The summer season is winding down and fall’s cooler temperatures are a welcome change.
Your garden will no longer have to endure the heat, thus the fall season offers a nice window to plant some veggies that you can harvest before the first winters frost.
So When Should You Plant Fall Vegetables?
The key to having a great fall vegetable garden is timing. From first cold frost date or estimated date, count backwards to determine when to plant your vegetables.
You can grow a sizable amount of vegetables in your fall garden in 60-days.
If you live in a warmer climates, try extending your growing season into fall. Growing fall vegetables in colder climates can be a somewhat of a gamble because you can’t really predict the weather. However there should be plenty of time if you target within 60 days or less.
Recommended Fall Vegetables
- Broccoli – A popular vegetable that can be used in many recipes.
- Turnips – Often used in salads and raw vegetable diets.
- Beets – Loaded with nitrates, beets are often considered a super food. Loaded with vitamins and dietary fiber.
- Cabbage – A hearty plant that grow well into the fall, and has many uses for traditional cuisines and recipes.
- Kale – Another leafy green that grow well into fall season and even into the early winter. Very popular in vegan diets.
- Carrots – A sweet vegetable that grows as a root and used in many recipes or eaten raw or as a juice.
- Collards – is a popular substitute for cabbage in the Deep South, it can also be grown in northern areas because it is frost tolerant.
- Leek – a plant related to the onion, with flat overlapping leaves forming an elongated cylindrical bulbs. Eaten as a vegetable.
- Lettuce – Several types top choose from, but all can be grown rather quickly.
- Onions – Red or white onions grow rather quickly, although onions can grow into the winter season as well.
Before planting for the fall, it would be wise to clean out your garden beds. Weeds and other pests can often linger after a harvest. Clay soils might need to add soil amendments, to help seeds grow in denser soils by adding loose sand or loam. Other times your garden soil might need to be replenished and could use some compost or a good fertilizer to condition the soil.
