Selected Fall Gardening Tips from Derek Fell

(Page 3 of 3)

September/October 1977
By the Mother Earth News editors 
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Greenhouse tomatoes are something else again. They're more demanding of both light and heat than the foregoing crops (all of which can be grown at fairly low temperatures), and their fruit will not ripen without lots of light and day time temperatures of at least 70°.

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Your best bet for producing greenhouse tomatoes is a variety known as Pixie Hybrid, which was developed for container growing. This plant-the fastest-ripening of all indoor tomatoes -is short and compact, requires only small stakes for support, and can get by on lower light intensities and lower temperatures than other varieties of tomatoes.

Even when it's too late in the season to plant anything-and you don't have a cold frame or a greenhouse-you can always grow sprouts. These "instant vegetables" yield an edible "harvest" in only six to 10 days and offer the dual advantage of requiring neither soil nor light for their growth. All they really need is moisture . . . and that can come from a wet paper towel.

If you're new to sprouting, try alfalfa. Its shoots are sweet and they make a delicious sandwich filling or salad vegetable (raw or cooked). Other sprouting seeds worth trying include fenugreek (spicy-tasting), adzuki bean (sweet and nutty), and oats (wild and nutty).

For more information on sprouts and sprouting, consult "Raise Your Own Sprouts . . . Even in a Backpack", pages 3638 of MOTHER NO. 43, the sprouting foldout in MOTHER NO. 31, or the special eight-page feature on sprouts in MOTHER NO. 12.

By now, I hope I've given you enough ideas to get you started on the fall gardening activities that far too many of us overlook. As I said before, there are many things you can do in the garden right now to ensure a good supply of fresh edibles in the cold months ahead. If nothing else, you can always sit down with a pen, paper, and envelopes and start writing for next year's seed catalogs! -

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