Fall Gardening In Focus: A Straightforward Primer
Fall can be a rewarding time to grow your own food. Cooler temperatures make it easier to work outdoors and leafy greens get sweeter in cold spells. In warmer winter climates it’s even possible to squeeze in a few summer crops and get some modest autumn production from them. Yet as the season stretches onward and day length wanes, plants are no longer growing under ideal conditions and challenges from pests and inclement weather inevitably emerge. This primer is aimed at getting you growing food as quickly as possible in the autumn, recommends a few tools and some equipment to extend your growing season in the late season, and addresses a few common garden pests and problems.
Growing Methods
Containers? Raised beds? Rooftops? Or just plain ‘ol in the ground…
A lot of plant cultivation techniques are the same, regardless of where you grow. Containers have limitations because some plants produce substantial root systems that fill up your available soil area fast. Long season crops such as cabbage, Brussels sprouts, and cauliflower, deep rooted crops like chards and beets, and even leafy greens such as collards and kale are not ideal for containers. With that said, if you have and maintain adequate soil fertility, root area, and a consistent watering regime for your plants, you will have success no matter what your growing style.
When To Plant
The following chart lists what crops are can (and can’t!) be planted for fall growing along with recommended planting months. If you want to focus on the easiest crops, look for what’s color coded green. This list is substantial because we’ve included crops that theoretically could be planted in warmer winter climates like ours. Pretty much avoid growing any crops color coded red, unless you’re in for an adventure and have a tolerance for a lot of failure. Lastly, a quick spoiler: August is the most ideal planting month for all major vegetable crops.
How to Plant
Unless you have a relatively weed free soil, starting your seeds in seedling trays in a protected area such as a greenhouse or shade house can be a great way to get plants started ahead of time. For those unfamiliar with what certain seedlings look like, this can also be a great learning experience as you will see your seeds emerge in isolation from potential weeds.
Take note, however: root crops must be direct seeded. For example, carrots are a crop that absolutely must be direct seeded. Last year we experimented with transplanting some of the most productive carrot varieties on the market. They took well to the ground, but when harvest time came the roots were nearly universally twisted and and stunted.
Use specific planting instructions such as planting depth and days to germination to guide your seed starting. One thing holds pretty universal: keep seeds evenly moist throughout their germination period and during the earliest stages of their life. That’s when they are the most precarious and need the most attention.
If you are late starting plants from seed, consider heading to your local nursery to pick up some seedlings to make up for lost time. Seedlings at a nursery already have about two or three weeks of growth.
Some Useful Tools
Garden beds can be created and maintained in a number of ways, so a lot of the tools you use are a matter of personal preference.
Digging fork: one of the most useful and perhaps underestimated garden tools. We use this tool more than a shovel; a properly irrigated soil and digging fork can turn bare ground to garden beds in no time. This tool is also as effective as a shovel for harvesting root and tuber crops such as potatoes and sweet potatoes. The Radius Garden 20308 PRO Ergonomic Stainless Steel Digging Fork is a solid choice for its durability and ergonomics. If you are looking for a more classical design, we’ve also used the Spear & Jackson R410 English Style Heritage Forged Digging Fork, but be careful to not push this one too far because wooden handles can break under rock excavation that inevitably comes when using a digging fork. On the flip side, we’ve bent tines on the Radius digging fork before, so be sure to understand that every tool has its limits.
Long handed digging shovel: Pretty much your basic shovel for digging holes, removing rocks, and doing cultivation that a digging fork doesn’t allow. The Fiskars Long Handle Round Point Steel Digging Shovel is a great modern version of this tool. Its durable all-metal design is especially useful for rock excavation; just remember though, every tool has its limits. We’ve actually broken one of these trying to remove a large, deeply embedded rock.
Bow rake: great for removing small debris and final garden bed shaping – especially critical if you are direct seeding small seeded crops such as carrots and lettuce. We recommend the Seymour 17" Bow Rake.
CobraHead Weeder: an extremely versatile tool used for removing both surface and deeply rooted weeds and amending beds with fertilizer.
Grub hoe/eye hoe: great for removing large debris and weeds prior to preparing your soil for digging; can also help break up large clods of dirt. We recommend this SHW 5.5″ Grub Hoe from The Tool Merchants.
Square Point Transfer Shovel: a flat shovel used for creating and shaping raised garden beds. We recommend the Fiskars Ergo D-handle Steel Transfer Shovel. It’s inexpensive and its all metal design makes it extremely durable.
Fertility
Most soils require some form of nutrient amendment for proper vegetable growth. Adequate soil fertility is especially important in the autumn season, as once it gets colder, plants take up soil nutrients less efficiently. Inadequate soil fertility can lead to stressed plants, opening them up to greater predation, stunted growth, and in many cases, total crop failure.
