Produced by
Patti Moreno
Contributor to:
Fall is a Perfect time for an Asian Garden
Cold hearty lettuces and vegetables will extend your growing season and bring exotic Asian flavors to your dinner table:
Try these this Fall:
- Four Season Lettuce (Merveille Des Quatre Saisons)
- Romaine
- Swiss chard
- French Breakfast Radishes
- Broccoli,
- Cauliflower
- Cabbage
- Collards
- Brussels sprouts
- Corn Salad (Mache)
- Spinach
Life goes on even after summer. As a gardener, you have to do some careful planning to extend your growing season and to continue to grow delicious vegetables even when it’s time for sweaters and hats.
There are is an exciting array of Asian Greens that thrive in cooler weather. Asian greens are quick to grow and are delicious to make in stir frys and soups. I have been spotted in my garden taking snow off of my bok choy and throwing it in the wok for a delicious meal. Chinese kale and most kale varieties also do extremely well in cool weather. Bok choy and pok choy are also quick to germinate and grow, so I can get a full crop in before the ground freezes. The same goes for many lettuces.
This video is a great first lesson in planting an Asian vegetable garden, just in time for Fall. The video begins with me in my Chinese Kitchen Garden near my cucumber trellis. Believe it or not, you will see me hacking away at it in order to start my new vegetable Asian garden in its place.
You will see that there are still many vegetables in the Chinese Garden that have already gone to seed, but don’t worry they won’t go to waste. My chickens and rabbits will love them. Once the garden is cleared out I will use a cultivator to loosen up the soil, bring the worms to the surface and make some uniform trenches in the soil for placing the seeds. As I mentioned, this should be happening at the tail end of summer when it is still warm.
The most important thing to remember when planting anything is make sure the soil is loose so that your seeds don’t have trouble coming through tightly packed soil.
Once the trenches are made, you will plant your seeds, knowing that once it starts to get colder, you will add a hoop house to control the climate around your plants, adding almost 20 degrees on a sunny day.
The next step is to cover the seed with loosened soil, add mulch to the whole bed and give it plenty of water!
In a few short weeks your seeds will start to grow and several weeks after that, you will have a lot of new Asian recipes to try!
Tips for making a Hoop House:
- What you’ll need for a 4’x 8’ raised bed:
- PVC electrical conduit
- ¼”wing nuts and bolts
- Thick plastic
- Cut four 4’ lengths of the conduit and drill a ¼” hole through it in the center
- Cut an 8’ length of pipe and drill a ¼”hole, 1 inch from each end and two more ¼” holes evenly spread along the pipe.
- Attach the four, 4’ pipes with the wing nuts and bolts.
- Pop the hoop house into the bed bending the pipes to create a hoop or tunnel and cover with the plastic and weigh the ends down with stone or concrete or brick so it stays in place. (You will see me and Ale doing this in the video)
- Lift the plastic daily to water
