Now that the weather is cool, its time to start thinking about preparing for the fruit and vegetable garden. Many annual chores are best done while the weather is cool. Here are a few tips and suggestions for the garden and orchard.
Prune muscadines in January or February. If this job is left too late in the season, bleeding from cut ends will occur.
Some mail order seed companies offer pelleted seed of lettuce, carrot, and a few other small-seeded crops. Pelleted seed has a special coating to make them larger. This is especially valuable for children and gardeners with arthritic hands or weak eyesight. Wide spacing of seed helps eliminate thinning. When using pelleted seed, plant in moist soil and keep it moist because the coating has to dissolve before the seed can germinate.
Gardeners with small plots, who want to try a few of many types of plants, can turn to seed companies offering mini-packets or mixed-seed packets.
Review your vegetable garden plants. Perhaps a smaller garden with fewer weeds and insects will give you more produce.
Sow seeds of cool-season vegetables in January for transplanting into the garden in March and April. Use individual peat pots, or simply cover the floor of the cold frame with a rich soil mix and sow seeds directly into it. Start broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, collars, lettuce and spinach.
If you have a sandy soil that dries out extra fast in the summer, you may want to experiment with gardening in a depression. Prepare the soil in a hole or trough several inches below the surface of the paths to reduce evaporation and make watering easier.
Plan on hanging a few vegetable plants on your porch or deck for convenient harvest. Bush cucumbers, small tomato varieties and even lettuce and spinach can be grown in hanging baskets. Many herbs including chives, parsley, and thyme are also well-suited to baskets.
Billy Skaggs: Agricultural Agent
Hall County Extension Coordinator
734 East Crescent Drive
Gainesville, GA 30501
Phone:(770)531-6988 Fax: (770)531-3994
Email: [email protected]
Monday
August 4th, 2025
9:53PM
