Essential Steps for Planting a Fall Garden

Comfortable weather, fewer bugs, less weeding. Tasty leafy green varieties that continually produce all season long, and are packed with nutrition. There’s so much to love about gardening in Autumn! Consider these simple tips before you plant, and this just might be your best fall garden yet.

Timing 

Make sure that what you’re about to plant is actually a cold-hardy variety - i.e., it can survive night time temperatures that may dip down into the 20’s. Just double check the label to be sure - there’s no harm in confirming that you aren’t wasting money planting a heat-loving summer variety at the wrong time of year. Leafy green varieties like lettuces, kale, collards, Swiss chard, and arugula are all examples of cold hardy edible varieties.

Those fall seedlings may look strong and eager on the shelf at the at the local garden center. But going from a gentle nursery environment where the intensity of wind and sunlight are heavily controlled, and professional growers water them frequently, out into the ‘real world’ in your backyard, can stress even the most vigorous plant starts. When you bring them home, ‘harden off’ your new seedlings by setting them in a sunny area protected from wind for an hour or so. As a general rule, you’ll want to double the amount of time that the seedlings spend in this sheltered outdoor area each day, for the next few days. Of course, you’ll need to make adjustments for any extreme weather that pops up, like an unusually hot day or severe thunderstorm.

When your seedlings are ready to be planted in the garden, choose a cloudy day or plant them late in the afternoon to help make the transition a little easier for them.

Sunlight

Your garden got plenty of sun this summer, but as we move into autumn, and the sun shifts lower in the sky - from directly East to West down to SouthEast to SouthWest - will it still get at least four hours of sunlight? Hopefully the answer is ‘yes’, but sometimes nearby buildings, a fence, or tree will shade a garden too much as the days shorten during the fall.

Soil 

If you’re planting a fall garden right on the heels of a summer garden, the soil will need to be replenished before you plant your fall seedlings. This crucial step is skipped surprisingly often by gardeners who know better. Think about it - how did those huge tomato, cucumber and squash plants get so big? Because they fed heavily on the nutrients in the soil all summer long. It doesn’t matter how much organic compost and fertilizer you mixed in before you planted in the spring, when the summer plants are cleared out of the garden, the soil is now spent ; there isn’t enough nutrition left to feed hungry fall varieties like kale and collards.  After clearing the summer plants from your garden beds, top-off the soil with an organic soil blend and fertilizer. Shop with your local nursery or garden center for the best quality organic soil and fertilizer - products there will be a step up from what you’ll get a Home Improvement center.

 

Water

Even healthy, hardened-off seedlings will experience some transplant shock. Minimize this with a generous watering them when you transplant them, and then frequent watering - perhaps even daily - for the first week. Consider that the root systems of your new fall seedlings are only a few inches deep, so you don’t need to shower them for twenty minutes at a time to soak their tiny root zones. The idea is to help them get established by keeping their roots evenly moist. Remember that overwatering can damage or kill any plant, so give your new fall seedlings enough water during that first week to help them get established in their new environment - don’t drown them.

Pests

One of the best things about fall gardening is that many insect pests taper off as the weather cools. But get too comfortable, because there are still a few fall garden insect pests that you’ll almost surely encounter, and cabbage worms are perhaps the most likely fall garden villain to watch out for. A white fluttering moth lays eggs on the undersides of the leaves of brassica varieties including cabbage, kale, collards, broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts and kohlrabi. These eggs hatch small worms that have a green color that closely matches the green color of brassica varieties. In fact, the similarity of the color is truly remarkable, and it’s easy to overlook cabbage worms that are sitting in plain view. So, inspect your plants frequently for cotton-colored eggs on the undersides of leaves, and for hatched, hungry cabbage worms, which are usually found along the center stems of the top sides of leaves. If you see damaged leaves on your broccoli and collards, it’s a good bet that cabbage worms aren’t far away. Inspect your plants often to find, and dispose of cabbage worms ; Like other insect pests, if left unchecked, they’ll quickly get a foothold in your garden. Once established, they can do serious damage and are much harder to eradicate.