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Hello gardening friends! The year is getting on, and I’m currently planning my fall vegetable garden! Because I know other folks online are doing this (love my gardening buddies on the internet!), I have rounded up some of my favorite ideas and tips for fall vegetable gardens!
I love planting a fall vegetable garden myself (I’ve done this for years!), and I’m excited to share my ideas and recommendations with you!
This blog post is all about fall vegetable garden ideas.
Fall Vegetable Garden Ideas
When going through fall vegetable garden ideas, there are a few tips I’d like to share up front to help you when planning your own fall vegetable garden:
- First Frost Date: As gardeners, we all get VERY antsy in the spring, waiting for that first frost date to pass. In my own home gardening zone (6B), I have to wait a LOT longer than others, lol. And, just like we look for this date, we need to look to it’s twin — the first frost date! This will help you decide when to start planting your fall and winter vegetable crops.
- Use of Garden Aids? When thinking about your fall vegetable garden, there are certain products–cold frames, hoop houses, mini greenhouses, etc., that can extend your gardening season. Most of these types of “gardening aids” require investment in terms of time and/or money, so consider what tools and aids you *actually* have time for!
- Your Energy Levels: While I love a fall vegetable garden, I have to be honest — some years I have energy for it, and some years I do not! Before committing to a fall vegetable garden, I recommend that you ask yourself, “Do I have the energy for this?” For my gardening beginners, I always recommend starting small and building on in future seasons!
Must-Have Products for Fall Vegetable Gardens
As a gardener, I’ve personally bought a number of products that I love–and don’t love as much, lol. Below, I’ve shared a short list of products that I personally and enthusiastically recommend for general gardening and for season extension!
Best Products for Fall Gardening
- Vegetable Gardeners Toolkit (with garden apron!)
- Gardening Clippers
- Hori Hori Gardening Knife
- Knee Mat
- Coast of Maine Organic Compost (best store-bought compost)
- Coast of Maine Organic Raised Bed Mix (best raised bed soil mix)
Gardening Products for Season Extension
- 10pcs Garden Greenhouse Hoops, 19.7″x19.7″
- Tierra Garden 50-5000 Haxnicks Easy Poly Tunnel Garden Cloche
- Tierra Garden 50-5010 Haxnicks Easy Fleece Tunnel Garden Cloche
- Cold Frame Greenhouse
- 4.7 Ft. W x 4.7 Ft. D PVC Walk-In Greenhouse with 8 Sturdy Shelves
- July’s Song Polycarbonate 6 Ft. W X 10 Ft. D Hobby Greenhouse
- Mt. Hood Redwood 6 Ft. W x 8 Ft. D Greenhouse
#1: Fall Vegetable Garden Ideas: List of Fall Vegetables
I love this photo from @.MustLoveHerbs, and her list of fall vegetables to consider planting is very handy! Her text from this post below!
“Winter gardens are delightfully spooky. 👻🎃Their rich green leaves set against a backdrop of fallen leaves, sleeping trees, and summer plants struggling to hold on. The bugs have long gone and soil is wonderfully moist from the waning sun. The chill in the air provides these cold loving plants with the hearty sweetness we all know and love.
We have kale, spinach, parsnips, turnips, peas, radishes, garlic, chard, pansies, and brussels sprouts happily growing in the garden right now!“
Other cold loving veggies include:
- Carrots
- Cabbage
- Lettuce
- Broccoli
- Cauliflower
- Beets
- Onions
- Leak
- Mustard Greens
#2: Fall Vegetable Garden Ideas: Planting Peas
First up on our list of fall vegetable garden ideas, we have Amber from @.gracewalkfarm sharing her plans for a fall vegetable garden:
“I can’t believe it’s time to plant the fall garden, but here I am, planting peas.”
Peas are a quick growing crop you can plant again in the summer for a fall harvest!
#3: Fall Vegetable Garden Ideas: Planting Garlic
Garlic is one of my favorite flavors, and there’s nothing that beats garlic fresh out of the garden! Here, @.burpeegardening shows us how to separate and plant garlic for your fall vegetable garden!
Plant garlic in early fall by breaking the head of garlic into cloves and planting 4-8 inches apart in a row. Lay down your favorite mulch and wait for spring!
If you’re wondering if you can plant the garlic you bought from the grocery store, the answer is technically yes, BUT for best results I recommend buying seed garlic from a garden supply store.
#4: Fall Vegetable Garden Ideas: Fall Broccoli
How joyful does Yen of @.apple_acres_dk look in her fall vegetable garden?
From Yen:
“😅 One very happy and proud broccoli mama 🤸♀️😂
👩🌾 Do you have a favorite vegetable to grow? One that make you feel oh so accomplished?
