Nicole Johnsey Burke breaks down what grows in fall gardens across different climates. Carrots, kale, and squash thrive in cool weather, with harvest times ranging from 25 days for quick crops to 120 days for larger ones. She covers which plant families produce what and how to preserve your fall harvest.
Welcome to the Grow youw Self podcast. Surprising stories about the food we eat and inspiring conversations about what it really takes to live the whole and happy life we're all craving. I'm Nicole Johnsey Burke, your host and the owner of Rooted Garden and Gardenary Incorporated and author of Kitchen Garden Revival. Is it obvious yet? I'm kind of obsessed with the kitchen garden. The kitchen garden may just be the answer that you've been looking for on your own journey to health and wholeness in this podcast. It's gonna inspire and enable you to make garden magic right in your very own space. If you're someone who wants to eat more good food that's actually good for you, fill your day with great stories you want to text to a friend. If you wanna hear more about inspiring people and do a little bit each day better than the way you did it, the grow yourself is what your ears have been waiting for. You won't just learn about gardening here, you'll learn how to make growing as a person a big part of your everyday life. And your life, your community. And your garden, of course, will be all the better for it. So put in your headphones, turn up the volume, and let's take a walk, go on a drive, or just hang out in the kitchen garden together. Welcome to Grow youw Self welcome back to the Grow youw Self podcast. What can you eat to stay in season all fall long? That's what we're talking about today on the Grow youw Self podcast as we dig in to chapter five of the book My Book the the Gardenary Book Kitchen Garden Revival. Today's episode is brought to you by my course, Kitchen Garden Academy. The academy walks you through the step by step to go from scratch to build your own raised bed Kitchen Garden in a eight week Course. Believe it or not, fall is actually the best time to set up a kitchen garden if you haven't done so already. Why? Well, you'll see today that there are a ton of things you can be growing in the fall and winter in your own kitchen garden. But plus it gives you a major jump start on the spring season. So when everybody else is scrambling to get their spring garden set up, you'll be all planted and growing already. So check out Kitchen Garden Academy. I have a brand new class I've recorded especially for you to watch today@kitchengardenacademy.com all right, let's dive in to what you can eat all fall long. I'm hungry just thinking about it. Let's do it. Welcome back to Grow Yourself friends, I hope you are having a fabulous September. I went out for a run this morning and had to run back inside and grab my sweatshirt. I take that as a sign that I don't live in, in Texas anymore. When I lived in Houston, I used to say that September was the toughest month for me because I was looking for a little cool down after so many months of 95 plus degree weather. And September just rarely brought it. In fact, almost sometimes September felt warmer, more humid and hot than August, if that was even possible. But now I'm in Chicago and the temperatures definitely drop. In September our average temperatures move down a good bit and I can already see the sun really changing its position. So because we're a little bit higher on the longitude, you get to see the shift in the sun's direction a lot earlier. So I even noticed this morning that my neighbor's tree, the sun is really behind their tree. Their tree is on the, I guess the east side of my kitchen garden, quite far from my yard, from my boxes. But in the early morning now, where I used to get direct sun on my boxes, I'm now getting shade up until probably 8:30. And way back in the middle of July I had direct sun on my garden at 5:30. So it's really unique and interesting to watch the changing of the seasons and especially to observe them in different parts of the world. So moving from Houston, where I was much more closer to kind of the center of the earth, closer to the equator where the sun shifted much less, and now getting up north closer to where, you know, you have these much bigger swings in terms of sunlight and warmth, all that to say seasons matter in the garden and there are more, there's more to the garden than just summer, even though the store and the marketing and all the commercials would have you believe otherwise. So today I want to talk to you about what you can eat all fall, long to enjoy the season to its fullest, to eat the things that are the most nutritious, the most local, the most seasonal for you right now at this moment and to, to fully savor all that's happening in your particular area. I think this is one of the ways we can, I don't know, just simplify and hang on even, especially during challenging times. I don't know about you, but my, my children are all at home right now doing virtual school. That's why I've. My sound is different. It's because I'm in a different place again today. So we're all going through some stuff 2020 has brought it in a big way to us. But we all eat every single day and we all experience the weather every single day. Those are two very constant things in our lives that we can find peace and just simple, pure satisfaction. So let's talk about how we can do that in the coolest, best