Cool Soil for Fall Planting

Some of the things in your fall garden can be planted now. Most of the greens will be fine. Cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower and Brussels sprouts need for the soil to be around 70 degrees or less to get reliable germination. If they are being planted, it should be plants instead of seeds. Onions should wait a couple more months.

Beans, okra, egg plants and peppers should bear well until the 1st frost. Tomatoes are probably slacking off a little. Lots of water and a liberal side dressing of compost and organic fertilizer will stretch the season on them until frost, but with a reduced yield. Squash and cucumbers from the 1st planting are on their last leg if they haven’t already given up. The later planting will take over. The problem with the later planting is that the pests that like the cucurbits are well established. They may wipe out the tender young plants unless they are controlled early.

The main pests to watch for are cucumber beetles, pickle worms, stink bugs and other bugs from these families. BT will control the pickle worms. Stink bugs and other members of this group need to be picked off by hand. Neem oil will help some, but not 100%.


David Segrest is an International REALTOR in Charlotte, NC. His email is david@segrestrealty.com , His webpage is http://davidsegrest.com , and his international real estate blog is http://dointernationalrealestate.blogspot.com/

Kale’s Up

The first little sprouts of kale peeped out of the ground yesterday (2/23). These were the Siberian kale. The Russian red kale is still doing well, but it lacks the body and the flavor of the Siberian. When this crop disappears there will be no more of that stuff in my garden.

The compost is working well. The bin is full again even after using a little this weekend. It is time to move more of it to the tarp. There is enough there to fill another raised bed, if I can scrounge some lumber. Our class in the master gardener program on Monday was on compost. I like my method better. It yields better compost faster.

Yesterday’s trip to Renfrow’s to get carrot, beet and radish seeds also netted a compost thermometer. The soil temperature in the 1st 3 beds in the garden (a-1 through a-3) is 50 and 52 degrees. Today the compost will be tested. It got turned yesterday so the reading would probably have been meaningless. The carrots, beets and radish seeds were mixed together and inter-planted in row A-2 with onions, cabbage, broccoli and kale.

David Segrest is an International REALTOR in Charlotte, NC. His email is david@segrestrealty.com , His webpage is http://davidsegrest.com , and his international real estate blog is http://dointernationalrealestate.blogspot.com/

Not Too Wet to Plow (Tuesday)

The rain from Sunday and Monday gave the perfect amount of moisture to the ground. The tiller bit deep and chewed the ground and the organic matter on top of it to a perfect consistency. Today’s rain would have left the garden too wet to till. It should leave the lawn in perfect condition for aerating and seeding. It should also go deep enough to facilitate trans-planting trees or shrubs. It should also cool the soil.

The plants in the garden looked really happy yesterday. They were obviously getting really tired of city water. They enjoyed the long cool drink. They are enjoying another drink today and maybe tomorrow. The ground will be too wet for building new beds for several days, so this will be a good time to work on the lawn and transplant some trees.

As soon as the soil is dry enough to work spinach and lettuce should be planted. It may grow fast enough to be picked while there are still tomatoes and cucumbers.

David Segrest is an International REALTOR in Charlotte, NC. His email is david@segrestrealty.com , His webpage is http://www.segrestrealty.com , and his international real estate blog is http://dointernationalrealestate.blogspot.com/

Soil Temperature and Seed Germination

Why do we plant when we do? There are lots of reasons. As the bible says in Ecclesiastes, “there is a time to every purpose under heaven.” Some plants and seeds are very forgiving about the planting time. Others are not. Soil temperature is one important factor. Seed germination and soil temperature are very interrelated. Some plants like most of the crucifers require a fairly cool temperature for optimum germination. Other’s like beans require a high temperature.

Another factor in the time for planting is day length. Some plants set seed when the day gets to a certain length. If seeds are the desired crop this is great. If leaves or roots are the desired crop, it is not so great. Tomatoes will grow really well in short days. They just don’t produce flowers or tomatoes.

Another factor is the time to maturity of the plant. If a plant takes a long time to mature the growing season in a particular area may not be long enough unless the plant is started earlier in a greenhouse. Of course the gardener’s patience may be the reason for planting slow maturing plants inside. Who can wait for that first tomato?


David Segrest is an International REALTOR in Charlotte, NC. His email is david@segrestrealty.com , His webpage is http://www.segrestrealty.com , and his international real estate blog is http://dointernationalrealestate.blogspot.com/

Soil Temperature and Germination

I planted spinach and chard five weeks ago. They did not come up. I planted spinach chard and cabbage three weeks ago. They did not come up. I planted spinach, chard, onions and kale Saturday. Yesterday only the onions had not come up. The cabbage from three weeks ago is coming up. I used the same type of seed for the spinach and chard each time. The important variable is probably soil temperature.

Since the 5 week and 3 week seeds have still not come up, I will report the other variable. The seeds planted Saturday were in a raised bed and the soil temperature should be more sensitive to changes in air temperature. Here is a web page that list optimal soil temperatures for different seeds. http://tomclothier.hort.net/page11.html . This tells us that the Cabbage can germinate at a higher temperature than the Spinach. When I looked carefully at the beds last night, I also realized that the arugula and radishes had germinated. The mesclun mix had not.

That could be because of the lettuce requiring a lower temperature.
The really good news is that the arugula is almost ready to be picked. That means we can have a salad with peppers, tomatoes, arugula, radishes and cucumber all from the garden. How rare is that?

David Segrest is an International REALTOR in Charlotte, NC. His email is david@segrestrealty.com , His webpage is http://www.segrestrealty.com , and his international real estate blog is http://dointernationalrealestate.blogspot.com/