VEGETABLES to Plant Now for a FALL HARVEST

Extend the growing season with a second planting of fast-growing and cool-season crops!

- Marisa Reyes

While your baskets are filling with your long-awaited tomatoes, zucchini and peppers, you might not be thinking about the months to come. But the garden season doesn't have to end when the weather cools off. Midsummer is the perfect time to start plants for a second harvest. Here are five vegetables you can plant right now and enjoy in a couple of months. Happy harvesting!

SWEET BASIL 

Ocimum basilicum

By midsummer, basil is usually sending up flowers and setting seed, causing the flavor to decline. Although basil isn’t a cool-season crop, now is the perfect time to plant another round so you can keep the harvest going until temperatures regularly drop below 50 degrees F, when plants start to decline.

WHEN TO PLANT If you start seeds, sow them 60 to 90 days before you want to harvest, depending on the variety. If you can keep the seed bed moist, sow directly in the garden. If not, start indoors and move transplants outdoors later. Even easier, just pick up a few packs of seedlings from the garden center and plant them in the garden in summer so you can keep harvesting into fall.

WHAT TO CHOOSE Lemon basil (O. basilicum var. citriodorum) and ‘Purple Ruffles’ (Ocimum basilicum var. purpurascens) are two of the best cool-weather performers and can handle temperatures below 50 degrees F.

GROWING TIPS Plant in a warm, sunny spot and apply a 2-inch layer of mulch to the base of the plant to help keep soil and roots warm when air temperatures begin to drop. Or grow basil in pots and bring plants indoors to keep them going longer.