Square Foot Gardening: Continuing the Harvest

Now that we have figured out how to make square foot raised beds, and how to plant within the grid of that bed we need to turn our attention to how to keep these beds producing.

Most people have begun to start their seeds by now. Perhaps you haven't but that is OK as you still have plenty of time left.

As you are planting you seeds for the spring you need to look ahead to your fall garden. I know we haven't even gotten to start our gardens outside yet and here I am talking about a Fall Garden and harvesting the yields from our gardens.

Continuous planting and harvesting is very important especially if you, like me, want to make the most out of your garden.  I am going to try and simplify this whole process for you.

First you need to determine your First Fall Frost date.   You can check this page out for the answers. Now that you have determined what that date is you can start to determine what plants you are going to have in the fall garden based on their weeks to maturity.  In case you don't know what I am talking about, the weeks to maturity mean from the point a plant sprouts to the point that you can harvest the plant.

So now that I have found that my Zone is a 4 and my first Fall Frost Date is approximately Sept 20. I have to start figuring out when I should start seeds for some of my fall plants.

 

Photo Credit

I have decided that I am going to plant more Broccoli, Cauliflower, Spinach, Lettuce, Carrots.  So now I have made my decision I found out what each plants weeks to maturity was.

PLANT                               WEEKS TO MATURITY                         Weeks to Plant before Frost

Broccoli                                                 16                                                         16-from seed
Cauliflower                                              16                                                        16-from seed
Carrots                                                    11                                                        11-from seed
Lettuce                                                     07                                                       07-from seed
Spinach                                                    07                                                       07-from seed


CROPS FOR A FALL HARVEST

These plants are summer crops that will continue to harvest til the first frost.

• Beans
• Swiss Chard
• Corn
• Cucumber
• Eggplant
• Peppers
• Muskmelon
• Winter Squash
• Tomatoes

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