Rispon Avenue

The air is getting a nip in it. The days are getting shorter. Fall is finally here. Most people who dabble in gardens will call it quits with the end of the summer season. Fall can offer some great treats for the garden.

Some of the best salads come from cold weather growing. Most lettuces and spinaches prefer the cool temperatures. They will produce better and grow stronger than if you try to force them in the heat of summer. Carrots are also great cool weather vegetables. If you have children, these can be a fun choice to introduce them to gardening.

Another great benefit of gardening is that you no longer are forced to weed in the heat. The weeds, for the most part, are heat loving annuals that will slow down with the weather. Plus, the drop in temperature means you can work without sweating (or at least with a lot less sweat). The normal pests of the garden (ants, biting insects, and even snakes) also slow down as the temperature goes down.

Fall is not just the time to clean up the tools and get ready for winter hibernation by the fireplace. The cool weather that flows in starting around September opens up a whole new world of gardening possibilities.

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We are a family of gardeners and it doesn’t help that we live on a large amount of acreage. Our garden is only as small as the tractor (driven by my father-in-law who does not consult with me) turns over. Last year it was a whopping 100 feet by 75 feet. Too big, too much work, and too little consistency means we all usually give up on the garden before the end of the season. There has to be an easier way to garden.

I’ve heard about square foot gardening, but I’ve not researched it as much as I should. Just looking over a website online was enough to convince me this is the direction we will be going in the up coming season. It was motivating enough that I’m seriously considering a fall and winter garden.

The hard part won’t be building the raised beds or even filling them with soil (we have a bucket on the tractor that will do most of the work) but it will be convincing my father-in-law that this is the right path to take. He’s a firm believer of “we’ve never done it that way before.”

It would be nice to only have to work what we plant instead of having to worry about a huge pot of dirt that only produces five cucumbers. It would also be nice not to have to fight the crawling grass that loves to invade our garden.

If this works out well, I might be moving my flower beds in to the raised position.

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