Fear not! Here in the second week of September, there's still time to plant seedlings and grow fall crops of your favorite veggies - but get on it, now!

Fast growing leaf greens like lettuce and spinach are a natural for the fall, but starts for longer growing but more cold tolerant varieties like mustard and collard greens or kale are also totally doable and available in local plant shops, as are young cabbage, cauliflower and broccoli plants.  (I even saw Brussels sprouts, although it seems a tad late for that.)  And you can certainly still plant radishes, my favorite one month crop, from seed!

Try your local garden centers; we can confirm that the following ones in Montgomery County still have, as of this week, veggie seedlings for sale (although we recommend calling before you go just to check their stock): Behnke's (Potomac and Beltsville); Johnson's Garden Centers (Kensington and Olney) and Season's Nursery (Gaithersburg).

And don't forget - if you plant spinach and kale this fall, and leave the plants in the ground with at least a few leaves on, they will winter over and provide you with a wonderful, super early crop this coming spring!

Many gardeners shy away from anything that has the word "crop" in it, thinking it's only for full-fledged farmers. But cover crops can do wonders for your home or community garden as well.  As Master Gardener Bob Nixon asks in this current Grow It Eat It blog posting,

"What fixes nitrogen in your garden soil, recycles nutrients and adds organic matter, reduces compaction and erosion, and turns into thick mulch, which in turn helps suppress weeds, reduces water evaporation, acts as a slow-release fertilizer, and suppresses some pathogens and pests?"

The miracle substance is hairy vetch, one of several cover crops that can do wonders to build your soil without you lifting a finger.  (Well, not much of a finger anyway - broadcasting some seeds is a heck of a lot easier than hauling in bags of compost and mulch.)  Cover crops have long been used as a primary source of soil fertility on the farm, (along with animal manure), and there's no reason gardeners shouldn't reap all the same benefits.

While I'll be spreading some hairy vetch myself over the next couple of weeks, there is a wide assortment of cover crops that can be used at different times of the year, and for different reasons.  For an excellent selection of different cover crops, try Johnny's Seeds.  Their website also has an excellent description of the uses and benefits of cover crops, as well as this great chart for quick reference and comparison.

2010 Summer Season Ending on a Stinking Note?

As we come to end of this hot summer, a lot of food growers are noticing a significant increase in the number of stink bugs.

Many people (myself included) found more than a few of them in our homes and apartments this spring (often nestled in curtains), but they've made major advances into Mid-Atlantic gardens and farms this summer.  These nefarious little creatures attach themselves to tomatoes, peppers, corn, peaches and other fruit and vegetables, sucking the nutrients out and leaving behind little white or puckered spots - or on occasion completely distorted fruits and veggies.

Native to China, Korea and Japan, the bugs first made an appearance in the U.S. in 1996, and being heat-loving creatures (the reason they go inside in the winter), their population has skyrocketed as our climate has grown warmer - with this summer being the hottest in recorded history.  The University of Maryland's Home and Garden Information Center newsletter has a good column on stink bugs, which you can read here.

But the problem is even greater than lost crops, as bad as that is.  As entomologist Micheal Raupp points out in his Bug of the Week column, these non-native invaders have no natural enemies, so desperate farmers have been spraying increasing amounts of pesticides to deal with them, erasing years of progress in getting away from toxic sprays and depending on more natural pest control.

Agricultural specialists are working on this new threat, and we'll keep you updated in the months to come.  In the meantime, expect to see a lot of these little critters in your home this fall and winter.  (And whatever else you do, don't crush them - or you'll find out why they're called stink bugs.)  

Fifty years ago everyone knew how to can or "put up" food, but the art has been largely lost as our nation was stampeded into an industrial food system. 

Many of us are now relearning this time honored practice as the wisdom of local and sustainable food is being rediscovered, and September is prime canning season. "Looks like a party to me", by Washington Post food writer Jane Black, is a wonderful article on the joys and benefits of canning, which can be a social or community event every bit as fun as a Christmas cookie exchange.

The article is also a reminder that the chances of harming a friend or family member with a messed up batch of canned fruit or veggies is slim to none - although it still pays to do it right, so you don't end up wasting your time, food, or money.  Filled with practical tips, recipes and online references, reading "Looks like a party to me" is a perfect way to dip your toe in the canning pool this month. 

And while the recipes look great, we'd also remind everyone that canning need not be complicated - simply slicing and canning a half-bushel of peaches (or pureeing them and canning fresh peach jam, yummm....) is every bit as fun (and ultimately delicious) as the more involved recipes - and it's what I'll be doing this weekend with friends.  So check it out everyone - you can can, too!

D.C. VegFest - Saturday, September 11

Organized by the Vegetarian Society of D.C., the DC VegFest is a free outdoor festival celebrating the very best of everything vegetarian in and around the nation's capital.

This year's festival features cooking demonstrations and talks by great guests such as The Conscious Cook, Chef Tal Ronnen (who you may know as Oprah's vegan chef), renowned journalist Colman McCarthy and local public health nutritionist Tracye McQuirter.  In addition there will be more than 50 you-won't-want-to miss  nonprofit exhibitors, commercial vendors, and food vendors that will  keep your brains, bags, and bellies full all day.

This celebration of all things vegetarian and vegan takes place this Saturday, September 11, from 12Noon to 6pm at George Washington University in D.C. For more information and directions to the D.C. VegFest, click here.

Heritage Harvest Festival in Monticello - Saturday, Sept. 11

If you aren't lucky enough to have a ticket to the sold out Red Wiggler Community Farms Annual Harvest Supper this Saturday, here's a reminder for another great event - the Heritage Harvest Festival to be held at Monticello, the mountaintop home of our third president, Thomas Jefferson, also this Saturday, September 11.

The Heritage Harvest Festival promises to be an amazing time, and a great way to experience the genius of Thomas Jefferson while celebrating one of his passions - the garden. This celebration of gardening, sustainable agriculture and local food will include more than 40 educational programs, lectures, cooking demonstrations and food tastings, as well as music and great speakers such as Sharon Astyk, author of the superb Jefferson-inspired book, A Nation of Farmers.

This weekend has some awesome food events going on, so you'll want to make sure you're at one of them!  For more information on the Monticello Heritage Harvest Festival, click here.

Grapes and grains aren't the only agricultural products that can be made into a drink!

In this delightful post on the Grow It Eat It blog, Master Gardener (and MVG Advisory Board member) Erica Smith explores the possibilities of cocktails from the garden, with links to a number of good ones.

And I'd like to add my own recently-discovered favorite:  Fresh Peach Coolers.  You don't have to love or even particularly like bourbon to try this cocktail, as the combination with fresh peaches and ginger beer (not ginger ale, but the stronger, spicy stuff), makes for an absolutely delicious drink, one in which you hardly even notice the alcohol.  (So be careful you don't drink them too fast!)

There are still 2-3 weeks of fresh peaches left at the farmers markets, so why not try this snappy addition to the locavore diet: click here for a recipe for Fresh Peach Coolers.

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