Cool-season vegetables keep fresh taste coming

We are savoring the fresh-picked taste of our homegrown vegetables. Tomatoes and peppers are bountiful, beans and zucchini are in abundance, and onions and potatoes are plentiful. Our taste buds can continue to be tantalized with the flavors of newly-harvested vegetables if a fall crop is planted.

Most vegetables that could be planted early in spring are appropriate for fall planting too. These plants grow best when temperatures are a bit milder, and they can tolerate a light frost. The most important consideration when choosing which vegetables to grow is the date of the first hard frost. In our area, it usually occurs in mid-October. To determine when to start planting a specific vegetable, check out the seed packet or plant label for the days to maturity and then count backward from the frost date.

If you are planting seeds in garden spaces or containers where earlier crops have been harvested, just loosen the soil with a garden fork making sure the top couple inches of soil are fine-textured. Work in a balanced fertilizer to add back nutrients depleted by summer crops of vegetables. Remove old plant debris - stems, roots and leaves - from earlier plantings. They may cause difficulties in seed germination or harbor insects or disease.

While it may be too late to start some cool-season vegetables from seed, leaf lettuces, radishes and spinach still have time to reach maturity. Space seeds in rows according to the directions on the seed packet. Or sprinkle seeds over an area in a square-foot style planting. Either way, thin seedlings as they appear so that the strongest plants have room to grow.

The depth that seeds should be plunged into the soil is also indicated on the seed packet. Follow these directions carefully. Some seeds need the cover of darkness to germinate; others want just a dusting of soil over them.

Keep the soil moist until seedlings appear. Protect young seedlings from hot afternoon sun and drying summer winds.

Vegetables, too late to grow from seed, can be started from small plants available at your local garden center. Prepare the soil just as you would for starting seeds, and place plants at the same depth as they were growing in their pots. Water them in well and keep them slightly moist until their roots have time to establish. Use a starter fertilizer to get plants off to a fast start.

There is still time to grow some of these favorites.

Beets should be started from small plants. Make sure the soil is loose and free of clumps several inches deep so beets can form properly.

Broccoli is also best started from small plants. Place mulch around plants to keep the roots cool. Feed broccoli with a low nitrogen fertilizer.

Start cabbage from small plants now so they have time for heads to develop. They grow best in rich soil amended with lots of organic matter. They also need consistent moisture.

Lettuce can be started from seed. Keep the soil moist while lettuce is growing and give it protection from the hot afternoon sun. If space is limited, lettuce is easy to tuck into fall containers where its leafy texture blends well with pansies.

Radishes can also be started from seed. They grow quickly in fertile, well-drained soil.

Sow seeds for spinach too. To foster fast growth and produce the best-tasting leaves, grow spinach in rich, well-drained soil.

Swiss chard should be started from plants. If you don't have room in the garden, use some in decorative fall planters. Their richly-colored stems and bold leaves are beautiful combined with fall mums.

Whether starting from seeds or small plants, be on the lookout for summer pests, like cabbageworms and grasshoppers, who may find the lush growth of new vegetable plants especially attractive. Whether handpicking or sprays is the desired method of treatment, quick action yields better results.

Be prepared for an unusually early frost. Have old sheets and stakes on hand to cover plants if necessary.

Plant a fall crop of cool-season vegetables and continue to harvest fresh-picked goodness well into fall.

• Diana Stoll is a horticulturist and the garden center manager at The Planter's Palette, 28W571 Roosevelt Road, Winfield. Call (630) 293-1040, ext. 2, or visit planterspalette.com.