Joan Swenson: Cool-season plants ready for action
| Wednesday, Sep 24 2008 11:42 AM
Last Updated Friday, Mar 27 2009 05:57 PM
My Minnesota relatives are putting on their jackets already because Labor Day up north really means the end of the summer.
But we know that summer doesn't get tucked away until the Kern County Fair's carnival rides, caramel corn booth and hobby collections are trucked away or mothballed for another year.
I always feel certain that when the fair is over I can freely plant cool-weather flowers and vegetables.
When the weather slips down into the 80s, I am not averse to working in the yard. The cool mornings give way to pleasant afternoons with a gentle sun instead of August's brutal beast.
When you venture to the nurseries in the coming weeks, make sure you're buying cool-season plants, even if the warm-season bedding plants still look beautiful. Look for cool-season bedding plants such as pansies, snapdragons, stock, violas, Iceland poppies, sweet William and calendulas.
Snapdragons come in various sizes, so read the label carefully to avoid having stalks blocking the view of the shorter flowers; generally you should put snaps in the back of a planting because of their convenient height. Sweet alyssum and bedding begonias, which grow year round, may also be planted.
My husband, once his tomato plants are gone, moans a bit about what he can grow in the fall. The list is pretty substantial, both from seed and from transplants.
From seed, plant beets, radishes, turnips, carrots, lettuce and peas; sometimes you will find lettuce and peas available as transplants, but it's cheaper and more efficient to plant these from seeds.
You may also buy transplants of cabbage, broccoli, kale and cauliflower, as well as onion sets (just tiny onions, ready to plant and grow into big onions). Commercial growers produce these vegetables very well in the Southern San Joaquin Valley — you can do it, too.
You may find Brussels sprouts transplants. Brussels sprouts, those cute cabbage-like vegetables that grow on the sides of a tall stalk, are my favorite winter vegetable to cook. However, they do not do well in Bakersfield because of our cold winters. They'll do better in coastal, more temperate areas.
If you are growing flowering sweet peas this summer, you could also very easily grow peas with edible pods. Be sure you plant sugar snap peas or snow peas. If you like the sugar snap peas that you buy in the grocery store, you'll enjoy your own home-grown peas even more. Even the freshest sugar snaps at the grocery store are starchy and less flavorful when tasted alongside a homegrown sugar snap pea.
A common seed variety you'll find is "Sugar Ann," but any of the "sugar" peas will be delicious. Most need trellises, but knee-high varieties may also be found. Asian peas, with their flat, edible shells and tiny peas, are excellent to grow, too, and are wonderful in stir-fry dishes.
Don't fuss with English peas, the kind you pick and then shell because you will not be able to tell the difference between the frozen peas and your homegrown — and that's one test, in my mind, of whether or not one should devote time and money to growing a vegetable.
GREEN THUMB PLANT SALE
The Green Thumb Garden club's annual plant and garden sale runs from 8 a.m. until noon Saturday at the Church of the Brethren, Palm and A streets.
The sale features plants and garden items from members' gardens and typically has plants that you don't see in nurseries. Members will be available to answer gardening questions.
Proceeds of the sale help support club projects such as the 24th Street triangle and a scholarship to Bakersfield College.
