July 22, 2025 • 32 mins
This week I share how to take your fall garden from conceptto cultivation. Learn when to plant, what to grow, and how to extend your harvest well into winter. Discover why fall gardening is more than just practical - it's backed by science and perfect for nutrient-dense, flavorful produce with fewer pests!
What You’ll Learn:
- The science behind why fall gardens are nutritionally and logistically smart
- Best timing strategies based on frost dates and daylight reduction
- Fall-friendly crops and succession planting strategies
- Tips for season extension using row covers and container gardening
- How to improve soil health and prep beds for fall success
Let’s dig in!
Save20% on your new own-root rose plant at Heirloom Roses with code JUSTGROW at https://heirloomroses.comReady to plan your fall garden? Join the free Fall GardenChallenge now: https://justgrowsomethingpodcast.com/fall
Resources:
Fall Garden Seed Starting Secrets - Ep. 257: https://justgrowsomethingpodcast.com/episode/fall-garden-seed-starting-secrets-ep-257
Find your frost dates: https://www.almanac.com/gardening/frostdates
Find the full show notes at https://justgrowsomethingpodcast.com/how-to-extend-your-gardening-season-with-successful-fall-crops-ep- 259
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
It is not just my opinion, thereis real science behind why fall
gardens rock. If we take one example, it's
because brassicas like kale and broccoli aren't just Hardy, they
pack a nutritional punch. A2023 review calls them a
nutritional gold mine, citing their boosts in vitamins and
(00:20):
minerals. And as we go into the winter
months, we tend to eat fewer fresh vegetable options in a lot
of areas. So this nutrition can be
important. Plus, cooler temperatures slow
the sugar breakdown and enhance the sweetness in a lot of these
cooler season veggies, which means vitamin rich produce plus
flavor. And we're talking fewer bugs and
(00:43):
fewer diseases that hit in the cool season.
So your garden and the gardener both get a break.
So today on Just Grow Something,we are talking about how to
plant out a fall garden, how to know when to plant, what to
plant, and how to extend the season a little bit further into
the winter so that you can continue to harvest as much
fresh produce as possible. As the day length wanes and the
(01:06):
days turn colder, even my southern gardeners can learn a
thing or two about how to continue the garden beyond fall.
Let's dig in. Hey, I'm Karen and what started
as a small backyard garden 20 years ago turned into a lifelong
passion for growing food. Now as a market farmer and
horticulturist, I want to help you do the same.
On this podcast, I am your friend in the garden teaching
(01:28):
evidence based techniques to help you grow your favorites and
build confidence in your own garden space.
So grab your garden journal and a cup of coffee and get ready to
just grow something. So before we continue with this,
if you want to jumpstart your fall garden plan, I have my
(01:48):
annual Fall Garden Challenge. It is a free challenge.
Do not underestimate how much you can do in the garden in the
fog. You can regrow your favorites
from the spring. You can try new crops, you can
get redemption for the ones thatfailed earlier in the year.
So go to justgrowsomethingpodcast.com/fall
(02:10):
and you can Sign up today and get started right away.
It is five days of emails for observation and crop selection,
learning how to time those fall crops and helping you to create
a very easy to follow plan. This is going to work for you if
you are brand new to gardening in the fall or if maybe you
haven't been as successful before that you think you should
(02:31):
have been. It's just
growsomethingpodcast.com fall and that will take you right to
the sign up. So the first thing about a fall
garden is kind of your timing, right?
So the first thing that we want to do is check our local first
frost date out here. That's typically mid-october.
It might be a little bit later, sometimes it might be a little
(02:53):
bit earlier. Just remember when you look at
these frost dates, it's only about 30% accurate.
So keep that in mind as you're trying to plan these things out.
Set yourself a reminder, OK? Just put your date on the
calendar for when it's time to plant or to plan a succession.
There are apps out there that will help you do this, like Veg
(03:13):
Plotter I think is one of them. You can also just set yourself a
phone reminder. I just go old school.
I use my calendar. I write the dates on my calendar
as to when things need to go in the ground so that I get them in
on time based on my first frost date.
But also remember that episode that we did a couple of weeks
(03:34):
ago, which talked about extending the days to maturity
based on what it is that you areplanting.
So go back and listen to that episode.
There's a chart in the show notes that's going to tell you
how much, how many days you needto add to the days to maturity.
OK. We need to remember that
volatile weather fluctuations can make it even more important
(03:56):
for us to have a garden planner,a journal to keep track of how
everything goes every season. It seems like the spring and the
fall are the two that leave mostto chance when it comes to what
we plant and how we plant it. The timing of these things in
(04:18):
the spring, specifically when the insects start, less so in
the fall. Like I said, it's one of the
reasons why I really, truly enjoy fall gardening because
most of the insect pests are done.
But we have to get to that pointand and it's important for us to
keep track of when we're planting things and how they
fare based on our weather conditions.
I know I kind of harp on this a lot and it can seem like a bit
(04:42):
too much for somebody who is just a casual gardener.
And if you really aren't concerned about the yield, then
that's fine. You don't have to take these
notes. But if you are a gardener who
either gets frustrated because things aren't necessarily
repeatable every every single year, like you feel like you're
doing the same thing over and over again and one year you'll
(05:02):
have a great year and one year you won't, There are reasons for
that. It's not just chance.
It has a lot to do with the weather fluctuations and when
your first frost was or how muchrain you got or what the sun
conditions were or the humidity or whatever it was.
Not to mention the insect pests and the critters and stuff that
might, you know, cause some havoc.
(05:22):
So I I always encourage everybody keep a journal and
keep track of how things go every season.
The other thing too with the timing on getting these plants
into the ground is that you can absolutely extend your season
based on using some season extension.
(05:42):
And it is not super expensive todo this.
A floating row cover of some sort can add 6 to 10°F of warmth
under there. And that can really extend your
season, not just for those frostsensitive crops.
So if we're talking things like lettuces that don't really like
(06:03):
to have an actual freeze hit them, they they get damaged very
quickly. Covering those is going to give
you a little bit of an insurancepolicy.
So if it's getting pretty close to freezing, well, you've just
added six to 10°. So that's perfect.