The macro-nutrients every major vegetable crop requires are Nitrogen (N), Potassium (P), and Phosphorous(K). Any fertilizer purchased or sourced at a garden store will have NPK values. These reflect the percentage by weight of each nutrient included in the fertilizer. To determine the nutrients available in a given fertilizer, multiply one value of the fertilizer by its weight. For example, a 50 pound bag of fertilizer with a 10-10-10 NPK listing has 10% of each of these nutrients by weight.
Fertilizer application is an imprecise art for most of us. If you know your soil, you probably know just what to add. If you're unsure what you’re dealing with, amend plants modestly, observe and if plants seem like they are stunted, add more later. An easy to use store bought fertilizer is Down to Earth's All Purpose 4-6-2.
Something else to consider: organic fertilizers tend to break down slowly and provide a sustained amount of fertility throughout the season. However, if soil fertility is initially very poor, consider a faster releasing fertilizer, such as a liquid kelp (typically a water spray applied directly on the plants in cooler, overcast weather or toward dusk) or a blood meal. Fertilizer application is an imprecise art for most of us. If you know your soil, you probably know just what to add. If you are unsure what you’re dealing with, amend plants modestly.
Also consider side-dressing. Essentially, this means giving plants an additional dose of fertilizer halfway through their growing cycle. If you are applying fertilizer mid season, take note of a few things: organic fertilizers must make contact underneath the soil surface as they are not directly available to the plants: they must first go through the soil cycle whereby they are consumed by microorganisms that in turn make the nutrients available to plants. Apply fertilizer around the base of the plant and gently scratch it in using a tool such as the CobraHead weeder (discussed below). Do not scratch deeply as you may end up distributing or uprooting plants.
For those more interested in the topic of soil and fertility, we recommend the book Teeming With Microbes: A Gardener’s Guide to the Soil Food Web as a great entry level into the topic.
Season Extension
From June until through the winter solstice (typically around December 20th or 21st), most areas in the Northern Hempisphere lose about two minutes of daylength per day (for more precise information, consult the Navy’s daylight calendar). This means fall gardening is not only a colder but darker endeavor.
A great way to give your vegetables a little more time to grow in the autumn is to protect them from the cold months of October and November. Even modest cold protection goes a long way and also provides your plants refuge from some (but not all) common garden pests and even larger animals such as deer. Cold frames made of glass or heavy duty are a ubiquitous, and if you have a greenhouse you can also grow inside of it for the cold months, but for many these options are too expensive and laborious to set up – especially if you are getting a late start.
One inexpensive method are QuickHoops Low Tunnel Benders, which is a tool set that allows you to bend inexpensive electrical conduit available at any hardware store into the basis of a cold frame. You can place these frames about four feet apart along your garden bed and then cover them with a light frost cloth, such as agribon which is also inexpensive. Definitely invest in some method to anchor down the frost cloth to the ground once you are set up. Sand bags and sand work are an inexpensive option.Your bill of materials will run approximately $100-$150, but consider this: the hoops can be retrofitter with shade cloth in the summer to make it easier to grow cooler season crops such as lettuce.
If you live in a warmer winter climate, this will help take your fall crops all the way through winter. If you live in a colder winter climate, this hoop house will not protect your crops from extreme cold, frost, and snow, but it may give you a few additional weeks of leafy greens.
Fall Garden Pests and Some Helpful Organic Solutions
Anyone who gardens organically or with low inputs has experienced plants becoming infested with aphids, eaten up by flea beetles, decimated by cabbage moths, and taken down by slugs and snails overnight. If you are commonly experiencing these issues, you are likely dealing with soil issues. Growing crops without the proper nutrients, placing them in too tight spacings, or growing the same crops consecutively in the same soil are common problems that precipitate some, but not all forms of predation. The best way to avoid pests is preventively: use adequate plant spacing, ensure adequate soil fertility, and anticipate problems before they happen.
If you do experience problems, here are some recommended treatment methods for common pests: These are all forms of pest management that are allowed under organic production.
Aphids: neem oil in a water solution sprayed directly on the plants can deter and kill modest aphid populations but is not very effective against outright infestations. Best to simply remove the effected plants.
Flea Beetle/pill bugs: lightly dust diatomaceous earth directly on plant leaves.
Cabbage Moth: Dissolve BT (bacillus thuringiensis) in a water solution and spray directly on plants.
Slugs and Snails: apply granulated sluggo/iron phosphate on the ground near plants, or consider manual removal/relocation. Snail hunting at night is an gardeners favorite pastime..
Gophers: traps or physical barriers (raised beds lined with cages; gopher cages, black box trap)
A Final Note on The Harvest
Crops such as beets, cabbage, cauliflower are “one hitters” in the sense that they are harvested once and finished. These harvests are relatively straightforward. However, crops such as collards, kales, some types of broccoli, and even lettuces can be progressively harvested. Consider harvesting these crops at a more modest rate than you would during summer or spring months. Plant leaves don't regenerate as quickly in the fall and winter, and if over harvested they will have a much harder time regenerating. Be gentle to your plants in the autumn.
