Garden Talk: What can we plant now and eat before the snow flies?

Broccoli and head lettuce started in a flat on July 20. (Mark Torregrossa | MLive)

We are about two and a half months from a hard frost. While this will kill most of our vegetable plants, there are still a few veggies we can grow surprisingly well late in the year.

Our first frost in the southern half of Michigan tends to be in the first two weeks of October. We can have a light frost in the last week of September, but it usually comes with a temperature of 35 degrees and not cold enough to kill vegetable plants.

So you’d think that anything showing a maturity length of 60 days or less would still mature. This isn’t totally the case because those 60 days could need to have warm weather. As we get toward October, the heat isn’t there to count as a growing day for some plants.

Green beans are a perfect example. Green beans like heat. In the heat of summer they produce pretty quickly, in about 50 days for some varieties. If you planted green beans now it would take one week for them to sprout. Then you’d have 23 days in August and 30 days in September. So you’d think the 53 days of growth before October 1 would give you ripe green beans. But remember those last days of September could have highs in the 60s and lows in the 40s. Green beans won’t make any advancement toward maturing with those temperatures.

But a few vegetables actually thrive when temperatures are in the 60s. You’ll be surprised with these vegetables that you see healthy growth even as you put on a jacket.

Broccoli and head lettuce started in a flat on July 20. (Mark Torregrossa | MLive)

My favorite vegetable to plant now and pick in November is broccoli. Broccoli planted in spring doesn’t do well in Michigan. June gets hot and the broccoli doesn’t like the heat. The broccoli heads form too early, are small and the flowers open up. But planting broccoli now makes for great growing in September and October. The best broccoli I ever grew I picked in mid-November in the Saginaw area. That year I even picked broccoli the first of December. So start the seeds today in pots. Keep them constantly moist and they will be up in five days. Get the plants into strong sun immediately. Fertilize the plants with half strength of the recommendation on a balanced 20-20-20 fertilizer when they have a couple of leaves.

Spinach also does very well in the cooler late August, September and October temperatures. Plant the spinach now in your garden. Go crazy with the seeding. Plant several rows a foot apart. You’ll have spinach until a hard freeze.

You could plant any green now and get some harvest.

Here’s a suggestion to pick broccoli and spinach in November and possibly even December, depending on our early winter weather. Make a cold frame and put it over your broccoli and spinach. Time is important now on planting these vegetables, so plant the vegetables and then build the cold frame around them. This will give you several weeks to come up with how you want to build the cold frame. The sides of the cold frame should be one foot tall at least. That height will work for spinach and lettuce but might be four inches short for broccoli.

Work up a small area of your vegetable garden and give these veggies a try. November broccoli and spinach will even impress your in-laws.

Also get ready to plant garlic in about six weeks.

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