way. If you go way back. Actually, we re released episode one from the podcast a couple weeks ago. It's called these Three Things Can Change Everything. And that's what we'll be talking around today. So the three things are to eat seasonally. We're going to talk about that. That's like literally what we're doing today to shop locally and to grow naturally. Those are really the three tenets, I would say the. The three bases upon which Gardenary is based. And my company, Rooted Garden, is based in Houston. And so to know how to eat seasonally, you got to kind of figure out, well, what's in season. And to be fair, that answer is going to be different for you depending on where you live. So I'm going to give you some parameters in terms of temperature, and then I am going to give you a list of things that I suggest. But I do want you to take this in. I don't know, what do I say? Like, I want you to temper it based on where you are currently living. So, for instance, what's going to be local to me now that I'm in Chicago is quite different than what used to be local to me in Houston. Just a simple, a simple comparison would be, in Houston, cherry tomatoes will be available, literally locally grown from your own garden or from farmers as late as October, maybe even early November. And here in the Chicago area, tomatoes will finish up by mid September. So things like that, you know, just simple variances based on temperatures. So if you're in California, especially if you're in Southern California, you know, you could still be eating cherry tomatoes throughout the winter, which is why they are shipped across the country. It's why you can still find tomatoes, you know, in Boston, in D.C. is because they're being grown year round, you know, in places like California. So all that to say, take this and apply it to your own climate, which you will learn how to do inside the Kitchen Garden Revival Book. So I teach you how to chart your climate and understand what's local to you. But we're gonna dive in and speak of it as a cool season. So we're gonna talk about fall being a cool season, knowing full well that if you're listening from Houston. Hello, Tex. The fall is really? More like a warm season to you. So here we go. I'm gonna read to you just a little bit about the seasons from chapter five, because that's our focus this week in the Kitchen Garden Revival Book Club. So let me turn my page here. Pardon me. Each season has its own set of plants that will be large and lengthy in growth and others that will be small and short. I found that, generally speaking, a plant's size predicts its length of time until harvest. A large plant needs about one square foot of space and about 75 to 90 days before harvest. Small plants take up a fraction of that space in the garden and take 25 to 45 days before harvest. For instance, in the cool season, radishes are small and ready to harvest in about 45 days, whereas broccoli is large and needs 75 to 90 days before it is ready for harvest. So for the cool, the warm, and the hot seasons, there are a number of plant families that will happily make a home in your garden and stay for a while. So I'm going to focus on the cool season, the cool season, when temperatures range from 35 degrees to 65 degrees. The small and short plants include lettuces, radishes, and other greens, and the large and lengthy plants include broccoli, cabbage, peas, and other brassicas. Now, what you'll discover inside of Kitchen Garden Revival is that I divide and categorize all the plants based on their family. And that's what we're going to talk about today in terms of what you're going to eat in the fall will be the plant family that it grows inside. Because generally speaking, we can predict that if one plant inside of a plant family is available during that season, then most of the other plants are as well. Plant families predict so much about growth habit and, and harvest and length of time to grow. All those things are usually predicted by the plant family. So scientists did a ton of work to group all these plants into families for us. So we should absolutely take advantage of it, all their hard work, and use it to help us decide first what to eat that's growing in season, and then also what to grow. Also pointed out in this chapter is that there are different lengths of time that each of these plants take. And so what we're going going to focus on in the fall will be two types of things. One will be plants that have been growing for a long time throughout the summer and are finally coming and ready to harvest. And then there'll be plants that are planted, you know, closer to the time we're going to eat them. And they're what I like to call short and small plants. So as we go through these families, I am going to let you know which ones are the short and small and which ones are the long and lengthy that really have been growing probably lots of lots of the previous months, June, July, August, and now we're finally able to harvest. So let's start out with the Apiaceae family, otherwise known as the carrot family. So you guessed it, carrots are in here. So are cilantro, dill, parsley, and fennel. Now, these are all in the carrot family. They all typically have somewhat of a tap root, so a deeper root. And they all love cooler weather. They do thrive when they have more sunshine, but they also thrive when the temperatures are not that warm. So if you tried growing cilantro and dill in the