With the fall planting season upon us it is time to get the garden in shape in order to have a fresh salad for the holiday family meals right from your own garden. More families this year than last are planning their gardens with an eye on generating fresh food for the dinner table and there are no limits (other than space) to what one might plant in a backyard garden. Obviously seasonal considerations must be taken in to account when deciding what to plant so let us make some suggestions for the typical backyard garden.

Soil preparation
Without proper preparation hard clay soil found in many dry areas of the southwest is unsuitable for growing much besides grass. The best thing one can do to improve the soil quality is to add compost to the soil in order to help you grow healthy plants. Compost improves drainage in clay soil and water retention in sandy soil. Compost also improves soil structure, adds nutrients as it decomposes, and encourages beneficial creatures such as earthworms and other soil microorganisms. Apply compost before each growing season in fall and spring and over time, your garden bed will be transformed in to rich, dark soil well suited for any gardening project. Add three to six inches of compost and turn it under to a depth of 16 – 20 inches when prepping your soil areas.

What to plant
Taking seasonal considerations in to mind, the best recommendation here is to plant what you love to eat. For a fresh family salad at the holiday dinner table some garden suggestions might include lettuce, tomatoes, cauliflower, and broccoli. For other ideas to round out a planting area, one might select some of the following choices including squash and peppers, sage, thyme, carrots, beets, turnips, garlic, radishes, or spinach. The fall season is longest and you can extend the harvest periods somewhat by sowing your plants every few weeks. This is called succession sowing and helps to prevent crop failure due to weather or insect problems.

Watering
When seeds are sprouting they might need watering twice per day, but then only once per day after that. In the winter when temperatures cool, once every two days probably is enough.

Thank you to both The Arizona Republic newspaper and Phoenix Home & Garden magazine which were both used as information sources for our blog post.

This entry was posted on Monday, September 21st, 2009 at 5:00 am and is filed under Gardening. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.