Plant more veggies now

Enjoying your tomatoes and peppers? You can keep your garden bounty going and growing by planting more vegetables now. And they don't necessarily have to be cool season crops. There are so many possibilities for a fall garden. Everything from cucumbers and squash to lettuce, broccoli and tomatoes can be planted in August in Ohio. Planting in late summer can allow for succession gardening and take advantage of plants that like cooler temperatures. Check out this nifty planting calendar from Ohio State University Extension: https://morrow.osu.edu/sites/morrow/files/imce/Garden% 20Calendar_1.pdf. You'll notice that the calendar is geared to USDA Plant Hardiness Zone 6a. If you land into a later zone, you can add a week or two to how late you plant in the summer and fall. Erie County, Ohio, falls within USDA Plant Hardiness Zones 6a, 6b, and 7a, based on the 2023 USDA Hardiness Zone Map. For example, Sandusky, Vermilion and Milan are in Zone 6b, Huron is in Zone 6a, and a strip along Lake Erie is Zone 7a. Type in your zip code to see exactly where you fall at https://planthardiness.ars.usda.gov/. About half the country moved into a warmer "half" zone in 2023 when compared with 2012, according to USDA. Plant hardiness zones tell you when, on average, the first frost will hit your area (or the last frost in the spring). That's important because, using a little math and reading the back of your seed packet, it will tell you the last day you should plant your fall crop so you can harvest before a killing frost. Take radishes for example. According to my seed packet, it takes 30 days from seeding to harvest. The first frost date is likely to hit my Huron garden between October 17 and 31. To be conservative, I should plant my radishes no later than September 17. Bush beans, on the other hand, are 55 days to harvest, so I better get those in by August 23. Broccoli takes 70 to 100 days from seeding to harvest, so we've run out of time to seed that vegetable, unless you've already started plants indoors or can purchase some. Depending on the variety, you can harvest broccoli planted as seedlings in 50 to 60 days. There is still time to seed these vegetables directly into the soil in Erie County: lettuce, leafy greens, peas, green beans, spinach, radishes, kohlrabi, turnips, beets, green onions, and carrots. Some of these can tolerate a frost, like kohlrabi, while green beans cannot. https://extension.umn.edu/planting-and-growing-guides/planting-vegetables-midsummer-fall-harvest. Before sowing a fall crop or succession crop, add some balanced fertilizer to replace what earlier plants have used. Remove leftover roots and stems from the previous planting. Also remember to rotate your vegetables to different areas of your garden to avoid disease and insect problems. By rotating your vegetables, you disrupt the disease or pest's life cycle by removing the host plant needed to complete its lifecycle. https://extension.psu.edu/crop-rotation-for-the-home-vegetable-garden. As for me, I'm going to plant some salad vegetables this month: lettuce, spinach, carrots, radishes, and peas. Wish me luck and enjoy your next batch of garden bounty.