middle of the summer and had a total bust of a harvest, it's a great time to try those again. And you can definitely be looking for these at the farmer's market or at the grocery store. This is when you're going to be able to enjoy these plants at the peak of their flavor because they love the cool temperatures. So Apaci family, that is the first one. Now, in general, these plants take about 50 to 60 days for harvest. Carrots may be growing. They may have grown throughout the, the middle part of the summer, especially if they were, say, in like, a shadier part of the, of the garden, or you live in a place where the temperatures aren't as hot. So you may be, you know, harvesting carrots early in the fall, but carrots may also be, you know, eaten later in the fall. So after they've been in the ground for, say, two months time, say September, October, they're a perfect late fall flavor. And if you just think about it, just the sweetness of the root and the richness of those plant flavors, it just kind of goes with the fall season, don't you think? Just like I was picturing, like, this tray of roasted carrots, like caramelized. Oh, my gosh, I'm hungry. Okay, so Apacae family is the first one. The next one is the Asteraceae family, otherwise known as lettuces. So you guys know my obsession with salad gardening and the fall is one of the reasons why fall salad is so delicious. It builds your body's nutrition and your vitamins as you're getting, like, heading toward this, this, you know, period of time where we're more susceptible to get colds and flu. And they're just so fresh and good for you. And the lettuces love it when the temperatures start to drop. So if you've listened to my story, you know that my first real true successes were growing lettuces in Houston. And that was because we started those lettuce gardens in the fall. We literally broke ground in September, planted the entire gardens in October, and had greens for the next six months. So inside the aster family, we've got things like the spring mix that you typically might buy in a big plastic box at the grocery. Romaine lettuce, all those beautiful red lettuces, frilly lettuces, endive is in there, radicchio, all the shishi lettuces, they're mostly in the aster plant family. The chicories, I believe those are inside the aster family as well. So you could go the sweet lettuce route. You can go head lettuces. So icebergs are also in the aster plant family. And as you can imagine, if you're growing more for the head of the lettuce, you're going to be more at the 60 to 75 day period for growth. But if you're growing just for the leafy, like a loose leaf kind of lettuce, you're going to be harvesting as early as, say, 30 to 45 days after planting. It is amazing. And I love harvesting in that way because you get to harvest again and again and again and again. So that's the aster family. The amaranth family is next up. This is I like to call the superfood family. We've got Swiss chard and spinach and beets in this family. The amaranth family is so good for you. There's that little red color through the veins of these plants that has superpowers, literally. My Swiss chard has been growing all summer long here in Chicago. In fact, Swiss chard is one of my greens that holds out even in 90 degree plants degree weather. We've had a super warm summer and very little rain, and the Swiss chard is like standing tall like a soldier. It's amazing. But Swiss chard really thrives in the cooler weather. So will spinach and beets, and most of these with the exception of spinach. The beets in the Swiss chard do take a little bit longer to grow from seed and beets are. It's a learning curve to learn how to grow beets because you do need to give them a good bit of space and most of that growth is happening underground. So it's kind of hard sometimes. To know what's actually happening. It's a little difficult, too, to get those beets separated from one another so that they have plenty of room to grow and get good sunshine. But super nutritious. And oh, my gosh, a freshly harvested beet just roasted with salt and olive oil is like, wow, so delicious. So that's in the amaranth family. Perfect fall greens and root crops to eat all fall long. The amaryllis family or the amaryllidake family. So that's onions, garlic, chives. Super good for you and great addition to your eating in the fall. It's a great flavor for all the things that we're harvesting. Like, I love having fresh chives, you know, with, like, when you're roasting, you know, root vegetables and things like that. And of course, garlic and onion roasted with the root vegetables is like, ah, it's just quintessential fall flavor, I'm pretty sure. So amaryllis family, a lot of these have been growing throughout the spring and the fall. So garlic could be planted in the fall, the previous year, grows through the summer. You harvest it, and then this is definitely one of those situations where it's been in the garden for a long, long, long, long time. You harvest it and then you get to enjoy it throughout the fall. So if you follow any amazing gardeners online, you prob probably see them creating their little garlic braids in July and August, and then the fall is definitely a time where you just start enjoying and eating those. Same with onions and chives. And chives are actually one of the last greens to give up in the garden. So I've been able to harvest and enjoy chives from my garden even through