Everyone loves a spring garden for many reasons not the least of which is that we have been cooped up in the house all winter looking through seed catalogs and just getting the itch to be outside. We have a uncontrollable instinct to refill the pantries and strong desire for the flavors that come with a garden. For me its the smell of freshly tilled soil that just makes me happy. We begin the garden with vim and vigor and end sometimes in a flurry of I just cant keep up. This year is one of those years that epitomizes why fall gardening is just not as popular. In a year like this the garden can easily be run over with weeds, taken by some evil fungi, or wiped out by a marauding herd of potato beetles. Those scenarios in themselves are reason enough to give up. But lets not quit hastily, here are some of the advantages of the fall vegetable garden:
- Provides valuable produce production extension
- Excellent quality produce due to cool temperatures
- Sweeter
- Increased tenderness
- Less off flavors
- Vegetables hold longer in a fall garden
- Fewer pests to control
- Helps keep weed seed numbers down for next seasons garden
- Adds additional organic matter to the garden
- Less disease pressure
