Fall Garden Planning -- Yes It's Time to think About it!

We're barely into the growing season and already busy, busy, busy with harvesting/cooking/dehydrating/freezing/storing our bounty, but its time to start thinking about what to grow for the fall. Every year since I've been gardening, I looked forward to fall and the first frost as a time to finally take it easy and slow down -- take a break from a long, hard-working summer and relax a little. This year? It ain't happening! For many years, I've read about gardening into the fall and winter and I've even purchased the Four-Season Harvest many years ago and never put it to use, although I think about it and read about it every year. This year, I'm doing it! Sharon Astyk, author of Abundance and Depletion, is holding an on-line class for Fall Gardening and I signed up (I think she has some spot remaining if you are interested). That started the ball rolling and in one week, I bought Eliot Coleman's latest book, Winter Harvest Handbook, have been perusing Eliot's website for ideas for fall and winter growing (worth the visit, by the way, they grow vegetables YEAR-ROUND in Maine! Incredible), and placed an order for fall/winter seeds/plants. I plan to have leeks, several kinds of greens, beets, carrots, radishes, spinach, turnips and maybe some asian greens and broccoli into winter. The cool part about the Fall Garden class is it is real-time and she'll have us starting seeds some weeks, prepping a bed another week, maybe working on the fall/winter cold frames or greenhouses, etc. Boy I'd love a greenhouse -- an Eliot Coleman movable greenhouse would be awesome, wouldn't it!? I've been wanting a greenhouse for 17 years. Maybe this will be the year I finally invest in one. I told hubby it would make a wonderful 50th birthday present! :)