User avatar
ID jit
Green Thumb
Posts: 339
Joined: Tue Nov 01, 2016 10:00 am
Location: SE New England: zone twilight or 5b... hard for me to tell some days.

What to Plant Mid Season in New England?

Have a few empty half rows now and will have a couple more very soon. Have a 3/4 of a yard of compost ready to go. What can I plant? Never really tried to replant as thing like peas, spinach, lettuce, etc go by. Usually just pull everything and cover the space with a few inches of grass clippings and let the worms have at it.

Have a second round of green beans going and don't really want a 3rd reiteration this year. Have a second round of onion sets going too.

Anyone have ideas or suggestions?
Thanks much.

User avatar
applestar
Mod
Posts: 30514
Joined: Thu May 01, 2008 7:21 pm
Location: Zone 6, NJ (3/M)4/E ~ 10/M(11/B)

I'm going to try planting fall cauliflower, broccoli, cabbage, and kohlrabi. Seeds started inside in community container have sprouted and I thought I'd transplant them to individual plug cells to get them a bit bigger before planting out under insect screen tunnel. In the past horrendous pest pressure was cause of failure.

When is your first average frost?

User avatar
rainbowgardener
Super Green Thumb
Posts: 25279
Joined: Sun Feb 15, 2009 6:04 pm
Location: TN/GA 7b

depends on how long you have left until first frost. You could probably do summer squash, if you don't have too much trouble with the vine borers. In fact starting summer squash this late may be an advantage as far as squash bugs and borers; some of them may have already completed their life cycle.

Otherwise if you let it sit and mellow with mulch on it for just a month you can plant cool weather crops again. By mid-Aug you could plant lettuce, kale, spinach, broccoli, carrots, beets ....

User avatar
ID jit
Green Thumb
Posts: 339
Joined: Tue Nov 01, 2016 10:00 am
Location: SE New England: zone twilight or 5b... hard for me to tell some days.

Am pretty much looking at the end of Sept for the first frosts (02019)... Weather around here has been really erratic the past several years though.... could go to mid oct. So, I am looking at maybe 60 days or so of not having to really worry about it.

Space really isn't going to work for summer squash. Have random 10' - 12' rows to deal with.

Broccoli & cauliflower sound like good ideas. Not sure I can find seeds though.
Would like to get some more beets, radishes, carrots, peas and spinach going, but those aren't really transplant-able and I think it is way to hot for them to sprout.

Guess I will dig through what I have for left over seeds from this year and past years... plant stuff and see what happens. Give them a couple of weeks and if nothing comes up start a strawberry nursery and see if I can get another flush in.

User avatar
rainbowgardener
Super Green Thumb
Posts: 25279
Joined: Sun Feb 15, 2009 6:04 pm
Location: TN/GA 7b

RE: Would like to get some more beets, radishes, carrots, peas and spinach going, but those aren't really transplant-able and I think it is way to hot for them to sprout.

It's actually not too hot for them to sprout. Seeds will germinate at much higher temps than the plants would like to grow in. But it is still too hot for the plants to do well. That's why I said wait one month. By mid Aug, even though it is still hot, the seeds will germinate, but by the time they are turning into plants, it will be cooling down. What you particularly don't want is for it to be hot when the plants are getting towards full sized, because that will lead to early bolting. But they bolt much less readily when days are getting shorter instead of longer.

User avatar
ID jit
Green Thumb
Posts: 339
Joined: Tue Nov 01, 2016 10:00 am
Location: SE New England: zone twilight or 5b... hard for me to tell some days.

Thanks, looks like I am waiting till mid august then.

Finally got the pea vines down and feed my low maintenance pet with them. Lifted the dried grass clippings to work some fresh compost into the soil and found +1/8" of worm castings everywhere there was mulch. That was not a horrible thing to find!

Guessing the best plan is to work some fresh compost now and cover and let the microbes and worms do what they do, Then work some more in when I replant.

User avatar
digitS'
Super Green Thumb
Posts: 3925
Joined: Sun Sep 26, 2010 1:10 pm
Location: ID/WA! border

Here's my July succession planting schedule. It has worked well for quite a few years.

My first frost may come in early or mid-September but I'm often able to stave it off by running sprinklers in the early morning hours. The University of New Hampshire is the source of a number of things that I grow. My overnight temperatures throughout the growing season may be several degrees cooler than much of NH and daily temperature swings may be a bit more extreme. Lower humidity, you know.

First week of July, set out transplants for summer squash and cucumbers. Sometimes, I just direct-sow. They can use the space made available with the pulling of early cabbage and broccoli. During the first weeks, the transplants benefit from the shade.

Pull pea vines in early July and sow bush beans by mid-July.

Begin potato harvest early July and use that ground to sow seed for Asian greens (mostly bok choy). Both harvest and sowing of seed can continue through the month.

Sow snow pea seed in the last week of July. I tried snap peas in 2016 and that worked, also.

Steve

User avatar
ID jit
Green Thumb
Posts: 339
Joined: Tue Nov 01, 2016 10:00 am
Location: SE New England: zone twilight or 5b... hard for me to tell some days.

Steve, thanks.

I only half-heed rainbowgardener's advice.

On a couple of the half rows, I turned in the worm castings from under the grass clippings and worked in half a 5 gallon bucket per 10' of fresh compost and re-covered the grass clippings. Going to let these rest till mid August.

Did the same on another 10' half row and planted radishes think the worst that can happen is the scavenge the N. Then did the same with spinach.

Also reworked the soil at the pea fence and have it covered right now. Have 18 peas in damp starter mix in an egg crate. Plan on planting those when they get up to transplant size and planting the rest of the seeds at the same time and see what happens.

I know how to make stuff grow, but by no stretch of the imagination am I a gardener. I grow plants.... Gardeners create and generate produce out of soil, water and seeds, and I am not there yet.


Planted a 10' of radishes thinking worst case scenario is that they will scavenge the N.

xtron
Cool Member
Posts: 96
Joined: Sun Jun 25, 2017 5:20 pm
Location: christiansburg virginia

probably too late for this year...
I follow on/second crop usually with shell beans..pintos, red, or black. most have a 60-75 day maturity date, so as long as you get the water for germination, the beans should set before first frost. even if it does frost, as long as the pods have filled, the frost will not hurt, it will only speed the dry down.
if it's too late for anything to make a crop, I plant a cover crop of, usually, oats. you can get deer plot oat seed at most sporting good stores or farm/ranch supply stores. oats is first aid for the soil as it sets not only nitrogen, but also lots of trace minerals. it will die off the first hard freeze, and you can plant next years crop directly into the residue. good news if you are doing no/minimum till.



Return to “Organic Gardening Forum”