Let me share with you the vegetables to grow in September in the southern garden. I’m located in zone 9A, so we have a fairly long growing season. Since my last blog post, the garden has doubled in size and it has kept me busy with planting, weeding and harvesting.

Zone 9A September Direct Sowing Seeds

This month I direct sowed another round of bush type green beans as well as more zinnias to attract pollinators. As we have a fairly long growing season, our first average frost date is not for another two months, we can grow a second crop of many summer vegetables.

September Seeds Started Indoors

Even though it is still super hot outside with high temperatures still around 100 degrees, it is time to think about fall garden crops to start indoors this month. The seeds I have started indoors this month are:

• Mustard Greens
• Broccoli
• Kale
• Cabbage
• Collards
• Cauliflower
• Rutabaga
• Celery
• Herbs

I save so much money by starting my garden from seeds each season. I highly recommend starting from seed for access to more varieties of each plant and for the savings.

September Vegetable Harvesting

The garden still has a few things that are ready to harvest. I’m picking plenty of okra, yellow summer squash and zucchini. My second planting of pickling cucumbers has started producing as well. I planted sweet potato slips in May which yielded a pretty good harvest this month. I planted Beauregard sweet potatoes and Georgia Jet sweet potato slips; the Georgia Jet yielded a more uniform potato harvest. However, the Georgia Jet were left in the ground about 10 days past maturity and some of the larger potatoes split. I’m not sure if that’s just because they were left in the ground too long or if there was uneven watering.

There are lots of vegetables to grow in September that thrive! The Jing Orange variety of okra I planted for my second planting has been a heavy producer for the last couple of months. The red color adds such a lovely color to the garden, but it does not have taste any different that my usual variety of Clemson Spineless okra I grew in the early spring. I would definitely plant the Jing Orange okra again just because it is a beautiful plant.

Fall is nearly hear and I cannot wait for cooler weather! It will be hear before we know it and I cannot wait to start planting again!