The End of Summer Isn’t the End of Farming

The End of Summer Isn’t the End of Farming

August is wonderful because it’s the peak of summer but it’s sad because you know that autumn is on its way.

I often wonder why autumn can’t be the same as spring, with that same sense of anticipation I feel as I wait for my seedlings to turn into full-fledged plants.

The University of Connecticut Home & Garden Education Center inspired me with its newsletter on July 21. The ground right now is warm and wet, the newsletter said —creating the perfect conditions for germinating new seeds.

You might not need to go hunting around at your local garden center or nursery to find those seeds; they might be right in your own garden.

This year for the first time, I planted sugar snap peas, which I expected to start producing sweet, crunchy peas early in spring — and then quickly disappear. In fact, my vines kept producing peas all through July. When they were done, they left me with an enormous number of fat little seed pods that I have  just planted,  in hopes of getting of an autumn crop.

The UConn newsletter gave me dispensation to plant this next round of peas right on top of  my  original crop. Ideally you rotate to a new location, but “unless you had some disease or pest problem, replanting will be OK right now.”

Peas like cool weather. So do  radishes and lettuce; those tiny vegetables seem so fragile and yet they’re the ones that can best tolerate frost. 

If you had early spring dill, you’ll be getting dill seeds soon; try planting them back in the ground, and do the same with the seed pods that might be turning brown now on your arugula plants.

Weather is unpredictable, especially in this time of climate change. It’s possible there will be a hard early frost and all your plantings will suffer because of it. If you replanted your own seeds, you haven’t really lost anything. But it’s also possible that we will have a lovely warm and lengthy autumn — which you can spend in your garden, harvesting some of your “spring” edibles.

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