Enjoy Fall Gardening

Many gardeners don’t consider gardening through the fall because of the danger of early winter frosts. However, fall gardening can extend the length of your growing season by months, giving you fresh, tasty vegetables for more of the year.

In fact, some gardeners say that gardening in the fall produces plants that are milder and sweeter in taste than those that grow in the summer. The key is to plan ahead to make sure your garden is protected in the cooler weather.

When you’re planning your fall garden, you’ll need to know when to expect the first hard frost in your area. The Farmer’s Almanac is an excellent reference for researching your particular climate zone, or you can find this information online. Keep in mind that you’ll need to plant your garden with enough time for the plants to reach maturity and bear fruit before the first heavy frost. Many gardeners achieve this by planting one cycle of plants early in the spring and another mid-summer to ensure a constant harvest.

With your frost date in mind, you can start selecting your plants. Look for varieties with the shortest possible growing season so that you’ll have time to harvest before the first frost. If you’re buying seeds, look for those that offer the fewest days to maturity, or those labeled as early season. Since seeds are often out of stock towards mid-summer, plan ahead and find your fall gardening seeds in spring or early summer. Keep them in a cool, dry area until you’re ready to plant.

Just like a spring garden, the plants you select for your fall garden will be determined by the amount of space you have to plant, the vegetables you like to eat and the climate zone you live in. Heat loving plants, such as okra, peppers, tomatoes and sweet potatoes, will produce until the first frost. In some southern locations, this can be quite late in the year. Other plants, such as cucumbers, summer squash and snap beans tend to quit producing near the end of the summer, and therefore make poor choices for a fall garden. Other plants may be hardy down to temperatures as low as twenty degrees. Some tubers and root crops can be mulched and harvested, even if a freeze damages their tops.

Preparing a fall garden is mostly the same as a typical garden. You’ll need to prepare the soil by removing weeds, loosening up clumps of dirt and adding nutrients with mulch or compost. Later in the season, after your early spring crops have finished producing, remove them from the soil since they can spread disease. If you’ve heavily fertilized your first crop rotation, you’ll likely need to add less – or none at all – to your fall crops. Be careful not to over-fertilize – this can damage the roots of young plants.

If you live in a northern climate, you can garden throughout the fall, but it may take a little extra work. If you’re facing an early frost advisory, you can cover your plants with blankets to protect them. You can also construct hot boxes out of old windows or similar materials. Basically, these boxes are like mini-greenhouses that sit on top of your plants. They admit sunlight and keep the plants warmer in cold climates. You can find instructions on how to build hot boxes online or at any garden supply store.

Many gardeners say that they don’t want to deal with the hassles of a fall garden, but there are many tough and sturdy vegetables that can withstand a few frosts while providing you with wonderful, tasty produce. Fall gardening allows you to enjoy your vegetable garden for longer throughout the year and is well worth the extra work!

TheGardenStaff.com is a great resource for information on vegetable gardening, rose gardening, water gardening and more. Let us help your garden grow!