That's going to save you and that's going to give you some
extra time, especially if you were somewhere like where I live
(06:26):
that we might get a frost. But then for the next two weeks,
the daytime highs are up like inthe mid 70s and it's like a
frost never happened. So if I can cover those plants
and get them to go beyond that first frost and I have another
full two weeks that I can harvest off of those without a
problem and then maybe re use the row covers again as it
(06:47):
starts to get cool. But this also extends to those
crops that actually enjoy the cold.
So those brassicas that we talked about in the intro, you
know, kale definitely tastes better once it has had a frost.
Broccoli can intensify its flavor once it has had a light
frost. Now, broccoli does not like a
(07:07):
really hard deep freeze, so thismight be a time where you use
those row covers. As it starts to get colder and
colder, you're going to protect those crops so you have a longer
harvest period. The thing about a lot of these
crops that we plant for the fallis that we have to get them to
maturity before our daylight hours dip.
(07:29):
And we already talked once before about the fact that it's
going to take them longer to getto maturity as those daylight
hours are reducing and as the temperatures are dropping.
So we have to give ourselves that cushion, but then we also
can need to understand that thatmeans that if those crops get to
maturity before the daylight hours dip, that we can continue
(07:51):
to harvest off of them for an extended period of time.
So long as they haven't frozen solid and gotten severely
damaged, we can continue to harvest into the winter as long
as they were mature. This is good for kale, spinach,
all of your brassicas, you can do this with carrots, all these
things. We'll talk about these things
(08:11):
here in a minute, but it's just another one of the advantages of
being able to kind of pick up some season extensions.
So you want to just kind of drape these over.
If you can do some hoops of somesort and then anchor the edges
really well and then vent them during the day, that's probably
your best bet. Because if you're using fabric,
which you should be, you should not be using plastic, you should
(08:32):
be using fabric. Then you don't necessarily want
them draped over top because if they get wet, they can freeze
and there's all kinds of a mess here.
I, I don't worry about it as much in the spring as I do like
in the fall. So I think we're kind of getting
ahead of ourselves here. So let's, let's talk first about
the crops that we can grow. What are sort of the classics
(08:55):
and what are maybe the newcomersto the the whole game here as
far as fall, fall gardening is concerned?
If you have taken my Plan Like aPro course, you're gonna
recognize the phrases that I'm about to use in terms of
succession crops. OK, If you haven't taken Plan
Like a Pro, now is a really goodtime.
You can go ahead and and do thatfrom the courses page on my
website. It will totally prepare you for
(09:17):
next season. And if you're doing the fall
garden and you have time to get through it and really get
planned, if you are in a warmer season or a warmer area, you
have time to do that. But you know, just just
growsomething.com/courses, you can find it.
But what we're talking about is like rapid succession and split
succession. These are really good for the
shoulder seasons. These are usually cool season
(09:40):
candidates. So what I would call rapid
succession crops. These are crops that mature in
60 days or less and they are perfect candidates for being
planted very quickly behind one another.
OK, hence the phrase rapid succession.
So for instance, rather than planting your lettuce all at one
(10:01):
time, you would stagger the plantings by two or even 3
weeks. These are usually crops that
don't do well in the heat, and they tend to bolt in the spring
when that summer heat starts to come in, so we stop planting
them. But that makes them a great
option for a succession or two or even 3, depending on where
(10:23):
you live in the fall garden. So really good candidates for
these rapid successions are things like leaf lettuces,
spinach, baby kale, baby mustard, arugula, radishes, beet
greens if you're growing beets for the greens, baby Chard, baby
bok choy, and green onions if you're growing them from sets.
(10:47):
So sets are the little onions that are basically second year
bulbs. There's just a little bulb that
you pop in, but they generally take about 28 to 30 days to
actually develop, like green onions.
And you can sort of succession plant these two to get a
continuous harvest of those. When we're talking about split
successions, these are the cool season crops that take like 60
(11:10):
to 90 days to reach maturity. So these usually aren't
candidates for like multiple successions in one season
because they also tend to do poorly in the heat.
But they can be planted like twice per year in each shoulder
season so that you can increase your overall yield for the
(11:32):
entire gardening year, right? These crops generally reach
maturity before the heat of the season begins in the summer.
So it's like a one and done. And then you can plant them
again to mature during the cooler days of late fall.
So a lot of these are the brassicas we were talking about
(11:54):
South broccoli, cauliflower, fast maturing cabbages, carrots,
turnips and beets. These all fall into that
category. Getting your full-sized kale,
full-sized Shard and mustard head lettuces.
So these take longer to mature than the leaf lettuces, right?
And then depending on what climate you live in, you can
(12:16):
also do potatoes and peas as a split succession.
So you want kind of fast maturing varieties, and it's
going to depend on what climate you're living in, but you can
absolutely attempt these in boththe spring and again in the
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(12:39):
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I'm planning to add a small Arbor or a pergola over the gate
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(13:00):
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(13:22):
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(13:47):
your brand new climbing rose. The link is in the show notes.
Now there are ones that I kind of call mid range successions.
These are those crops that take like 60 to 90 days to mature,
but that can stand the heat. So they are also candidates for
(14:09):
the fall garden, depending on where you live.
So for instance, if you're in a climate where it really gets too
hot for tomatoes and beans and some of the squashes, like in
the Midsummer, so think like South Texas and your first frost
comes much later in the year or you don't get one at all.
(14:30):
And we're just concerned about day length.
So things like determinate tomatoes, Bush beans, summer
squashes, these can also be candidates for you in your fall
garden. This is all about determining
when your cut off is for your garden and understanding the
days to maturity for the crops that you want to grow.
(14:52):
So again, go back to episode 257and refer to the chart in the
notes where we added time to thedays to maturity based on the
waning daylight and the cooling temperatures because there is an
adjustment for fall that needs to happen.
And then use that information, Figure out what your cut off is
(15:14):
for your garden and then decide if you have time to grow some of
these crops, right. A few things that you might not
have tried before that would be good for the fall garden would
be Asian greens like Mizuno and tutsoy.
So tutsoy is like a smaller version of that large bok choy.
