Prepare gardens for cool-season vegetables

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Thursday, Aug. 28, 2008 | midnight

As happens every year, the weather is becoming a little cooler and the days a little shorter. For gardeners in the Mojave Desert, this is not bad news. In fact, the coming of autumn means that it is time to start new crops of cool-season vegetables. This is another one of the advantages of our climate: one can have several different gardens over the course of a year.

"Vegetable gardens" almost always connote things like tomatoes and cucumbers, but their time has passed until next year. Plants that we grow for leaves and storage organs like roots, tubers and bulbs, tend to do best when they are not exposed to extremely high temperatures and intense, scorching sunlight. Under those conditions, they frequently stop growing, burn and wither away.

Now is the time to devise ways of creating a garden full of the green leafy veggies — including the ones that you know you are supposed to eat. Results of research show that these have enormous health benefits.

It is possible to live for a few months without fresh tomatoes and zucchini; think about how tasty a fresh salad with spinach and buttery Boston lettuce would be. There is a whole range of delicious and different plants that can be part of the ongoing garden experience. Now is the time to experiment. Some of these plants also have the advantage of being relatively fast growing.

Not all cool season crops will give a quick harvest if they are planted now. Celery is a slowpoke that may take as many as four months — wait until spring. Garlic goes into the ground in the fall but is not ready for harvest until late spring or early summer. This fussy little plant must experience both chilling (winter) and long days (spring).

Among the interesting leafy vegetables are kale, chard, beets and the many lettuces. Many of them are not only green, but they may have a deep red component, which makes them edible and ornamental as well. A couple of kale's numerous cousins are mustard — which produces a highly nutritious, frilled, peppery leaf — and collards. There is no end to the recipes for these cooking greens.

Although they might not look it, dandelion, chicory, endive and escarole are actually cousins of lettuce. All of them produce tasty leaves that become terribly bitter if the plant "bolts" (begins to flower).

Yes, lettuce will produce a flower if conditions are right — often heat stress is the culprit. Be careful when planting lettuce; some varieties are so heat sensitive that their seeds will not germinate if the soil is too warm. Since many of the lettuces can be harvested as soon as seven weeks after planting, wait until evening temperatures are down into the 50s or 60s before planting.

With all of these leafy plants, make sure to improve the soil. They do best growing in a planting bed with rich fill, like compost, and good drainage. If the winter is not too harsh, it could be possible to pick leaves from some of them right through to spring.

­Angela O'Callaghan is the area specialist in social horticulture for the University of Nevada Cooperative Extension. She can be reached c/o the Home News, 2360 Corporate Circle, Third Floor, Henderson, NV 89074, or [email protected].