Over the past week I have been pulling up plants that have gone by and no longer producing in the garden, and started planting a second round.
Living in South Carolina the climate affords a pretty long growing season. Honestly – by this time of the year I am pretty sick of weeding and picking. We get WAY too many vegetables to consume ourselves and give away lots. I plant a second round to continue to practice, learn, and I just can’t stand seeing that empty ground knowing the potential it contains.
When you are making your garden plans, remember that there is a pretty good chance that you will have long enough to grow more than one crop.
Typically every year I plant cucumbers (National Pickling), Crookneck Squash, Zucchini, potatoes, tomato’s, cantaloupe, watermelon, and onions. This year – like every other year – I had successes and failures. I am speaking like the season is over and it’s not – I still have stuff growing and lots of veggies left to pick, but most of my plants which I started in April have gone by.
One of my compost bins is overflowing!!! Yes – I keep it in my garden. History tells me my second round of plantings do not do as well as my first. There are many reasons for this but I suspect the main one is extreme temps and sun exposure. I have considered rigging up some shade out of PVC and weeding fabric – just not a lot of time.
Second plantings this year consist of cucumbers, tomato’s, zucchini, and yellow squash. Some are by seed and some are transplants bought locally.
I am already thinking about my Fall garden – gonna make it a good one.
You will do much better in the heat with 30% shade cloth to protect from the sun.
We used a frame of PVC and the cloth last year with good results. We got the
shade cloth from FARM TEK GROWERS SUPPLY in white to better reflect the heat.
Black will just burn it up. Hope this helps.
I live in NC and like you we have an extended growing season. Like you I hate seeing empty beds knowing there are at 3-4 months before we would worry about frost and plenty of time for another crop. I like the idea of shading my raised beds so I can get another crop in. Never have been one to do a fall planting outside of lettuce and carrots. I used to plant carrots in the spring but they seem to taste better in the fall after the first frost or two. I guess for long term survival it’s best to have the system in place for shading.
I am greatly expanding my growing areas and still am planting here in Minnesota. I am having a great year with butternut squash. If you can grow them there the are great keepers for months. I had some in big flower pots in my landscaping and they put out female flowers right away from the heat stress and had to hand pollinate from zucchini and buttercup but have 5 inch butternut over a month early or more. Maybe they would love the heat. I am still going to get in an asparagus bed and actually going to put in some yard long Asian beans today. Started more romaine in half shade from a tree and does great. a cooler than normal year here. Yellow beans just coming up. Blackberries almost ready, summer raspberries in and the fall raspberries that were cut only half way back are a few weeks away. Everything needs to be made civil this fall as picking berries is wading into the patch. I am learning, learning more and more. Melons still only make flowers. Let some parsnips go to seed. They are most amazing. Thousands of seeds on one plant. We can leave them overwinter here and dig them with snow on the ground and they are perfect. Used more landscape fabric and less weeding.
We have the same sun problem, only maybe worse in SE New Mexico. In June we frequently have several weeks of above 100 degree weather and little cloud cover. Our yellow and red bell peppers were suffering the most. We had several cheap beach umbrellas from various trips to the Gulf Coast and I stabbed them in the beds to give the peppers and some of the tomatoes shade from the worst of the west sun and it seems to be preventing the sun scald we experienced before I put in the umbrellas. Plus, it adds a festive touch and we’re all about aesthetics :-).
I love hearing about other people’s gardens. I’m considering trying a second crop of potatoes here in Minnesota, but time is getting away from me…
We can get second plantings of radishes,green beans and in fall put in garlic but our frost comes quite early so we need to be careful. (upstate NY) Our raspberries and black berries are doing well this year. Arlene