They grow very quickly, they arevery tasty and they are shade
(15:37):
tolerant. So if your garden light
availability changes throughout the season, so say in the
spring, you have a whole lot of sun, right?
You've got full sun in your garden in the spring because the
trees haven't leafed out yet. They've all lost their leaves
and all that sun is coming through and you can grow a lot
(15:58):
of these things with no problem because you have the full sun.
But once those leaves start to fill in in those trees and we
get later into the season and the sun has shifted a little
bit, then maybe you don't quite have as much sun in your late
summer garden. That's not necessarily a bad
thing, right? It makes it a little bit easier
for you to get some of these crops into the ground.
(16:20):
If it is, if your garden is shaded during that late
afternoon period in the hottest part of the summer, which a lot
of the time is when we're havingto plant these crops to get them
to maturity, then you might havea consideration for shade that
might be important to you. So finding things like, you
know, mizuna and tutsoi that areare shade tolerant might be a
(16:44):
consideration for you. So as always, as we are planning
out the garden, we want to take into consideration everything
that is going on out there. So like we just talked about the
the shade, OK, if the light has changed in your garden from the
time that you planted in the early spring and then in the
late spring for your summer crops, we need to be cognizant
(17:04):
of that. It's a really good idea to kind
of sketch the bed layout on a piece of paper.
If you like using things digitally then and you can go
ahead and recreate that digitally on, you know, veg
plotter or on your tablet or or whatever you want to do.
It's just a good idea to to takeaccount of what is currently in
the summer garden and how you can utilize some of those
(17:27):
existing plants to help maybe shade some of these things that
you're planting in the late summer for the fall or what is
going to be exiting the bed and you are going to have is going
to make way for more room for you to be able to plant things
for the fall. This is also an opportunity to
(17:48):
be able to sketch out what interplantings you might want to do.
You know, so if you do some fastgrowing radishes in between your
slower growing brassicas, that'sgoing to maximize your space and
your timing. It makes it easier to kind of
visualize this if you have it laid out in front of you.
And it gives you the opportunityto sort of move things around
based on how long it takes them to get to maturity, how much sun
(18:12):
they need, et cetera, before youactually go out there and plant
them. Because obviously once you get
them planted, it's a little bit harder to get them moved.
I also would say don't overlook containers, things that you can
grow on the porch, things that you can grow in pots that can be
moved around based on the amountof sunlight that is still
available. Because remember, we're at that
(18:33):
time of the year when the sun isstarting to change its, you
know, trajectory over our gardens.
And so being able to sort of follow the sun if you need to
might be a good way to do that. You can grow salad great on, you
know, pour on the porch in pots.You can also possibly look at,
you know, extending your season a little bit by being able to
bring those things indoors or even just doing microgreens
(18:55):
indoors. And we to talk about microgreens
a ton, but they're very nutritious and they're usually
pretty easy to grow. So even if you're not getting
into, you know, a large amount of crops that you're growing for
the fall, you can still, you know, add microgreens and that's
going to help you in any case, we don't want to overlook our
soil, right? We always want to.
(19:17):
Anytime we're like changing things up in the garden, it's a
really good idea for us to do a soil test.
You got to think we have been growing in these beds all season
long. This is even more important if
you are growing in containers, whether that is raised beds like
my Planter box direct beds, or if you're doing them in pots and
(19:38):
containers. That is a limited volume of
soil. Even if you're growing in a
raised bed that has open to the bottom, you have kind of
manufactured the soil that is inthat bed and that means that
there is a limited amount of nutrients available within that
volume of soil. So we need to be cognizant of
(20:00):
the fact that our plants that we've been growing since the
spring or the very intense sort of heavy feeders that we grew in
the summer may have depleted that soil a little bit.
So. It's a good idea to test the
soil not just for nutrient needsbut also for the soil pH because
that can change too. This is also important if you're
(20:22):
doing in ground beds, I mean ourground especially depending on
where you live and what soil profiles you have, the nutrients
that can be drawn that sort of alluviate from underneath aren't
always as much as we might thinkthey are.
So you're still going to have toamend your in ground beds in a
lot of places, especially if youwere growing pretty intensively.
(20:42):
If you're growing a lot of plants in a very small space,
you're doing a lot of inter planting, you know, like I
recommend, then you might be drawing a lot of those nutrients
up. So now is a really good time to
do a soil test and figure out before you start planting
whether or not you need to amendthose beds.
I just picked up probably 20 bags of a garden.
(21:05):
It's not a garden soil, it is a raised bed garden soil.
And so it's a nice mix of a bunch of different things.
And I'm going to use that to refresh about 10 of the beds
that I'm going to be completely sort of turning over and
planting anew for, for the fall.And then once the end of the
(21:26):
season comes and I have to, you know, everything's done in the
other beds and it's spent and I pull them out, then I will end
up refreshing the rest of those.And then I'm going to cover
everything with mulch with the in ground beds.
Some of them are going to be refreshed with compost as I turn
them over to put the fall brassicas in.
So that's going to happen. Compost is always a really good
(21:48):
idea if you can mix that in, if you have, you know, biochar or
wood ash, if your soil is a bit acidic, that will help.
So again, taking that pH is a good idea.
This is not only going to help with the nutrients, it's going
to help with the microbial life.And that is really, really
important to just the overall health of the plants, but also
(22:08):
the nutrition that we get out ofthose plants.
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(22:31):
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(22:54):
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(23:17):
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The link is in the show notes. Winter cover crops or living
mulches are also a really good possibility for the fall garden,
even if you don't plan on growing anything to actually
(23:40):
eat. If you're kind of just done with
the garden at this stage of the game, which I totally
understand, you know, especiallywith the way some of our summers
have gone, if you're just burnedout on the garden and you just
want to be done with it and OK, summer's over, that's it.
I'm dropping my my shovel and I'm walking away.
I encourage you to at least at the end of the season, you know,
(24:01):
start to at least clear out those beds a little bit.
And if you can plant some cover crops in your beds and it
doesn't matter if it's a raised bed or if it's an in ground bed,
you can use cover crops no matter what or a living mulch,
whatever you want to call it. That is going to help to improve
the structure and the fertility of your soil.
