How to Start a Fall Garden
I have been vegetable gardening for almost seven years now, not including my childhood of minimal growing experience, and last year was the first year that I did not have a fall garden. While I still had access to my little pioneer garden at the rental farm, I decided to throw in the towel once we had finished packing up the little cottage and moving to our current home. I was seven months pregnant and completely exhausted from a full summer of gardening, canning, and moving a house. I think that last summer may have been my most productive one yet, which means I need to get a move on this year! This year I have truly embraced the idea of slow living, and it’s honestly been giving me a lot of anxiety. I feel like I am falling behind because I am sharing less, even though we are doing all of the same things that we always do. Our garden is also growing so slowly, which makes me feel even more behind though I can do nothing about it!
Depending upon where you live, now is the time to start considering if you should plant a fall garden. If you missed the spring and summer seasons and are looking into possibly getting something started, it’s not too late! I think that’s the beautiful thing about gardening in the autumn. You can give it a last hurrah and a try before the growing season is up, which might be nice for someone who has never gardened before.
vegetables, herbs, and flowers to grow in fall:
VEGETABLES:
Roots: Carrots (short season), Turnips, Rutabagas, Radishes, Beets (short season)
Brassicas: Broccoli, Cabbage, Cauliflower, Kohlrabi, Kale, Collards, Brussels Sprouts
Lettuces
Greens: Arugula, Spinach, Swiss Chard, Asian Greens
HERBS:
Parsley
Chives
Rosemary
Thyme
Cilantro
Mint
Sage
flowers:
Zinnias
Sunflowers
Celosia
Pansy & Viola
Asters
Stock
Chrysanthemum
Dianthus
Timing Your Plantings:
The most difficult part about planting a fall garden is getting the timing down just right. This will be different all across the board based on where you live. Some places have long, mild autumns. Others have a very short window of fair weather and then frost hits. For our gardening zone, 5b, we land somewhere in the middle. Late July to early August is the month to begin fall plantings because we have about 10-12 weeks until the first autumn frost. This is simply based on annual weather averages. Some years frost hits sooner and others it is much later, but for the most part, in southeast Iowa frost hits around October 11th.
How can you possibly calculate when you sow your seeds for an autumn harvest? The calculating is actually fairly simple once you understand the math behind Days to Maturity. I have an entire blog post dedicated to explaining this, but here is a small example you can use to get started:
Let’s say you really want to harvest a fully matured head of broccoli by the time frost hits, considering broccoli can handle a few light frosts before being picked (in fact, most brassicas and roots can handle frost!). When you look at your seed packet, it says your broccoli is “mature” or “ready to pick” in 60 days. However, the back of the seed packet says “Recommended to start indoors and transplant out 4 weeks after planting.” Now what?
Days to maturity begins counting the days when your plant is sown/transplanted into the ground, not when it is started indoors. That means if you are growing indoors, you need to tack on 4 extra weeks (roughly 30 days) to your growing time. That means your broccoli is really ready in 90 days. Now count back 90 days from your first fall frost… For me, this would land around July 12th.
Now you know when to start your plants! Want an even easier tool to figure it out? You can use my Fall Planting Guide!
I have found over the past few years, especially when I was growing vegetables for our CSA program, that we tend to have our best crops in fall! The roots and greens are more deeply flavored and sweeter. The cold does something to the sugars in the plants, and it just gives them a really wonderful taste. The plants are always so healthy and beautiful. Springs are generally unpredictable and short here, so I feel that autumn is my chance to try again and have some success!
This year, I removed some of my unsuccessful spring crops to make room for autumn. I have everything planted now: carrots, beets, radishes, turnips, lettuce, arugula, spinach, kale, Chinese cabbage, and my brassicas are started indoors. Crossing my fingers we have a nice fall!
Do you have any questions about starting a fall garden? Let me know in the comments!
xoxo Kayla
