Top 10 Vegetables for Your Fall Garden (2024)

FAQs

When should I start my fall garden? ›

Plant Earlier Than You (Probably) Think You Need To

You can plant some fast-growing fall veggies like radishes, spinach, and lettuce as late as September, but other veggies like carrots, cabbage and broccoli need a couple of months to mature.

Fall is the perfect time to add compost or amendments to your garden beds. You'll need to replenish the nutrients and organic matter in your soil that the spring plants used. This will help feed the microbes in your soil, which will, in turn, feed your plants.

Arugula, beets, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, lettuce, peas, radishes, spinach, Swiss chard and more can be grown in fall, but the time to start sowing the seeds is now, as August arrives, give or take a couple of weeks depending on your zone.

You can expect success planting potatoes in the fall as long as your soil gets cold and stays cold in winter, with temperatures 8 inches (20 cm) below the surface staying below 48°F (9°C). Buried potato tubers start growing as soil temperatures rise above 50°F (10°C). Your garden gets a vote, too.

Fertilizing in the fall helps plants be hardier when the temperatures drop. We also recommend applying fertilizer in the late fall, toward the end of October or early November. This application will catalyze one last frenzy of root growth and really give your plants some staying power through the cold months.

Your garden is only as healthy as your soil. Adding nutrient-rich compost in the fall will greatly improve your soil next spring. Healthy soil is teeming with life — from macro-organisms like earthworms and pill bugs down to the microorganisms like bacteria, fungi, and microbes.

Many gardeners and landscapers highly recommend adding mulch to your soil in the fall for a plethora of reasons. In some cases the practice is in lieu of mulching in the spring, whereby you'll be busy planting, pruning, and spreading seeds, so planning ahead helps save you time.

How to prepare soil for a fall garden? ›

Amend soil each spring with a layer of compost. You can gently mix it into the top few inches of soil, or mulch around individual plants or rows. In fall, as you remove spent crops, loosen soil and mix in a 3" to 4" deep layer of compost. Then cover bare soil with shredded leaves or straw.

These cold-weather champs are kale, spinach and collards. Other hardy vegetables include broccoli, Brussels sprouts, English peas, kohlrabi and leeks. Hardy root crops are radishes and turnip, which also yields some greens from the tops. Other hardy greens include kale, mustard greens and collards.

What to Plant: Get Leafy: Lettuce, chard, collards, kale, spinach, arugula, mache, mizuna, escarole, radicchio, mustard, bok choy, chicory among others. Go Rooty (bulby): beets, carrots, radish, potatoes, turnips, onion, garlic, shallots.

Fast-growing root crops including radishes, beets, carrots and turnips are a perfect fit for the fall growing season, because they start life in warm soil and mature under cool soil conditions. Most can be left in the garden until freezing weather is around the corner.