It's also going to help to feed those soil microbes and if you
(24:25):
can plant something that sort ofcomes up and then stays in place
throughout the winter time, evenif it winter kills, if it winter
kills, it's going to act like a natural mulch once it kind of
keels over. So you're you're protecting that
soil, but you're also feeding itat the same time.
So even if you're not going to plant kale or broccoli or
spinach or beets or carrots or whatever, plant something that's
(24:48):
still going to benefit your garden and it's going to benefit
you come spring because you won't have to add as much in
terms of nutrients and you won'thave to worry as much about
mulch. You can actually plant right
into it. So there's a whole different
bunch of of benefits to plantingcover crops rather than, you
know, planting an actual traditional garden.
(25:08):
It's also shown that that coolersoil sustains microbial activity
better than the heat dried summer soils.
So if you are growing a fall garden, you very well may see
that as long as you have, you know, kind of updated the
fertility and made sure that youhave enough fertility in the
(25:31):
soil that you might actually getbetter crops than what you did
through the summer time just because that soil is cooler and
those microbes are moving aroundand doing their jobs better.
And so you're getting better plants out of it, which is
fantastic. So what about like the cool
season pests and diseases? Honestly in, in my area anyway,
(25:54):
we don't have to worry about a whole lot of them.
Once we start to get towards theend of the summer and we start
to move into fall, the squash bugs are going to be there no
matter what, little buggers. But at that point the majority
of the other pests seem to have run their course.
I can't speak for other areas, but I would encourage you to
kind of pay attention to that too and just kind of see what is
(26:17):
going on. Again, you know, the floating
row covers that we use as frost cloth can also help to keep out
things like cabbage loopers and aphids and that sort of thing.
So that's kind of doing a doublewhammy there.
Of course, I always recommend insect netting anyway.
But if you're, if you're lookingfor something that kind of will
(26:37):
do dual purpose, you can get very light floating row covers
that will act as a natural, you know, sort of pest control.
And then you can continue to double and triple up that layer
over top when you need it for frost protection.
So you can, you know, save yourself by just kind of buying
one type of a thing and being able to to use it.
(26:58):
In terms of diseases, I think really we're mostly concerned
about fungal issues, especially if you are in an area where the
winter is actually your rainy season and that's when you get
the most of your moisture. That usually is the thing that
we watch out for, especially since you're not going to have
quite as much in terms of the sun's sort of drying rays in the
(27:24):
the late fall, you know, and as we move into winter.
So that's just something to watch for.
And again, you can you can use the row covers as you just want
to make sure there's some breathability.
So if you can put some sort of asupport over top of those rows
or in the beds, then that's going to help with that airflow.
You just want to check regularly, right?
You so check for the the fungal diseases.
(27:45):
So like downy mildew, it can literally, you know, show up
practically overnight and part of that is because the nights
are longer and so it can just start that blooming period much
more quickly, you know, in the in the dark and you're not
checking on it. So just check regularly both for
your cool season pests and also for the fungal diseases.
(28:09):
OK, OK, so quick checklist for the for the fall garden, right?
Find your frost date, figure outwhat it is that you want to
grow. You're going to count backwards,
right? We've talked about this before
in terms of figuring out what the days to maturity is for,
what it is that you want to grow, and then adding that
percentage knowing that we're going into a darker, cooler
(28:31):
season. So we need to add some extra
time. And you know, at this stage of
the game, you may or may not have time to start from seeds.
So you may need to find some plants somewhere or you're going
to sow directly into the soil and just set yourself an alert
of some sort as to when that date comes up.
I have a calendar I write on there every single one of the
(28:52):
days where it is the ideal time for me to plant the crops that I
am going to grow. In fact, we have a bunch of them
going on this week and then again next week and then again
the week after that. So it can be spaced out
depending on what it is that you're growing.
I would also say to be a little bit flexible in this too if
you're planting conditions are not ideal.
(29:15):
We are in a severe heat warning for about 6 days I think this
week and I mean the heat indicesare going to be up over like 107
a 108 Fahrenheit. The humidity is just
suffocating, which also means that the soil temperatures are
really warm right now. Now, yes, I have mulch over top
(29:37):
of them and so the plants that are out there are doing fine,
but I probably would not go out right now and you know, clear
out of space to be able to either put a transplant into the
ground or to direct sow anything.
I don't think it would do very well.
So I am OK with waiting until next week to get those plants
(30:00):
in. And at the time that I plant
them, I'm going to make sure that I soak that soil and I'm
going to cool that soil off a little bit if necessary.
If it's still holding on to someof that heat.
If you have a soil thermometer or a compost thermometer or
something, even if you have a meat thermometer that you're not
using anymore or maybe you are, if you're confident you can
clean it fine, use that. Check the soil depth where you
(30:25):
are going to plant, whether it'stransplanting at a four to six
inch depth or putting the seed in the ground at, you know, just
an eighth of an inch and see howhot it is at different parts of
the day so that you know when the optimum time is going to be
to plant. If you have to wait a few days,
that's OK, but make sure that you have it on a calendar so
that you know when it is. Don't be Willy nilly and just go
(30:47):
out. Today seems like a good day to
plan. No, Check your calendar.
OK, you also want to prep that soil.
So take your tests, add your compost, add your amendments,
change the P, you know, do something to help with the PHA
little bit if that's necessary. Plan that layout, you know,
figure out how you're going to mix your your classics in with
your new kind of greens and stuff.
Include your inter plantings, include your succession
(31:09):
plantings. If you're going to do some of
those rapid successions. And then if you are going to
plan for some season extension, then maybe now is a good time to
put in some hoops for those row covers.
And then just be prepared to start scouting weekly for pests
and diseases. And if you see them, you need to
pull them or you need to treat it very, very quickly.
(31:31):
So remember the five day e-mail challenge for my fall gardening
challenge? You can go in there at any time.
It's just for somethingpodcast.com/fall that
will take you right there and you will get that series of
emails starting immediately. There's no need to wait.
So at least it's going to help you with sort of that planning
to be able to get yourself into the fall garden.
(31:54):
I really, really hope that I mean, even if you just try 1 bed
or one corner of the garden thatyou give it a shot.
