It feels like summer has arrived pretty much everywhere in the US, and our Slack group questions definitely reflect that. Your gardens are probably full of summer crops, and hopefully you're also underway with planning and planting for Fall. Many of the topics we cover in this episode actually start to turn our attention toward Fall. This includes our own Fall garden line-ups, including our favorite carrots and kale, the best way to store seeds, a debate about self-seeding crops, and last, a tricky question about onions.

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SHOW NOTES:

In this episode, we discuss:

• What we’re planting for Fall

• Our favorite varieties of carrots and kale

• How to store seeds

• Debate over the viability of Swiss chard reseeding itself

• Onions

Important Take-aways:

• Ideas for crops you can plant for your Fall garden include lettuces, kale, beets, carrots, kohlrabi, bush beans, kale, turnips, broccoli, and fava beans.

• Nelson is one of our favorite tasty and reliable carrot varieties that can be planted now. Merida is a sweet carrot that is suitable for Fall and can even be overwintered. For Fall kale, we recommend Lacinato, Rainbow Lacinato and Red Russian. The first two tend to overwinter the best, but because they're more resistant to powdery mildew in the Fall.

• The best way to store seeds is in their original packet in a container with good airflow. Ideally, place them in a cool, dark place.

• Some crops will reseed themselves if you leave them in the garden long enough. One of our Slack members has an experiment going with Swiss chard to test the viability of reseeding. We debated about both sides of this approach.

• Adding more soil to the tops of your onions won't encourage more growth, unlike potatoes or tomatoes, bulbing crops don't work that way. In some cases, you might be surprised at how large the underground growth is, so you might have more onion that you think!

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