LSU AgCenter's Weekly Message

It’s Time to Think About Fall Vegetables

Recent temperatures may make it hard to believe, but it’s time to start preparing to plant a fall vegetable garden.

You also still have time to plant a last round of some fast-maturing warm-season vegetables so that they can produce before the first freeze. Cucumbers, yellow squash, zucchini, and bush snap beans can be planted until mid-September. Pole snap beans take a little longer to produce than bush beans do, so it’s recommended that they be planted by the end of August.

While white (“Irish”) potatoes are considered a cool-season crop rather than a warm-season one, you can plant them between August and mid-September for a fall harvest.

Some cool-season vegetables can be planted earlier and some later, but almost all can be planted between mid-September and mid-October. These include cabbage, kohlrabi, broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, bok choy, greens (collard, kale, mustard, turnip), radishes, beets, carrots, lettuce, shallots, garlic, and green (“English”), sugar snap, and snow peas.

Wait till between mid-December and January to set out transplants of the types of bulb-forming onions that grow well in Louisiana. Fava beans aren’t a very common crop here, but I understand that the time for sowing these is October through November.

If you want to give the garden a rest, you might consider planting a fall cover crop. Cover crops can be used to build up soil organic matter, take nitrogen from the air and put it in the soil (in the case of plants in the bean family, or legumes), prevent loss of nutrients from the soil during the off-season (after adding compost or manure to the garden, for example), suppress weed growth, and prevent erosion. The first half of October is a time when many cool-season cover crop species – such as cereal rye, annual ryegrass, wheat, oats, hairy vetch, and crimson clover – can be planted.

Let me know if you have questions.

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Dr. Mary Helen Ferguson is an Extension Agent with the LSU AgCenter, with horticulture responsibilities in Washington and Tangipahoa Parishes. Contact Mary Helen at mhferguson@agcenter.lsu.edu or 985-277-1850 (Hammond) or 985-839-7855 (Franklinton).