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Have you ever planted fall or winter veggies only to grow small plants that never reach maturity? Or have you lost your plants to frost before you even get to harvest them? By no fault of their own, many people plant vegetable starts from the nursery without knowing that the plant is being sold during a time of year when it will never become fully mature before cool temperatures slow the plant’s growth to a sloth-like pace.

Autumn in the Pacific Northwest is the time of year to start preparing gardens for the cold wet winter months. During the late summer and early fall we plant our gardens with veggies that can be enjoyed all winter. After removing summer crops it is usually too late to plant more veggies, so what do you do with all that exposed soil? Ecological growers always say not to leave soil bare. But why is this, and what should you do in your garden?

There’s nothing like the freshness and sparkle that a handful of home grown herbs can add to a meal. And while most people resign themselves to a fall and winter of stews and roasts, abandoning hope of all things fresh until spring, they don’t realize that your winter table can, in fact, be garnished with a little hint of Summer! And a few beloved annual herbs planted late in the season can make all the difference.

We are in the home stretch for Summer vegetables like Tomatoes! If you’ve played your cards right, by now your tomatoes are an architectural feature in your garden. They have put on voluminous growth since a late Spring planting, they have flowered, been pollinated, and heavy fruits are beginning to ripen on the vine. You have supported them, pruned them, prayed over them, and it all looks like it just might pay off! So your work is done, right? …Well, not exactly. The quality of your harvest will very much depend on how you care for your tomatoes during this final important stretch of summer!

While many of us associate cilantro with tomatoes, tomatilllos and hot chili peppers, this beloved herb does not like the heat like those other plants do. That means it is easier to grow cilantro in the spring and the fall than it is in the summer (when peppers and tomatoes are ripe). That being said, growing the beautiful cilantro you want from your garden is not out of reach!

One thing to know about peppers is that they truly love the heat! While we don’t have the hottest climate in the Pacific Northwest, we can still grow beautiful peppers here. It simply takes more care to get a productive pepper crop in this climate than a warmer southern climate.