I think you would be pleasantly surprised.
I know the burnout is real, especially for those of us right
now who are in these heat warnings or if you're dealing
with smoke from wildfires or whatever it is and you're just
feeling burnt out. I totally get that, but if you
(32:16):
can just eek a little bit of energy out of you or yourself to
be able to get out there into the fall garden and or into the
summer garden and be able to plant for fall once it starts to
cool off, I guarantee you will be so happy that you did because
gardening in the fall really is an absolute treat.
Until next time, my gardening friends, keep on cultivating
(32:36):
that dream garden and we'll talkwith you soon.
It is not just my opinion, thereis real science behind why fall
gardens rock. If we take one example, it's
because brassicas like kale and broccoli aren't just Hardy, they
pack a nutritional punch. A2023 review calls them a
nutritional gold mine, citing their boosts in vitamins and
(00:20):
minerals. And as we go into the winter
months, we tend to eat fewer fresh vegetable options in a lot
of areas. So this nutrition can be
important. Plus, cooler temperatures slow
the sugar breakdown and enhance the sweetness in a lot of these
cooler season veggies, which means vitamin rich produce plus
flavor. And we're talking fewer bugs and
(00:43):
fewer diseases that hit in the cool season.
So your garden and the gardener both get a break.
So today on Just Grow Something,we are talking about how to
plant out a fall garden, how to know when to plant, what to
plant, and how to extend the season a little bit further into
the winter so that you can continue to harvest as much
fresh produce as possible. As the day length wanes and the
(01:06):
days turn colder, even my southern gardeners can learn a
thing or two about how to continue the garden beyond fall.
Let's dig in. Hey, I'm Karen and what started
as a small backyard garden 20 years ago turned into a lifelong
passion for growing food. Now as a market farmer and
horticulturist, I want to help you do the same.
On this podcast, I am your friend in the garden teaching
(01:28):
evidence based techniques to help you grow your favorites and
build confidence in your own garden space.
So grab your garden journal and a cup of coffee and get ready to
just grow something. So before we continue with this,
if you want to jumpstart your fall garden plan, I have my
(01:48):
annual Fall Garden Challenge. It is a free challenge.
Do not underestimate how much you can do in the garden in the
fog. You can regrow your favorites
from the spring. You can try new crops, you can
get redemption for the ones thatfailed earlier in the year.
So go to justgrowsomethingpodcast.com/fall
(02:10):
and you can Sign up today and get started right away.
It is five days of emails for observation and crop selection,
learning how to time those fall crops and helping you to create
a very easy to follow plan. This is going to work for you if
you are brand new to gardening in the fall or if maybe you
haven't been as successful before that you think you should
(02:31):
have been. It's just
growsomethingpodcast.com fall and that will take you right to
the sign up. So the first thing about a fall
garden is kind of your timing, right?
So the first thing that we want to do is check our local first
frost date out here. That's typically mid-october.
It might be a little bit later, sometimes it might be a little
(02:53):
bit earlier. Just remember when you look at
these frost dates, it's only about 30% accurate.
So keep that in mind as you're trying to plan these things out.
Set yourself a reminder, OK? Just put your date on the
calendar for when it's time to plant or to plan a succession.
There are apps out there that will help you do this, like Veg
(03:13):
Plotter I think is one of them. You can also just set yourself a
phone reminder. I just go old school.
I use my calendar. I write the dates on my calendar
as to when things need to go in the ground so that I get them in
on time based on my first frost date.
But also remember that episode that we did a couple of weeks
(03:34):
ago, which talked about extending the days to maturity
based on what it is that you areplanting.
So go back and listen to that episode.
There's a chart in the show notes that's going to tell you
how much, how many days you needto add to the days to maturity.
OK. We need to remember that
volatile weather fluctuations can make it even more important
(03:56):
for us to have a garden planner,a journal to keep track of how
everything goes every season. It seems like the spring and the
fall are the two that leave mostto chance when it comes to what
we plant and how we plant it. The timing of these things in
(04:18):
the spring, specifically when the insects start, less so in
the fall. Like I said, it's one of the
reasons why I really, truly enjoy fall gardening because
most of the insect pests are done.
But we have to get to that pointand and it's important for us to
keep track of when we're planting things and how they
fare based on our weather conditions.
I know I kind of harp on this a lot and it can seem like a bit
(04:42):
too much for somebody who is just a casual gardener.
And if you really aren't concerned about the yield, then
that's fine. You don't have to take these
notes. But if you are a gardener who
either gets frustrated because things aren't necessarily
repeatable every every single year, like you feel like you're
doing the same thing over and over again and one year you'll
(05:02):
have a great year and one year you won't, There are reasons for
that. It's not just chance.
It has a lot to do with the weather fluctuations and when
your first frost was or how muchrain you got or what the sun
conditions were or the humidity or whatever it was.
Not to mention the insect pests and the critters and stuff that
might, you know, cause some havoc.
(05:22):
So I I always encourage everybody keep a journal and
keep track of how things go every season.
The other thing too with the timing on getting these plants
into the ground is that you can absolutely extend your season
based on using some season extension.
(05:42):
And it is not super expensive todo this.
A floating row cover of some sort can add 6 to 10°F of warmth
under there. And that can really extend your
season, not just for those frostsensitive crops.
So if we're talking things like lettuces that don't really like
(06:03):
to have an actual freeze hit them, they they get damaged very
quickly. Covering those is going to give
you a little bit of an insurancepolicy.
So if it's getting pretty close to freezing, well, you've just
added six to 10°. So that's perfect.
That's going to save you and that's going to give you some
extra time, especially if you were somewhere like where I live
(06:26):
that we might get a frost. But then for the next two weeks,
the daytime highs are up like inthe mid 70s and it's like a
frost never happened. So if I can cover those plants
and get them to go beyond that first frost and I have another
full two weeks that I can harvest off of those without a
problem and then maybe re use the row covers again as it
(06:47):
starts to get cool. But this also extends to those
crops that actually enjoy the cold.
So those brassicas that we talked about in the intro, you
know, kale definitely tastes better once it has had a frost.
