It’s hard to believe that there are more days behind us this year than currently ahead of us in the warm season garden. How did that happen? One minute I’m out at our Seed to Supper Farm questioning my life choices because of the brutal heat, and then the next thing I know, we’re trying to figure out what we still have time to plant for the remainder of the year. That average first freeze date of the year is getting closer and closer.

On top of that, the rains of a few weeks ago flooded our farm, completely drowning all the seeds we had planted for fall crops. As has been said before, the best way to gamble is with a packet of seeds. So, here’s what we are gambling with for the rest of the growing season.

First up are our crops that are either still producing or winding down. Okra is of course still killing it. The great thing about okra is that it is such a problem free producer. Of all the crops we grow at our farm, okra has to the easiest. Plant the seeds, keep them fertilized and irrigated, and just wait for production to start. And when it starts, you need to be ready to keep up with production. There’s definitely a sweet spot for okra between pods that are too small and those that are too big and the period of time between the two can sometimes seem to be measured in seconds. Yes, I am kidding, but if you have grown okra, you know there’s some truth in that statement.

Okra grows fast. It’s so easy to see a small one and think, I’ll just check back in a couple of days, and then a couple of days later there’s a 10 in okra pod in it’s place. Again, I exaggerate, but just a little.

Our first round of squash is just about to give it up. Squash bugs and fungal disease have taken their toll on the squash and cucumbers. But as these plants lost their will to live, we pulled them up and put some fresh seeds in the ground. So right now, we are in the in-between of losing production on our original plants while waiting for the new ones to begin.

We were excited to plant a variety of seeds back in the first week of August for a second crop of beets, turnips, collards, green beans, and Swiss chard. But shortly thereafter we got almost 5 inches of rain which drowned out all the seeds. Seeds sitting under water for a few days is never a good idea, at least not good for non-aquatic plants. Yes, over the winter we are going to work on leveling out our field and putting some drainage ditches in place. For now, we just replanted seeds.

Here’s where the gardener/gambler thing comes into play. Each seed packet comes with info about planting depth, how close to place your seeds in a row, space between rows etc. This is good information which we should heed. But one of the most important pieces of information this time of year is the “days from planting to harvest.” This factors in to how we chose the crops to plant in our fall garden.

For the fall garden, days to harvest is critical because, that first freeze of the year can put an end to the growing season for many plants. If you look at the list of what we planted, all of these crops fit into a category called “semi-hardy”. Semi-hardy means they can handle a little frost or light freeze and remain productive. Most of these crops have a 60-to-90-day period between planting and harvesting. This will put us in the mid-October to early November timeframe for harvest. Not too worried, but our first freeze of the year for the last two years has been mid to late October. So, we’re gambling a little bit, but hey, we wouldn’t be gardeners is we were afraid of risk in the garden. It’s all a risk…a risk of too much water, too little water, insect damage, plant disease, critters eating all of our watermelons (yes, that one is very specific). Turns out coyotes apparently don’t like cantaloupe as well as they like watermelon, so we are still getting cantaloupe, but you get the idea. In the end, gardeners are gamblers.

We are also doing a couple of things for the first time this year. One is that we planted a second round of corn. Corn seeds went in the ground mid-July and the plants are already 2 to 3 feet tall. Corn is considered a tender vegetable, meaning it needs to be harvested before a frost. Corn also needs 80 to 100 days before harvest. If we do the math, that puts us somewhere around the end of October, first of November. Once again, we are rolling the dice but if we have a shot at providing more food to area food pantries, we’re going to take it.

Speaking of gambling, we also just planted a fall potato crop. Potatoes are considered a semi-hardy fall crop, but they also take 90 to 100 days before harvest. That puts us at late November. Yes, we should have put them in the ground a little sooner, but the aforementioned monsoon kept us out of the garden during prime planting season.

Anyway, that’s our farm update. Hopefully you are out there rolling the dice on some fall crops along with us. If not, get some seeds, and give it a go. It might just give you something to be happy about when your football team is on the ropes. See you in the garden!

You can get answers to all your gardening questions by calling the Tulsa Master Gardeners Help Line at 918-746-3701, dropping by our Diagnostic Center at 4116 E. 15th Street, or by emailing us at mg@tulsamastergardeners.org. Photo: Tom Ingram