I don’t know about you but the weather this summer is no joke. For me, it’s either blazing hot or pouring rain. My plants seem like they don’t know what to do and every day I’m just trying to decide whether it will rain that evening or not and if I need to water plants.

Depending on your growing zone, you may have already started your fall crops indoors. I’m in the Mid-Atlantic in 7a so end of July/early August is that time for me.  Last year I bought starts from the nursery for brussels sprouts and broccoli so this year I am attempting to grow them from seed myself and will start them indoors along with my *wildcard* crop cabbage.  It’s a wildcard because I’m just going to experiment with about four of them and see how my luck goes. My hope is to make sauerkraut for some good probiotics during the winter.  Everything else – beets, collards, kale, radish and spinach – I’ll direct sow in early September.

As you may have surmised, here’s where timing and space get a bit tricky. All my main summer crops – beans, peppers, squash and tomatoes – are in full swing thus there isn’t much available space. I do have two small open beds where my onions and garlic failed and where I’ve already harvested all my carrots. However, I want to put down a cover crop in one of them to help build up the soil. Sort of feels like a game of Tetris sometimes. Anybody else feel that way?  I’d love to know how you all inter-plant different crops as the seasons are changing.

Update: I did want to re-visit the ‘tomato wall’ that I newly established this year to give you an update. The last two years all my tomato plants became an unmanageable jungle: year one was tomato cages and year two was an A-frame support structure. Neither of which worked well once there were big fruits that needed substantial support. I didn’t want another year of disappointing results which is why I tried fencing and T-posts and tomato clips. Sooooo <drum roll please> the tomato wall is going extremely well and I’m really happy with the results so far! I planted my paste tomatoes together, my German pinks for canning all together, and then my little cherry tomatoes for salads and snacking together. Check them out!