Broccoli can intensify its flavor once it has had a light
frost. Now, broccoli does not like a
(07:07):
really hard deep freeze, so thismight be a time where you use
those row covers. As it starts to get colder and
colder, you're going to protect those crops so you have a longer
harvest period. The thing about a lot of these
crops that we plant for the fallis that we have to get them to
maturity before our daylight hours dip.
(07:29):
And we already talked once before about the fact that it's
going to take them longer to getto maturity as those daylight
hours are reducing and as the temperatures are dropping.
So we have to give ourselves that cushion, but then we also
can need to understand that thatmeans that if those crops get to
maturity before the daylight hours dip, that we can continue
(07:51):
to harvest off of them for an extended period of time.
So long as they haven't frozen solid and gotten severely
damaged, we can continue to harvest into the winter as long
as they were mature. This is good for kale, spinach,
all of your brassicas, you can do this with carrots, all these
things. We'll talk about these things
(08:11):
here in a minute, but it's just another one of the advantages of
being able to kind of pick up some season extensions.
So you want to just kind of drape these over.
If you can do some hoops of somesort and then anchor the edges
really well and then vent them during the day, that's probably
your best bet. Because if you're using fabric,
which you should be, you should not be using plastic, you should
(08:32):
be using fabric. Then you don't necessarily want
them draped over top because if they get wet, they can freeze
and there's all kinds of a mess here.
I, I don't worry about it as much in the spring as I do like
in the fall. So I think we're kind of getting
ahead of ourselves here. So let's, let's talk first about
the crops that we can grow. What are sort of the classics
(08:55):
and what are maybe the newcomersto the the whole game here as
far as fall, fall gardening is concerned?
If you have taken my Plan Like aPro course, you're gonna
recognize the phrases that I'm about to use in terms of
succession crops. OK, If you haven't taken Plan
Like a Pro, now is a really goodtime.
You can go ahead and and do thatfrom the courses page on my
website. It will totally prepare you for
(09:17):
next season. And if you're doing the fall
garden and you have time to get through it and really get
planned, if you are in a warmer season or a warmer area, you
have time to do that. But you know, just just
growsomething.com/courses, you can find it.
But what we're talking about is like rapid succession and split
succession. These are really good for the
shoulder seasons. These are usually cool season
(09:40):
candidates. So what I would call rapid
succession crops. These are crops that mature in
60 days or less and they are perfect candidates for being
planted very quickly behind one another.
OK, hence the phrase rapid succession.
So for instance, rather than planting your lettuce all at one
(10:01):
time, you would stagger the plantings by two or even 3
weeks. These are usually crops that
don't do well in the heat, and they tend to bolt in the spring
when that summer heat starts to come in, so we stop planting
them. But that makes them a great
option for a succession or two or even 3, depending on where
(10:23):
you live in the fall garden. So really good candidates for
these rapid successions are things like leaf lettuces,
spinach, baby kale, baby mustard, arugula, radishes, beet
greens if you're growing beets for the greens, baby Chard, baby
bok choy, and green onions if you're growing them from sets.
(10:47):
So sets are the little onions that are basically second year
bulbs. There's just a little bulb that
you pop in, but they generally take about 28 to 30 days to
actually develop, like green onions.
And you can sort of succession plant these two to get a
continuous harvest of those. When we're talking about split
successions, these are the cool season crops that take like 60
(11:10):
to 90 days to reach maturity. So these usually aren't
candidates for like multiple successions in one season
because they also tend to do poorly in the heat.
But they can be planted like twice per year in each shoulder
season so that you can increase your overall yield for the
(11:32):
entire gardening year, right? These crops generally reach
maturity before the heat of the season begins in the summer.
So it's like a one and done. And then you can plant them
again to mature during the cooler days of late fall.
So a lot of these are the brassicas we were talking about
(11:54):
South broccoli, cauliflower, fast maturing cabbages, carrots,
turnips and beets. These all fall into that
category. Getting your full-sized kale,
full-sized Shard and mustard head lettuces.
So these take longer to mature than the leaf lettuces, right?
And then depending on what climate you live in, you can
(12:16):
also do potatoes and peas as a split succession.
So you want kind of fast maturing varieties, and it's
going to depend on what climate you're living in, but you can
absolutely attempt these in boththe spring and again in the
fall. Looking to add elegance,
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(12:39):
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I'm planning to add a small Arbor or a pergola over the gate
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(13:00):
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(13:22):
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(13:47):
your brand new climbing rose. The link is in the show notes.
Now there are ones that I kind of call mid range successions.
These are those crops that take like 60 to 90 days to mature,
but that can stand the heat. So they are also candidates for
(14:09):
the fall garden, depending on where you live.
So for instance, if you're in a climate where it really gets too
hot for tomatoes and beans and some of the squashes, like in
the Midsummer, so think like South Texas and your first frost
comes much later in the year or you don't get one at all.
(14:30):
And we're just concerned about day length.
So things like determinate tomatoes, Bush beans, summer
squashes, these can also be candidates for you in your fall
garden. This is all about determining
when your cut off is for your garden and understanding the
days to maturity for the crops that you want to grow.
(14:52):
So again, go back to episode 257and refer to the chart in the
notes where we added time to thedays to maturity based on the
waning daylight and the cooling temperatures because there is an
adjustment for fall that needs to happen.
And then use that information, Figure out what your cut off is
(15:14):
for your garden and then decide if you have time to grow some of
these crops, right. A few things that you might not
have tried before that would be good for the fall garden would
be Asian greens like Mizuno and tutsoy.
So tutsoy is like a smaller version of that large bok choy.
They grow very quickly, they arevery tasty and they are shade
(15:37):
tolerant. So if your garden light
availability changes throughout the season, so say in the
spring, you have a whole lot of sun, right?
You've got full sun in your garden in the spring because the
trees haven't leafed out yet. They've all lost their leaves
and all that sun is coming through and you can grow a lot
(15:58):
of these things with no problem because you have the full sun.
But once those leaves start to fill in in those trees and we
get later into the season and the sun has shifted a little
bit, then maybe you don't quite have as much sun in your late
summer garden. That's not necessarily a bad
thing, right? It makes it a little bit easier
for you to get some of these crops into the ground.