the first few cold snaps. Now, once we get a hard snow or a hard frost, then they're done. But this is a great time to be harvesting them in bulk and enjoying them again and again and again. Next up is the brassicae family, otherwise known as the cruciferous family or what else are they? The kohl family, like kohlcrops. So kale, brussels sprouts, broccoli, cauliflower, romanesco, arugula, and radishes. So again, we have some plants that have been growing all summer long and they've just finished up, so it's time to harvest. Those would include things like broccoli, cauliflower, and brussels sprouts. Those generally need about 90 days to finish up in the garden. So they would have had to be planted, say, July, probably August, to be harvesting by October. You can still try to Plant some this month in September, if you would like to, especially if you're in an area that isn't going to get, you know, under snow by, say, October, November, they don't mind. These cole crops generally have what we call savoy leaves. Savoy simply means bumpy, and the bumpiness protects your leaves from frost and cold. So most of the cole crops literally kind of sounds like cold crops, right? I think so. So the bumpiness actually really helps them to last through cold snaps, frost, and even snow. So your broccoli, your cauliflower, your Brussels sprouts, they'll get some frost and cold on them, and usually they will bounce back. Now, kale is kind of somewhere in the middle where you could have these kale plants that have been around all summer and they're still pushing out these huge leaves. And then at the same time, you could have brand new kale plants that you've put in from seed that are just giving you little tiny leaves, you know, every few days. And both work great. I love to use the big leaves in sauteed dishes and casseroles and say, like, a big soup with beans and kale. But then I love to use the little leaves and like little fresh salads with some, say, some parmesan cheese and some breadcrumbs, something like that. Radishes and arugula, those are going to be more of our short season. So if you're looking to put some things in your garden right now that you want to get a turnover from in a short period of time, arugula and radishes are great options. Those are going to take, you know, anywhere from really 30 to 45 days. So if you're looking at a shorter season and you don't want to be out in the garden, you don't want to do covers or anything like that, then you could absolutely plant arugula and radishes now and enjoy them before we get to the end of October. Now, in the cucurbit family, this is the squash family. Most cucumbers are going to be finished up, generally, if you're in a cool season. But we will have so many things finishing up from a long growing period in the garden, whether our farmers who've been growing it, or us ourselves. So these would be the fall squashes, like butternut squash and pumpkins, gourds, all these plants that have been literally sitting on the vine and growing for 90, even to 120 days now. I've experimented with growing a squash patch in my backyard this summer, and I'm super Excited about it. And I have to say, I had all kinds of fun things growing back there. But as we hit our, our string, we had days and days of like 95 degree weather. And not days and days of 95, but days and days over 90 with no rain. And the rabbits, the squirrels, who knows what else, they all jumped back there into that squash patch in the early mornings or late evenings and they ate them all up. Not a single one is left. So I think they were looking for nutrients and definitely probably some, some moisture as well, some water. So if you are lucky enough to have your gourds and your winter squash last through the summer and grow that long, well done, I must say. And if you see a farmer at the farmer's market who has successfully done that, tell them congratulations. Because take it from me, that is no small feat. So this is a great time. Of course we can, you know, think back to this. Kind of reminds you of Thanksgiving, right? Like this idea of eating these things that have been growing all summer long. It's like the harvest festival, right? And it truly should be a festival. Like if you have a cucurbit squash or pumpkin that lasted through the harsh days of summer and the challenges that you faced and the ups and downs of the weather, and it's still all in one piece and still edible, then well done. And you should throw yourself and your family a big old harvest party. So that's another one of those long and lengthy plants that we get to enjoy in the fall. The next family, I don't know if I'm saying it right. It's like convovolaceae, something like that. It's the sweet potato family. I like to call it the morning glory family. And sweet potatoes are actually a fantastic thing to eat all fall long. I remember going to my parents home in Mississippi in August and September and my mom would have this huge box of Mississippi sweet potatoes that had been growing all summer and we would just eat them and eat them and eat them from the box throughout the fall. I have to say, in my grad school days, sweet potatoes were a daily meal for me. It was like so inexpensive. I knew it was so good for me and nutritious and so easy to cook, right? Like I would just literally put a whole bunch in the oven at the start of the week and bake them and then just heat them up one by one throughout the week. I've even