excessive amounts.

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