(16:20):
If it is, if your garden is shaded during that late
afternoon period in the hottest part of the summer, which a lot
of the time is when we're havingto plant these crops to get them
to maturity, then you might havea consideration for shade that
might be important to you. So finding things like, you
know, mizuna and tutsoi that areare shade tolerant might be a
(16:44):
consideration for you. So as always, as we are planning
out the garden, we want to take into consideration everything
that is going on out there. So like we just talked about the
the shade, OK, if the light has changed in your garden from the
time that you planted in the early spring and then in the
late spring for your summer crops, we need to be cognizant
(17:04):
of that. It's a really good idea to kind
of sketch the bed layout on a piece of paper.
If you like using things digitally then and you can go
ahead and recreate that digitally on, you know, veg
plotter or on your tablet or or whatever you want to do.
It's just a good idea to to takeaccount of what is currently in
the summer garden and how you can utilize some of those
(17:27):
existing plants to help maybe shade some of these things that
you're planting in the late summer for the fall or what is
going to be exiting the bed and you are going to have is going
to make way for more room for you to be able to plant things
for the fall. This is also an opportunity to
(17:48):
be able to sketch out what interplantings you might want to do.
You know, so if you do some fastgrowing radishes in between your
slower growing brassicas, that'sgoing to maximize your space and
your timing. It makes it easier to kind of
visualize this if you have it laid out in front of you.
And it gives you the opportunityto sort of move things around
based on how long it takes them to get to maturity, how much sun
(18:12):
they need, et cetera, before youactually go out there and plant
them. Because obviously once you get
them planted, it's a little bit harder to get them moved.
I also would say don't overlook containers, things that you can
grow on the porch, things that you can grow in pots that can be
moved around based on the amountof sunlight that is still
available. Because remember, we're at that
(18:33):
time of the year when the sun isstarting to change its, you
know, trajectory over our gardens.
And so being able to sort of follow the sun if you need to
might be a good way to do that. You can grow salad great on, you
know, pour on the porch in pots.You can also possibly look at,
you know, extending your season a little bit by being able to
bring those things indoors or even just doing microgreens
(18:55):
indoors. And we to talk about microgreens
a ton, but they're very nutritious and they're usually
pretty easy to grow. So even if you're not getting
into, you know, a large amount of crops that you're growing for
the fall, you can still, you know, add microgreens and that's
going to help you in any case, we don't want to overlook our
soil, right? We always want to.
(19:17):
Anytime we're like changing things up in the garden, it's a
really good idea for us to do a soil test.
You got to think we have been growing in these beds all season
long. This is even more important if
you are growing in containers, whether that is raised beds like
my Planter box direct beds, or if you're doing them in pots and
(19:38):
containers. That is a limited volume of
soil. Even if you're growing in a
raised bed that has open to the bottom, you have kind of
manufactured the soil that is inthat bed and that means that
there is a limited amount of nutrients available within that
volume of soil. So we need to be cognizant of
(20:00):
the fact that our plants that we've been growing since the
spring or the very intense sort of heavy feeders that we grew in
the summer may have depleted that soil a little bit.
So. It's a good idea to test the
soil not just for nutrient needsbut also for the soil pH because
that can change too. This is also important if you're
(20:22):
doing in ground beds, I mean ourground especially depending on
where you live and what soil profiles you have, the nutrients
that can be drawn that sort of alluviate from underneath aren't
always as much as we might thinkthey are.
So you're still going to have toamend your in ground beds in a
lot of places, especially if youwere growing pretty intensively.
(20:42):
If you're growing a lot of plants in a very small space,
you're doing a lot of inter planting, you know, like I
recommend, then you might be drawing a lot of those nutrients
up. So now is a really good time to
do a soil test and figure out before you start planting
whether or not you need to amendthose beds.
I just picked up probably 20 bags of a garden.
(21:05):
It's not a garden soil, it is a raised bed garden soil.
And so it's a nice mix of a bunch of different things.
And I'm going to use that to refresh about 10 of the beds
that I'm going to be completely sort of turning over and
planting anew for, for the fall.And then once the end of the
(21:26):
season comes and I have to, you know, everything's done in the
other beds and it's spent and I pull them out, then I will end
up refreshing the rest of those.And then I'm going to cover
everything with mulch with the in ground beds.
Some of them are going to be refreshed with compost as I turn
them over to put the fall brassicas in.
So that's going to happen. Compost is always a really good
(21:48):
idea if you can mix that in, if you have, you know, biochar or
wood ash, if your soil is a bit acidic, that will help.
So again, taking that pH is a good idea.
This is not only going to help with the nutrients, it's going
to help with the microbial life.And that is really, really
important to just the overall health of the plants, but also
(22:08):
the nutrition that we get out ofthose plants.
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(22:31):
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(22:54):
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The link is in the show notes. Winter cover crops or living
mulches are also a really good possibility for the fall garden,
even if you don't plan on growing anything to actually
(23:40):
eat. If you're kind of just done with
the garden at this stage of the game, which I totally
understand, you know, especiallywith the way some of our summers
have gone, if you're just burnedout on the garden and you just
want to be done with it and OK, summer's over, that's it.
I'm dropping my my shovel and I'm walking away.
I encourage you to at least at the end of the season, you know,
(24:01):
start to at least clear out those beds a little bit.
And if you can plant some cover crops in your beds and it
doesn't matter if it's a raised bed or if it's an in ground bed,
you can use cover crops no matter what or a living mulch,
whatever you want to call it. That is going to help to improve
the structure and the fertility of your soil.
It's also going to help to feed those soil microbes and if you
(24:25):
can plant something that sort ofcomes up and then stays in place
throughout the winter time, evenif it winter kills, if it winter
kills, it's going to act like a natural mulch once it kind of
keels over. So you're you're protecting that
soil, but you're also feeding itat the same time.
So even if you're not going to plant kale or broccoli or
spinach or beets or carrots or whatever, plant something that's
(24:48):
still going to benefit your garden and it's going to benefit
you come spring because you won't have to add as much in
terms of nutrients and you won'thave to worry as much about
mulch. You can actually plant right
into it. So there's a whole different
bunch of of benefits to plantingcover crops rather than, you
know, planting an actual traditional garden.
