Tips for fall planting, Pruning Tomatoes and Cucumbers to promote Aeration

Lots of you have been asking, “What vegetables can I grow for fall?”

In general, greens and some roots crops like beets and turnips can be grown in fall.  I found some good information to help determine which plants will produce in our climate by the time the first frost date arrives.  According to Victory seeds, the first frost date for NYC is October 27.  Several factors affect this date pushing it either forward or back. For us, we are nearly surrounded by concrete and brick buildings making a heat island effect which may push the frost date back into early November. Also, many fall crops do fine under a light frost such as beets, cauliflower and lettuce.  Some survive a heavy frost,. like broccoli, kale and collards.  It's important that these plants are established and big enough when the cold comes, but they can definitely withstand a frosty night. For harvesting after a frost, I have to read up more on that!

Victory Seeds’ frost date selector
http://www.victoryseeds.com/frost/ny.html

USDA hardiness zones for NY state
http://www.gardening.cornell.edu/weather/zones.html

Johnny’s seeds has several interactive excel docs where you type in your first frost date and the type of crop you want to grow and it automatically computes when you need to plant, either by transplant (TP) or by direct seed (DS).  This is enormously helpful, because when planting for fall, several factors affect the last planting date.  It can get a little complicated, these factors are: days to maturity; days to germination; days to transplanting (if you plant directly from seed, this is zero), short day factor and days before the first frost.  Once you add all these days up, you get a total, then you count backwards by this total from the first frost date.

For example, according to the book: The New Seed Starter’s Handbook by Nancy Bubel, if you wanted to plant beets, you would have to plant them no later than August 14, 2011, giving a few days later, due to the heat island effect. 

I added 55 (days to maturity) + 5 (days to germination) +14 (short day factor) + 0 (days before the first frost) = 74

Then count back 74 days from Oct 27, and you get: August 14

Johnny’s makes it easy and does all that work for you.

I sent this post as an email, and attached to it the Johnny’s spreadsheet of when to plant based on the first frost date for NYC, Oct 27.  If you want to plant broccoli, do so ASAP!

Johnnny's Seeds Growing guides, Interactive Tools,
fall planting Calculator
http://www.johnnyseeds.com/t-InteractiveTools.aspx

Based on that spreadsheet, below is a list of what you can grow from transplants or from seeds:

• Transplant:  broccoli, Chinese cabbage, cauliflower, collards (leaves will be small to medium size), chicory, radicchio, kale

• Seeds:  carrots (they will be small), Asian greens, Kohlrabi, lettuces, radishes (both round and daikon), spinach, swisschard, turnips, beets

We have seeds for some of these crops in the garden seedbox. The ones we don’t have are: Kohlrabi, daikon radishes, swisschard, and turnips. I suggest you purchase them if you like them!
For mail ordering seeds, I usually pick Johnny's selected seeds or the Cook's garden. 
stores in NYC that sell a selection of seeds include Whole Foods,  City Hydroponic which sells Burpee brand and Red, Rose and Lavender in Williamsburg sells Hart brand seeds (non GMO) which are grown in Connecticut, similar to our climate in NYC.  They sell a bigger selection than City Hydroponic.  Many Asian markets sell seeds for radishes and greens too.

Pruning Tomatoes and Cukes

I also found some helpful advice for pruning tomato and cucumber plants.  Something I didn’t know was that it’s important to keep air circulating through tomato and cucumber plants in order to prevent late blight from establishing.  It’s recommended to prune back any leaves near the bottom of plants that are yellow or wilted. On indeterminate tomatoes (heirlooms), it’s important to prune suckers or side shoots so the plant doesn’t get too heavy and so you concentrate the plant’s energy into fewer fruits. 

Cornell Audio on pruning cucumber and tomato plants from
http://www.northcountrypublicradio.org/news/newstopics.php?tid=46

videos on pruning tomatoes and cukes
http://www.johnnyseeds.com/t-video.aspx

 

I hope that's helpful, let me know if you have any questions.
If you'd like xeroxes on starting from seed from The Garden Primer by Barbara Damrosch   or  The New Seed Starter’s Handbook by Nancy Bubel  let me know!