# Ideas for Zone 5 fall garden?



## OldFashionedMama (Jun 18, 2009)

I just tore out my cucumbers. I did 40 quarts of pickles-that's quite enough! The other end still has my green peppers and herbs, but what to do with the empty space? I've never done a fall garden before. What can I plant?


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## Emerald (Jun 14, 2010)

Carrots, radishes(mine always do better in the fall), cabbages, any and almost all the lettuces and greens, beets for greens, Swiss chard, broccoli, I have always wanted to try some fall peas, but plant the edible podded ones like snow peas or sugar snaps. Spinach, I have overwintered spinach a few times and while it really doesn't grow much during the late fall and winter that next spring it will just boom! and you will end up with more than you ever thought you could grow. And soon it will be shallot and garlic planting time, so don't forget to save room for them. I have done shallots for a few years off and on and they do well just planted like garlic is in the fall. Have you ever tried kohlrabi? That is another fall crop as is bok choi. I think that there are a few loose leaf cabbages out there somewhere too. I might think of some more. And I live in a zone 5 so I have tried most of these type of plants myself. You would not believe how sweet carrots are when they overwinter in the garden just mulched heavy, you can even pull a few in the winter if it is not frozen really hard yet.
My grand parents grew parsnips and left them in the garden all winter under bales of straw and just pulled up the bale and dug them all winter. But parsnips need a bit more time than just planting now. They are usually planted in the spring or early summer. Just give me a PM if you have any problems with any of the plants I listed, I have grown most of them out.:flower:


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## UncleJoe (Jan 11, 2009)

Yep. That covers it pretty well. :congrat:


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## OldFashionedMama (Jun 18, 2009)

I was lazy last year and left my carrots in the ground. Indeed they overwintered-but I didn't know you could still eat them after leaving them in the ground all winter! I also discovered by accident that arugula will overwinter, and so will endive. Did I mention I was lazy last year? LOL I hardly pulled anything out of the garden before winter-just got too busy! 

I've been interested in growing my own garlic. What kind of soil does it need-or does it not matter? I have plenty of extra room in my medicinal and fragrance gardens, but the soils there have not been amended like the veggie garden. Depending on when garlic is harvested in my zone (I dont know when that would be ) I could plant some in the front flower bed, which has quite excellent soil. As long as it was out of the way before my annuals go in


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## UncleJoe (Jan 11, 2009)

OFM, beets will also winter over. Beets, carrots, onion and garlic need to stay in the ground for 1 winter to produce seeds. If the ground isn't froze solid, you can dig them up and have fresh carrots in the middle of winter. I left beets and carrots in the ground last fall for just that reason. Unfortunately a few of the goats got free and dug up all the carrots and all but 1 of the beets. Then our May hail storm destroyed the beet that made it through the winter. 

I don't grow garlic, but the onions grow in the same soil as everything else; right next to the wax beans. I would think garlic would do well there also.


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## Emerald (Jun 14, 2010)

Garlic is really not that hard to grow, and it likes rich, well composted soil.(you could use artificial fertilizers, I am just organic so don't know about them that much) You plant them in the fall and usually harvest around July.

Just buy a few of the white Christopher ranch garlic from the store if you want to try it cheaply before spending the big bucks on hard neck garlic or fancier kinds of garlic.
Break the bulb into the cloves leaving the paper on and stick in the ground about an inch, lightly mulch with some leaves or straw and just walk away till spring, keep them weeded and harvest when there are about only 3 green "leaves" left but before the whole plant turns brown. Dry out of the sun in about 70 to 80 temp (f) for a couple of weeks and then use and hang in nice cool dry area in your home out of the sun.

This is just a short sweet version and you can get more detailed info on garlic growing all over the web.


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## gypsysue (Mar 27, 2010)

We always leave a dozen or so of the bigger carrots in the ground over the winter and let them go to seed the next year. We've done this for 5 years and have lots of wonderful carrots every year. We had to plant them two years on a row in order to get a rotation going, since carrots are "biennial" (or however you spell it), meaning they grow one year, then go to seed the second year. In the fall of the second year we shake the seed heads over a bag. Lots of it always falls to the ground and the next year we have carrots coming up all over the place, right in with whatever is planted there that year!


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## BuggingIn (May 31, 2010)

I'm trying my hand at saving carrot seed this year. I never realized that the carrot plant puts out so many seed heads on a single plant! I think I'm going to have plenty of seed for next year. I have another section of 1st year carrots that I'm going to save for seed next year, if all goes well.

Emerald's list is a great one - sounds like much of the planting I'm doing now for fall crops. I'm supposed to be a zone 8 PNW, but am in a frost pocket area, so I think my growing zone is more like a 7. I get a frost in Sept and last April/early May most years. Last year, I got frost on June 30.


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