Fall Garden Guide

Frustrated by your garden this year? There’s still hope! Here are some Fall Planting Ideas:

Were your spring and summer gardens not what you had hoped? Are you getting into gardening a little late this year? If you answered yes then it’s time to check out this week’s episode “Fall Gardening Guide.” We’re going to go over some tips for a your successful fall gardening projects. Some benefits of a fall garden is the cooler temps to work in and no bugs to contend with.

In this episode you will find:

- What vegetables to plant and when
- How to tackle common fall garden concerns
- Tips for a successful fall garden

Keep in Mind

For planting your fall garden remember I’m in NE Kansas with is zone 6. Check the map linked below to see which zone you are located in. You can plant more of these regardless of zone just keep in mind that your timing may be different if you’re south or north of me. Also something to keep in mind is that all of these will freeze with a killing frost of 32* or lower. So all of these crops are going to be short season crops, which means you’ll need to pay attention to when your last frost is going to be.

Why do a Fall Garden?

Like I mentioned earlier, the weather and the lack of bugs makes managing a fall garden desirable but fall gardens will often produce higher quality, tastier, cool season crops as the vegetables mature during cooler and less stressful temperatures.

Tips

-Plant the seed a little deeper than you would in the spring. That way the seed stays cooler and the soil around the seed stays nice and moist. The more moist that seed is, the more likely it is to germinate.

-Plant a thicker crop and then thin it out later.

-Protect your garden from wildlife by fencing it in when you can.

-Soil test your garden. If you don’t want to soil test, you can just use about a quarter of a cup of low analysis fertilizer, about 10 feet of row. You can also apply to weeks after transplanting, about two tablespoons of miracle grow or a higher nitrogen fertilizer per plant.

-Watering must occur more frequently because the seed should not be allowed to dry out. I always recommend soaker hoses or drip watering at the ground level because overhead watering often causes soil to crust and this makes it more difficult for young tender plants to emerge.

-It will be important as the plants grow to make sure that your weeds are kept down and they have no competition with weeds so that they can grow to their fullest potential.

What to Plant and When

Mid-July is the time to start planting, or at least thinking about planting, your fall crop. You can plan on planting potatoes, cabbage, broccoli and cauliflower. Cabbage, broccoli and cauliflower are known as cold crops. Then root crops such as beets, carrots and turnips, spinach, greens and green beans. Mid-July when it is super hot, you can start planting potatoes, late July you can start your beets, carrots and green beans. Early August seed spinach, long season maturing lettuce, or other greens. I’ve had really good luck transplanting leaf lettuce starting in inside and transplanting it. So that is also a possibility that you can try to do or you can grow it in a container.

Good luck!

We hope this episode inspires you to start your own fall garden. If you want even more simple tips, go ahead and jump over to the show notes and find the tab at the bottom that tells you about my book, “Smart Gardening Made Simple.” It’s all of my tips for 33 years of gardening and teaching people how to garden. It’s all my secrets wrapped into one book, to help you be successful too. If you enjoyed this podcast we would love if you went over to iTunes and left us a review. You can also DM me on Instagram at Mindy_farmfitliving or on Facebook and let me know what concerns you have with your garden, I’d love to help!