(25:08):
It's also shown that that coolersoil sustains microbial activity
better than the heat dried summer soils.
So if you are growing a fall garden, you very well may see
that as long as you have, you know, kind of updated the
fertility and made sure that youhave enough fertility in the
(25:31):
soil that you might actually getbetter crops than what you did
through the summer time just because that soil is cooler and
those microbes are moving aroundand doing their jobs better.
And so you're getting better plants out of it, which is
fantastic. So what about like the cool
season pests and diseases? Honestly in, in my area anyway,
(25:54):
we don't have to worry about a whole lot of them.
Once we start to get towards theend of the summer and we start
to move into fall, the squash bugs are going to be there no
matter what, little buggers. But at that point the majority
of the other pests seem to have run their course.
I can't speak for other areas, but I would encourage you to
kind of pay attention to that too and just kind of see what is
(26:17):
going on. Again, you know, the floating
row covers that we use as frost cloth can also help to keep out
things like cabbage loopers and aphids and that sort of thing.
So that's kind of doing a doublewhammy there.
Of course, I always recommend insect netting anyway.
But if you're, if you're lookingfor something that kind of will
(26:37):
do dual purpose, you can get very light floating row covers
that will act as a natural, you know, sort of pest control.
And then you can continue to double and triple up that layer
over top when you need it for frost protection.
So you can, you know, save yourself by just kind of buying
one type of a thing and being able to to use it.
(26:58):
In terms of diseases, I think really we're mostly concerned
about fungal issues, especially if you are in an area where the
winter is actually your rainy season and that's when you get
the most of your moisture. That usually is the thing that
we watch out for, especially since you're not going to have
quite as much in terms of the sun's sort of drying rays in the
(27:24):
the late fall, you know, and as we move into winter.
So that's just something to watch for.
And again, you can you can use the row covers as you just want
to make sure there's some breathability.
So if you can put some sort of asupport over top of those rows
or in the beds, then that's going to help with that airflow.
You just want to check regularly, right?
You so check for the the fungal diseases.
(27:45):
So like downy mildew, it can literally, you know, show up
practically overnight and part of that is because the nights
are longer and so it can just start that blooming period much
more quickly, you know, in the in the dark and you're not
checking on it. So just check regularly both for
your cool season pests and also for the fungal diseases.
(28:09):
OK, OK, so quick checklist for the for the fall garden, right?
Find your frost date, figure outwhat it is that you want to
grow. You're going to count backwards,
right? We've talked about this before
in terms of figuring out what the days to maturity is for,
what it is that you want to grow, and then adding that
percentage knowing that we're going into a darker, cooler
(28:31):
season. So we need to add some extra
time. And you know, at this stage of
the game, you may or may not have time to start from seeds.
So you may need to find some plants somewhere or you're going
to sow directly into the soil and just set yourself an alert
of some sort as to when that date comes up.
I have a calendar I write on there every single one of the
(28:52):
days where it is the ideal time for me to plant the crops that I
am going to grow. In fact, we have a bunch of them
going on this week and then again next week and then again
the week after that. So it can be spaced out
depending on what it is that you're growing.
I would also say to be a little bit flexible in this too if
you're planting conditions are not ideal.
(29:15):
We are in a severe heat warning for about 6 days I think this
week and I mean the heat indicesare going to be up over like 107
a 108 Fahrenheit. The humidity is just
suffocating, which also means that the soil temperatures are
really warm right now. Now, yes, I have mulch over top
(29:37):
of them and so the plants that are out there are doing fine,
but I probably would not go out right now and you know, clear
out of space to be able to either put a transplant into the
ground or to direct sow anything.
I don't think it would do very well.
So I am OK with waiting until next week to get those plants
(30:00):
in. And at the time that I plant
them, I'm going to make sure that I soak that soil and I'm
going to cool that soil off a little bit if necessary.
If it's still holding on to someof that heat.
If you have a soil thermometer or a compost thermometer or
something, even if you have a meat thermometer that you're not
using anymore or maybe you are, if you're confident you can
clean it fine, use that. Check the soil depth where you
(30:25):
are going to plant, whether it'stransplanting at a four to six
inch depth or putting the seed in the ground at, you know, just
an eighth of an inch and see howhot it is at different parts of
the day so that you know when the optimum time is going to be
to plant. If you have to wait a few days,
that's OK, but make sure that you have it on a calendar so
that you know when it is. Don't be Willy nilly and just go
(30:47):
out. Today seems like a good day to
plan. No, Check your calendar.
OK, you also want to prep that soil.
So take your tests, add your compost, add your amendments,
change the P, you know, do something to help with the PHA
little bit if that's necessary. Plan that layout, you know,
figure out how you're going to mix your your classics in with
your new kind of greens and stuff.
Include your inter plantings, include your succession
(31:09):
plantings. If you're going to do some of
those rapid successions. And then if you are going to
plan for some season extension, then maybe now is a good time to
put in some hoops for those row covers.
And then just be prepared to start scouting weekly for pests
and diseases. And if you see them, you need to
pull them or you need to treat it very, very quickly.
(31:31):
So remember the five day e-mail challenge for my fall gardening
challenge? You can go in there at any time.
It's just for somethingpodcast.com/fall that
will take you right there and you will get that series of
emails starting immediately. There's no need to wait.
So at least it's going to help you with sort of that planning
to be able to get yourself into the fall garden.
(31:54):
I really, really hope that I mean, even if you just try 1 bed
or one corner of the garden thatyou give it a shot.
I think you would be pleasantly surprised.
I know the burnout is real, especially for those of us right
now who are in these heat warnings or if you're dealing
with smoke from wildfires or whatever it is and you're just
feeling burnt out. I totally get that, but if you
(32:16):
can just eek a little bit of energy out of you or yourself to
be able to get out there into the fall garden and or into the
summer garden and be able to plant for fall once it starts to
cool off, I guarantee you will be so happy that you did because
gardening in the fall really is an absolute treat.
Until next time, my gardening friends, keep on cultivating
(32:36):
that dream garden and we'll talkwith you soon.
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