seen some super healthy people use them in smoothies. So as a replacement for bananas, you know, that have a pretty high sugar content. They'll use a sweet potato like a baked sweet potato. Use the flesh of it to bring the sweetness to a smoothie without as much of the sugar content. So if you're looking to localize your smoothies a little bit more, because most of us, I'm going to go out on a limb here. Most of us, us probably that are listening to this podcast don't have the ability to grow bananas locally. I know a few people are superstars and they can, but it's usually pretty hard to find. Most bananas, at least if you're listening in North America, are shipped to us from closer to the equator. So super fun way to make your smoothies more local. And if you're on a budget or you're trying to do plant based and it feels way out of range in terms of money or if you just want to, to eat well, sweet potatoes to me are just a core part. They're a key part of eating plant based and being, you know, the great part about sweet potatoes is they last so long after harvest. So let's have a sweet potato every week. Is that a deal? Okay, I'm with you. I'll post when I eat my sweet potatoes and you guys post when you do and tag me. Okay. All right. So that's the Convovolaceae family sweet potato. Next up is the Graminaceae family. This is the grass family. And you can guess what's in here, right? It's like, you know, I feel like this is all over the first stories of Thanksgiving is corn, right? So corn is again one of those long and lengthy plants. So we now have, we've got our winter squash and gourds. We've got our sweet potatoes, and now we have corn and other plants in this family. So these are plants once again that have been growing four months, 90 to 120 days. They've been growing, growing, growing, growing, growing. And now we get to store them and enjoy them all throughout the fall season. So corn is, yeah, it's just a super great, easy starch that you can add to your plate, make it the base of, you know, salads and dishes that you want to cook. And you can feel really good about it being, you know, the right time to be eating it. Corn is also one of those things that stores pretty well. So even in places where corn was harvested back in July or August, it's, you know, there's a good chance it's still pretty local to you in September and October. All right, keeping on with the long and lengthy, let's Talk about the Solanaceae family. We've got potatoes. So once again we have plants that have grown for a long period of time in the garden and are now ready to be enjoyed. So potatoes are in the nightshade family along with tomatoes and peppers and eggplant. And depending on where you live, eggplant could be in this family as well available. And again, like I said, if you're in some place like Houston, which is not in the cool season during the fall, then you're going to have like cherry tomatoes, tons of jalapenos and other peppers coming in. I was in Houston for an event two falls ago and was visiting a lot of our clients gardens and oh my word, it was like the middle of October and their pepper plants were on fire. Literally it was like hundreds of peppers on their plants and then their eggplants were overloaded as well. So depending on when you get your first frost or your temperatures start to drop, you may be eating a lot of things off of your Solanaceae family plants, and particularly the two I've mentioned here, the peppers and the eggplants. Those are biennial plants, meaning they will last and go through more than a year in the garden if the temperatures allow. So this is why I think oftentimes we see a bigger push in production from those particular plants in this family than others say, like a tomato plant, because the eggplants and the peppers, they're like, they're up for staying. So if you have a, if you're living in a, you don't have a harsh freeze or frost or snow anytime soon, I would not pull your eggplants and peppers out of the garden. I'd continue to let them push out harvest as long as you possibly can. One of our first winters in Houston, after I started rooted garden, a client sent me their Christmas meal and it was sweet potatoes and eggplants from the garden like that they had just pulled out. It was pretty awesome. So, but back to the point is potatoes. So Yukon Golds, red potatoes, Irish potatoes, russet potatoes, whatever kind of potato you grew besides sweet potatoes, because sweet potatoes are in their own family. Great to store down in a cool place, cool dark place and enjoy them again all season long. I did a potato bar. I'm running out of food ideas. I don't know about you guys, but I'm kind of getting a little like bored of cooking meal after meal after meal for my kids because they're never leaving the house. So anyway, I did baked potato bar last week and all the kids loved it, even My son, who is super picky, he actually complimented me at the end of the meal. So I felt so proud to be the best cook ever. No, I'm just joking. All I did was put the baked potato, Put the potatoes in the oven and bake them, and then give them a lot of toppings things. But super easy way to do a weeknight meal. I mean, I know you don't come to me for meal ideas, because clearly that one is basic. It's been around since, like, the 80s. But just a reminder, in case you're, like, feeling like you always have to have this three parts to your meal, just do a baked potato bar