Planted mustard, collards, broccoli, fennel and lettuce in a seed flat in Montana. They came up well but the weather was too cold for part of the time; however they made the trip back to Texas ok and are now under my plant light here.
The beans that my daughter planted did not come up very well; probably did not get watered enough. Getting bean seed started in 90+ degree conditins is challenging even when you can watch them closely. Just for the heck of it I planted some more beans. We will see if global warming will bail me out.
Today I planted carrots (mokum and touchon) and beets (golden and chioggia). For carrots I lightly till the surface and sprinkle the seeds on, then press them down and very lightly sprinkle some potting soil or sifted compost on them. Likewise for the beets I plant in little holes and cover with compost. Because I add a lot of mulch the top layer of the soil has chunky undecomposed material. By covering with something that holds water well, germination is greatly improved. I soaked the beet seed overnight. The golden beet seed did not sink to the bottom as they are supposed to; we will see. They are relatively harder to germinate.
The peas produced a surprise second crop aided by cooler than average conditions in August. However, they are now spent and have been removed.
Beans were planted over Labor Day weekend.
Okra continues to produce and should last into October.
Corn (Butterfruit bi-color) is about knee high and doing well.
A good way to beat the heat on the fall garden is to start seeds of the cool weather plants under a grow light indoors. I start lettuce, greens, broccoli and fennel this way. Because vegetables need a lot of light, 2 sets of bulbs of 2 each is ideal. When we had our bathroom remodelled I put in a built in light.
I start the seeds in a system sold by Gardener’s Supply (www.gardeners.com). Homemade systems would also work, but theirs has the advantage of continuous bottom watering. This system keeps the soil uniformly moist and is especially good for seeds like lettuce that require light for germination. Indoors I get practically every seed to germinate. Outdoors the percentage is low unless conditions are ideal. A schematic of Gardener’s Supply APS system is shown to the left (from their web site). The greenhouse cover should be left on only for a few days to allow saturation. When the seeds germinate, it does not allow enough light through. Gardeners also sells a seed start mix that is good; somewhat expensive, but not much is needed.
Another technique useful for larger seeds like beans and corn is sprouting indoors. More on that in a later posting.