Southeast Texas
Fall Gardening
The Fall Garden
Many people do not know that you can grow a garden in the fall. The spring/summer garden gets so much hype from the big box stores. There are always tons of plant starts to fill your beds when the weather gets nice in the spring. But fall gardening is where it’s at!
We thoroughly enjoy growing a garden this time of year. The weather is cooler, the pest pressure is usually lower, there are less weeds, and the food is amazing.
What to Grow in the Fall Garden
This is the time for root vegetables, sweet and tangy greens, brassicas, and so much more. We buy our seeds for the fall from Baker Creek and Botanical Interests. To see our seed haul this year click the link.
There are many different varieties of each one of these veggies in our video, Brittany discusses what varieties we chose for our 2024 fall garden.
Now for things you can plant to help you eat in season for the fall:
- Collard greens
- Mustard greens
- Spinach
- Lettuce
- Carrots
- Beets
- Radishes
- Broccoli
- Cabbage
- Cauliflower
- Bok Choy
- Arugula
- Garlic
Extra Items for Fall Gardening
- Row cover – This helps keep pests off things like brassicas. It also helps keep frost off your plants.
- Wood chips/mulch – This helps protect your plant’s roots from freezing too hard. It of course also helps with moisture retention and weed control. So many benefits!
- Clear plastic and posts – This can help protect your trees for freezing conditions. It acts as a mini greenhouse if you will, holding in the warmth.
Succession Sowing for the Fall Garden
What is succession sowing? This is when you plant smaller amounts of something in intervals. It increases your harvest overtime instead of getting everything all at once. When using this method, you will continually eat fresh from your garden all season long.
With radishes, they take about 25 days (depending on the variety) from seed to harvest. We plant a round of seeds every week or so in order to have radishes coming in continuously. Same with carrots. You don’t want a huge harvest of carrots all at once. This would be a storage nightmare! And even though they are delicious, I doubt you want to eat them with every meal for weeks.
The same goes for cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower and so on. Normally, depending on variety, these have one head and then the plant is done. If you succession sow, you will have these brassicas coming in throughout the season.
Harvesting in the Fall Garden
Harvesting in any season can be overwhelming, but it can be easier in the fall garden. Use that cool soil to your advantage with your root crops. What do we mean by this? The cool soil acts as a fridge of sorts. Your root crops will stay protected and cool under the soil until you are ready to pull them for use. We pull our carrots as we need them. There are also ways you can keep them fresh in the fridge but why not use your outdoor space?
Preserving Your Fall Garden Harvest
Now that you have harvested all the goodies, what are you going to do with them? Depending on what you have grown and harvested there are a few different options.
- Freezing
- Canning
- Cold storage in the fridge or root cellar
- Fermenting
Canning Collard Greens for the First Time
The Takeaway About Fall Gardening
Gardening in the fall helps you to eat in season. There are so many delicious vegetables you can grow during the cooler months. Harvesting and preserving is usually easier, which is great for the beginner gardener that is learning the ropes. Being outside this time of year is just more pleasurable, at least here in Southeast Texas.
We Hope this has encouraged you to take advantage of an extra growing season, one that does not get much attention from big box stores. So, get out there and get dirty!
