Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Fall Planting Is Underway

I am running a little late, but am still gonna try to sneak in a fall garden, before swinging into the winter crops.   For the fall, I just put in 2 Florida 91 Tomatoes, 2 Heatwave Tomatoes, 2 Phoenix Tomatoes , 4 Bell Peppers, 3 Burpless Cucumbers, all as seedlings.   In the seed area I also planted 3 Cantelopes, 3 Mexican Melons, and 3 Sun Jewel Melons.  Its gonna be close, but I should make enough fruit to make it worth the effort. 

I found this neat little calculator to use to calculate days to harvest.  Just look at the seed pack to see days to harvest for whatever you are planting, then go to this site (http://www.timeanddate.com/date/dateadd.html) , put it in, and shazam.

Using that site, at 75 days, my Sun Jewel Melons should be producing by October 25th.  Most years that would give me around a full month of production, and a little longer, if I chose to provide some minimal frost protection.   Considering that my cost for the seeds was zero, having been saved from a organically grown melon I ate, I can hardly lose.

Here is another handy site for Gulf Coast Vegetable Gardeners as well.  This is LSU's planting guide for Louisiana, but should be good anywhere in Zone 9a/8b.  http://www.lsuagcenter.com/NR/rdonlyres/BA17B15B-099A-41BE-AB42-0D8861446228/56100/Pub1980VegetablePlantingGuide2009HIGHRES.pdf