or do a sweet potato bar for dinner. You can make that one meal per week, and it'll just be your easy night. All right, so that brings us mostly to the end of our list. I'm sure there are tons of other things that you can be pulling from the kitchen garden in the fall, but this is just a good reminder of what's possible. I will always mention the lamiaceae family, which is the herb family, the main herb family, the mint family, and you can still be pulling a lot of herbs from the garden. In fact, if you have a threat of frost or cold coming your way, I highly recommend harvesting as much as possible before that happens. So grabbing all the oregano, all the rosemary, the thyme, sage, all those plants that are available right now to you, I would be grabbing them and harvesting as much as possible, either to use fresh or to turn into a sauce that you save or to dry and use, you know, for flavoring in your cooking. All the ways help and matter and will make your winter so much more enjoyable. I just love having the taste of summer in a. A cup of hot tea, like a cup of hot mint tea or rosemary tea or something like that in the middle of winter. It makes me hopeful that winter will actually end here in Chicago, which sometimes is hard to believe, believe me. Okay. So don't forget that the place. The best place to know what the possibilities are in your own area and what truly is local and for you is to go to the farmer's market. So if you have a farmer's market near you, or even if you don't think you do, I would check out and try to find the one most local to you and take a trip down there every week, at least. I don't know how often yours run. I've lived in places where we had one. 20. I was gonna say 24 hours a day. That's an exaggeration. Seven days a week. We have one here in our town just once a week. But even a quick stroll through, like, even if you, if you aren't planning on buying anything, just go head over there to just see what people are harvesting, you know, what is locally available, and you can ask questions, which I think is one of the best, the best things, and you can buy seed for, you know, your next planting. So I have, I go to the garlic grower here. He's always selling this amazing garlic at our farmer's market. So I head over there and this is. That's where I buy all my garlic seed for, to plant in the fall. So anyway, just a little tip, like, if you're ever feeling confused about your own local area, highly recommend heading out to the farmer's market. And that will clear up any confusion. Listen, believe it or not, when you choose to eat locally, when you choose to buy locally and choose to eat seasonally, you're making a difference. Like, I know it may feel so insignificant to slow down and head to the farmer's market and buy sweet potatoes from your local farmers versus buying them from your grocery store where they were shipped in from who knows where. But it really makes a difference. And even if you don't think it makes a difference in the world in total, which it does, just think of that farmer who you're supporting with your purchase just by taking a few minutes to buy the sweet potato from him directly. All that money goes directly to support his small business rather than getting spread out around big business from a big grocery store. Not to mention all the other little things you're changing, like less plastic, less fuel, less pollution, you know, and less waste. It's just really, you know, I think oftentimes we're looking for that big way that we can change the world when there are so many small opportunities that could add up to really big things if we just gave it a go. So if you're wanting to feel like you can make a difference in the world today, just eat something local and seasonal this month, this season, make a commitment to eat a fall inspired meal once a week. And you're gonna change the world for the better. I promise. All right. I hope you feel inspired. And now you know how you're gonna plan your meals all fall long. If we all eat this way all fall long, we' to make the world a much better place. We're going to heal the world. I can't help but think of Michael Jackson when I talk this way. Thanks so much for listening to the Grow youw self Podcast. When you eat inspired by this list, please tag me on Instagram ardenaryco or send me a DM or some way let me know that you are doing the work. You're doing the simple work of changing what's on your plate so that you can change the world alongside us. Thanks again for listening. I'll see you next week when we dive into Chapter six. Thanks so much for listening to the Grow youw Self podcast today. I hope you feel inspired and know what you can eat all fall long. Well, of course you can eat anything you want, but now you got a list of what's going to be the best for you. Listen, if you don't have your kitchen garden set up yet, it's not too late. Fall is actually the best time to set up your kitchen garden. So come learn all about how to do that@kitchengardenacademy.com I've got a free class I've recorded to show you the surprises that I've learned after creating hundreds of kitchen gardens for my clients, and I'm going to teach them to you to make sure you don't make any mistakes and you get to enjoy these secrets as you set up your garden this fall. So check it out@kitchengardenacademy.com and I will see you guys in the garden. Thanks again for listening to the podcast. I'll see you next week. Sam.