Think it's too late to plant? Think again: What you can still grow this time of year

NINA MOINI: With our first snowfall, it may seem odd to talk about gardening. But believe it or not, there's plenty of harvesting happening in our next guest's garden. Meg Cowden is back to share all her knowledge with us. She's the author of the gardening book Plant, Grow, Harvest, Repeat. Welcome back to the program, Meg.

MEG COWDEN: Hi, Nina. Thanks so much. It's great to meet you.

NINA MOINI: You as well. So we just got the snow, of course, but we also got that bunch of rain at the end of last month October, and that was pretty unseasonable. What did that mean for your garden?

MEG COWDEN: Well, the weather dictates what I do any day of the year, honestly. So ahead of the rains, I did some harvesting of some of our potatoes. But the rains were also just really great. We've got a lot of trees and other perennials that need a good drink, especially right now before the ground freezes hard.

So I wasn't super worried. Our soil is really well draining. So even though we got the rain, I was able to work between the storms last week. I harvested some potatoes before the rain, and then I had to come back the next day after we got another inch and finish harvesting those.

NINA MOINI: Yeah. So it's almost might seem odd to people to ask about harvesting after snow or during snow, but you were able to collect a lot of great things, right?

MEG COWDEN: Yeah, absolutely. So a lot of our garden is-- about a quarter of it, maybe, I would say, of our vegetable beds is really planned for this very late fall garden time. So it's all frost hardy things like beets, carrots, brussels sprouts, cabbage, leeks. What else do I have out there? Lots more herbs.

There's a lot of herbs-- cilantro, bok choy, things like that. Napa cabbage is also quite cold hardy, so there was plenty in my garden. And what was strange is if you looked at my garden, it looked empty. And even I kind of doubted myself. I'm like, well, I think there's like probably over 300 pounds of food in here still because I know that last year we harvested over 200 pounds of potatoes.

And I planted more carrots this year, and our highest previous carrot harvest was 70 pounds, and we harvested closer to 100 this year. So all told, I did pull pretty much all of my root vegetables and potatoes right before that. The 23 degree weather really had me saying, all right. First of all, potatoes do not want to get hit with a frost that hard.

Carrots could handle it, but there's this part of me that I'm not really built for Minnesota. And so when it gets really cold-- I've dug carrots out when it's been 32 and snowing, and my hands are freezing. And frankly, it's not fun. So I try to balance that joy of gardening with the reality that I try to get a little ahead of that inclement weather so that it's not a complete chore, and it's still quite joyful.

NINA MOINI: Sure. Well, tell me about your root cellar. What is that?

MEG COWDEN: Yeah. Root cellaring is really a traditional kind of thing that people have done for centuries, and there's lots of ways you can do it. We kind of based our root cellar design off of this book called Root Cellaring by a couple. I think it was originally published in the '70s. And it's essentially a walk in refrigerator, like a walk in closet that is passively cooled.

It's very well insulated, and it's got air intakes and an air exhaust that kind of helps circulate air from outside. It's sealed off. It's actually in the corner of our garage. It's not underground. It doesn't have to be underground. A lot of people think of going outside and burying things underground. That is another method to do it, and that would be cool, but we didn't do that here.

I think that actually would be easier to keep cool, more even temperatures. Ours gets warm in early spring, and it's hard to cool off in the fall. But I've got it pretty close right now. And that is where I keep things that need moisture.

The humidity is over 90% right now in there, and I've got my potatoes and my daikon beets. I've got brussels sprouts that I repot into pots that I stand up in there. Our carrots are in there. So it's basically my produce aisle for now until April.

NINA MOINI: Yeah. So you're harvesting. But now that it's been below freezing and it's snowed, are you still planting?

MEG COWDEN: Yeah. There's one thing I wait to plant until usually early November, and that is garlic. Garlic is such a great homegrown crop. It's very easy to grow because there's not a lot of pests. I was listening to Paul talking about increasing pest pressure. Garlic is very pest friendly, especially for new gardeners.

It needs a fair bit of nutrition, so you can use a slow release fertilizer, but I usually wait until early November to plant it. And the beautiful thing about garlic is that it produces kind of vegetatively. So you can take a clove of garlic that you might cook with the paper husk and everything, and you plant it in the ground.

And that one clove will overwinter, and it needs that cold time. It needs that dormant rest in order to grow next year, and then it will produce a whole bulb just from that single clove. It's a pretty fun crop. And the other thing that's great is you can save your own garlic.

Once you start growing it, you can set aside the biggest and the best and keep growing it. So we occasionally will order new garlic varieties, but there's one variety that I probably bought in 2018, and I've never had to buy it again because I just grow enough to enjoy, save, use fresh, dry for powder, and plant.

NINA MOINI: I feel like everything you're listing-- it's hearty stuff, and it's herbs and spices and garlic. I just want you to make me a big soup.

MEG COWDEN: Oh, actually, I'm going to make a really nice warm soup after this segment. I'm really looking forward to spending time in the kitchen. Actually, I'm going to go out and dig some leeks. I haven't dug my leeks up yet, and I'm going to go dig one out of the raised bed.

NINA MOINI: We'll see. We got a little bit of time left. I'm curious what you tell people this time of year who are reflecting on if they want to be gardening, if they want to be planting, if maybe it's not something they've done before. Is now a good time to jump into that, or what do you recommend for people?

MEG COWDEN: Yeah. Fall is really honestly one of the busiest times as a gardener, especially if you have a place where there's food growing. I think it's also a great time to build a bed. I would really think about your light. I really encourage people to find a place that has no trees nearby to garden.

Trees really have a lot of roots in the top foot of soil, even the top six inches, and they'll have really fine roots. And they will compete with your vegetables, so really think about your site. You can go raised beds. But I think even with raised beds, if you're growing right next to a tree, the tree is going to be like, thank you for this beautiful soil and just come right in there.

Yeah. Building things in the fall is really great. There's a lot of cleanup we do and a lot of prep. And the more you do in the fall, the more you can just dive in the spring to get a jump start on your season.

NINA MOINI: Well, Meg Cowden, thank you so much. Gardener, author of the book Plant, Grow, Harvest, Repeat. You can read her blog seedtofork.com. Thanks so much, Meg.

MEG COWDEN: Thanks so much. Take care.