Dear Friendly Farmer,
I want to grow as many vegetables as I can for my family, but I am new to vegetable gardening. I’ve harvested my garlic and my peas are all dried up. What can I plant in their place?
Yours truly,
What to Sow Now
Dear Sow,
Congratulations on your garlic harvest, and hopefully you’ve had your fill of peas for now! There are plenty of options for what to do now. First of all, pull all those peas and feed them to your chickens. They’ll love gleaning the leaves and the rest of the peas and won’t mind one bit that they are dried up.
We are in Zone 6a in our area of Connecticut, so we are about mid-way through our outdoor growing season that runs from about mid-March to mid-November. Now that it’s July, we must start thinking quick crops or cool crops. So, what falls into those categories? You can sow peas again where you just pulled them out. They’ll be small, tender plants during the heat of the summer and will be maturing as the days start to cool down—the weather they like.
But The Friendly Farmer’s favorite way to follow peas is with greens. Lettuce, arugula, kale and spinach; all will love the nitrogen that the peas just put in the ground. In the space where your garlic was, plant something fall-producing: winter squash or storage potatoes would be great bets.
The biggest lesson for vegetable gardening is just trying it—remember the Friendly Farmer’s mantra: Always Be Planting!
Yours truly,
The Friendly Farmer