Planting a Fall Vegetable Garden (2024)

We love fall gardening! The heat is waning but the soil is still warm. There are just three steps to consider in planting a fall garden: when to plant, what to plant, and where to plant. Let’s getstarted!

Why Plant a FallGarden

Fall gardening is much less stressful for many crops—as well as shrubs, trees, and perennials.There are less weeds, less pests, and it’s often rainier so less need to water as often.

• In temperate parts of the country (USDA zones 4 to 8), planting can even continue into November and December, especially crops like spinach, Swiss chard, broccoli, andkale!
• In colder climates, some of these same vegetables are frost-tolerant. Many crops taste better after a frost ortwo.

As soon as your spring and summer crops stop producing, pull them and make room for all those delicious fall crops! There are just three steps to consider.

1. When to Plant a FallGarden

Timing is everything. To plan what to plant in your fall garden, See ourFall Planting Dates Calendar. We’ve calculated your frost dates, backed out vegetable maturity dates (found on your seed packet), some time for harvesting and other fallfactors.

Or, you can consult the Frost Dates Calcultor to find the first fallfrost date for your area. Where I live, it is around September 20 but often it is another month before we get a killing frost. There is a lot of glorious gardening weather between now andthen.

Even though the days are beginning to shorten, the soil is warmer than it was in May so seeds sown now will germinate muchfaster.

2. Which Vegetables toGrow

Here’s a list of good vegetables to plant in late summer to keep the garden going through autumn! Pay attention to which veggies are frost-tolerant and which aretender.

1. As the weather cools, plant crops that are cold-tolerant and mature quickly. Salad greens are fast and hardy; leaf lettuces are ready to cut in 45 to50 days. Looseleaf and butterhead leaves can be harvested at just about any time in their development.Sometime lettuce seeds have difficulty germinating in hot soil, so I start my new baby lettuces in flats that I can keep well-watered and shaded until the plants are large enough to transplant into the garden. Some varieties of lettuce such as ‘Winter Marvel’ and ‘New Red Fire’ are more cold-tolerant thanothers.
2. A quick crop of radishes will be ready for the salad bowl in 25days.
3. Other root crops, like carrotsandbeetswill take longer, but are worth the wait since they seem to get sweeter as the days getcooler.
4. Fall-planted spinach does much better than spring planted spinach since it is maturing during the cool weather it loves instead of struggling in the summerheat.
5. Swiss chard is another hardy green that reaches an edible size in 25 to30 days. Given some extra protection when frost threatens, spinach and chard can last well into fall. If well-mulched, in many parts of the country spinach will winter over and give you an extra-early spring crop of the best spinach you’ve evertasted!
6. Broccoli and kohlrabi mature well in cool weather and will not be bothered by the cabbage moth larvae as much as spring-planted coldcropsare.
7. Kale is a winter staple. Try blue-green ‘Winterbor’ or pretty purple ‘Redbor’. They can be harvested long after other greens have been killed by coldweather.
8. Bush beans take about 6 to8 weeks to reach a harvestible size. The only problem with these crops is that they will be killed by frost unless you plan to protect them. If you live in an area with a long growing season, this will not be aproblem.
9. Snap peas and snow peas start to bear in 60 days and peas that mature in cold weather seem especially sweet and crisp. Pea vines can survive temperatures down to 25degrees.
10. The real stars of the fall garden are the Asian greens.Quick maturing varieties can be harvested in 45 days. Tatsoi, pac choi, mizuna, and napa are all in the brassica family. They can weather a frost and will last through a hard freeze if given someprotection.

Some Asian greens like hon tsai tai and mibuna are more closely related to mustard (also a brassica), which gives them tangy leaves that add a pleasant bite to an autumn salad or stir fry. Other greens such as arugula, mache, minutina, and claytonia can withstand quite cold temperatures, providing you with lots of interesting salads and cooked greens well into latefall.

Also, considering mixing up edibles with flowering annuals to bring autumnal interest to the garden! For example, combine ornamental cabbages and kales with flowering pansies and differentsalvias.

3. Where to Plant FallCrops

Of course, you have to decide on where to put your crops. This is when you’ll be clearing out the summer crops that have died back or that you’re simply not using.

You may have harvested your onions and garlic, so you have an open bed. Or, perhaps you’ve pulled diseased tomatoes or the squash bugs have now taken over the squash bed. Clean up the beds and add some compost and kelp to feed the soil before planting the nextcrop.

Caring for FallCrops

Watering is probably your post important task for a fall garden. The air and ground temperature is already warm (unlike springplantings).

• It will be important to keep your seeds consistentlywatered.
• Adding mulch also helps waterconservation.
• If the heat and Sun in your area is too intense, consider a lightweight rowcover.

Fall can be a second spring! Freshen up the empty beds with some compost and get ready to plant your secondgarden.