Even though this is the third week of August, you still can plant some types of vegetables and enjoy them before winter.
Radishes, spinach, beets and maybe lettuce are some of the vegetables you still can plant in August.
The average first frost date in this area is around Oct. 13. Seed packets tell gardeners how many days are needed until harvest.
To determine whether there’s enough time, gardeners just count backward from Oct. 13. Hall County Extension Educator Elizabeth Killinger Exstrom recommends that you allow for a two-week buffer. Just because the average first frost is Oct. 13 “doesn’t necessarily mean it’s going to wait until then,” she said.
But some crops are able to handle a little bit of a light frost, Exstrom said. So depending on variety and size, it might not be too late to plant beets.
Growing radishes from scratch right now is easy because some require only 30 days to harvest.
Horticulturists will tell you that if you’re going to plant a fall garden in this area, you should plant it the last week of July or the first part of August, said Wood River gardener Nick Lammers.
We’re right on the edge of that time period, Lammers said.
It would be foolish now to plant watermelons or other slower-developing produce.
But Lammers said it’s still acceptable to plant lettuce and spinach, as well as beets and radishes.
Even though Nebraskans won’t have Scott Frost coaching this fall, they can entertain themselves trying to beat the frost.
Lettuce will die with the first frost, so it’s more of a gamble. But spinach can handle a light frost, Exstrom said.
Gardeners also might have success with peas and green onions, she said.
It’s too late to plant brussel sprouts, but if you have them in the ground, hold on for awhile.
That vegetable is sweeter when harvested after a light frost, Exstrom said.
Because the soil is warm, plants will grow faster than those planted in April, Lammers said. You won’t have to wait a week and a half or two weeks to see signs of life. “They just pop right out of the ground,” he said.
Putting seeds in the ground would be a smarter move on Aug. 1 than it is now.
“It would be, but if you’re a gambler, you’re not out anything by starting those crops just a little bit later,” Exstrom said.
A person could plant spinach and lettuce until Aug. 20, she said.
Because radishes require only 30 days, “you could be planting them until September if you really wanted to,” Exstrom said.
Some vegetables benefit from cooler weather, acquiring a better flavor. “It tends to concentrate some of the sugars in the vegetables,” Lammers said. He’s heard people say, “Wow, the fall vegetables taste better than the spring.”
It’s probably too late to plant broccoli or cabbage, Lammers said. But he would try letttuce, spinach and radishes.
“I’m sure I would have some kind of a crop off of them,” he said.
The first frost is usually not a killing frost, Lammers said.
Succession planting, as Exstrom calls it, will work if the timing is right. Peas “really dislike the heat of the summer,” she said. She has planted them as early as March. So it’s possible to plant another crop when summer heat arrives and then come back toward fall with another crop of peas.
Some people buy broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower and brussel sprouts at garden stores and keep them in a greenhouse until June. They then plant those vegetables in the ground at the end of July or early August, Lammers said. He calls those plants “cool season vegetable crops.”
But it’s hard for gardeners to stay motivated late in the growing season, Exstrom said. For a fall crop to work, a gardener has to be just as enthusastic as she was for the spring crop. Sometimes, “that motivation really goes downhill once we get to the end of the growing season,” she said.
After a whole summer of intense gardening, a gardener will ask himself, “Do I want to keep this season going or do I just want to wrap it up?” Lammers said.
If a gardener does decide to keep it going, he or she can raise “some pretty good crops,” Lammers said.
Seeds are “pretty cheap,” he said. So a person who wants to plant some vegetables should go ahead. The worst-case scenario is that unusually cold weather arrives and the seeds will die.
But those circumstances would be exceptional. “So more than likely, you’ll be OK,” Lammers said.
August 19, 2020 at 10:31AM
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Beet the clock: It's not too late to plant some vegetables - Grand Island Independent
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