🥦 For me that is definitely broccoli and cauliflower 😅
They grow for so long that you start to think it might not even be a broccoli which is planted, and then over just a few weeks the most gorgeous head of broccoli or cauliflower emerges from within the green center 🤩 Nature is just such perfection 😍
👩🌾 I have grown so many over the years that one should think I would be a bit more chill about it 😂 But nope 🙃 🫣
🤸♀️ Still feeling SO exited 😅
💚 This one could have gone a day more but we are celebrating Election Day today and what better way to celebrate democracy than to enjoy a bunch of home grown veggies – I’m harvesting 2 heads of broccoli, one big salad bowl lettuce, on daikon radish and a few carrots 🫶
💚 Tomorrow I’m filling and planting the new raised bed in the tunnel greenhouse 🤞💚
🤸♀️ Busy times – and still need to get those garlic planted – where are you at?“
#5: Fall Vegetable Garden Ideas: Garden Prep
Here we see Rachel of @.rachgrowsveg prepping her beds for her fall vegetable garden, which includes a last harvest of her vegetables, weeding, and preparing the soil!
#6: Fall Vegetable Garden Ideas: Fall Flowers
In this next post, @.gardenbythesound, shares how sometimes a garden can be symbolic of the seasons of our lives:
“The garden fatigue is real this year. Who else is feeling it? 😩 In a fit of… I don’t know… sadness, tiredness, overwhelm, general DGAF-ness, I tore out mostly everything in my back bed on Friday. The tomatoes were near the end of their life. The squash were all done. The anise hyssop was taking over. The celosia was spent… I kept my coneflower, a yet-to-bloom sunflower, and a few zinnias…”
I feel you, @.gardenbythesound! If you have the energy for it, there are plenty of flower varieties you can plant mid-season that will bloom in as little as two months to keep the magic of your garden alive in the fall!
Fall flowers to sow mid-season:
- Borage
- Calendula
- Johnny jump-up
- Lacy phacelia
- Marigold
- Nasturtium
- Sunflower
#7: Fall Vegetable Garden Ideas: Planting Garlic in the Fall
How gorgeous are these harvested garlics from @.tomatosandtequila!?
From Sheena: “I harvested a few test garlics & I am obsessed with them already ✨ I am so glad I remembered to plant them in the fall! And then a mild winter resulted in them sprouting early & being ready earlier.”
Garlic stalks can be harvested in the early spring as “green garlic,” which is a really fun tender and delicate version of the heady garlic we all know and love.
Some varieties put out garlic scapes in the late spring, which you’ll definitely want to harvest and eat!
Finally, harvest the whole plant in the late summer. Be sure to cure your garlic by storing in a dry place and enjoy your harvest throughout the year!
#8: Fall Vegetable Garden Ideas: Fall Bulbs
Here @.gableandfarms has planted flower bulbs in the fall to boom in spring! I love seeing the tender greens of flower bulbs as they poke through the snow in the spring.
From the gardeners: “The majority of our fall bulbs have been planted in the juniper cutting gardens and around the property. Excited for all of the flowers next spring!”
Bulbs to plant in fall:
- Daffodil
- Tulip
- Iris
#9: Fall Vegetable Garden Ideas: Hugelkulture Bed
How cool is this step-by-step guide to hugelkulture from @.wimbleness?! Hugelkulture is the traditional process of creating a mound bed from decaying materials that is used to create a raised bed garden.
“New hugelkulture bed, layer-by-layer, in reverse!
🪨 Stones // a buffer between the mound and the deck/path
🍁 Recently fallen leaves // a mulch for winter
🌱 Greens // Collected from around the garden
🪹 🍂 Homemade compost and leaf mould // to “seed” the mound with locally-adapted microbes
🪹🌾 Upside-down sod & soil // from digging up edges
🪵 Smaller limbs & madrone leaves
🪵 Bigger Limbs // Lilac and madrone limbs that recently fell in a winter storm
🌿 Lilac branches // inserted at spots of pooling; if they wanted to make new shrubs I would be made at it 🤷🏼♀️
🧃 Bokashi juice // Liquid fertilizer soaked into cardboard. Also a leveling test to make sure there’s no run off.
📦 Cardboard // Nude, corrugated cardboard laid on top of grass in overlapping reverse shingle pattern.
…
Coming next spring… more compost and then planting!”
#10: Fall Vegetable Garden Ideas: Fall Harvest
Love to see a fall garden being harvested, this one from @.mmeech.
From Michelle: “The harvesting continues even as the fall garden gets moving. We have peas, spinach, lettuce, and beets growing right now. Unfortunately, the bok choy get eaten up by the bugs.”
#11: Fall Vegetable Garden Ideas: Greens
How fun are all of these greens from @.ladybuglinz! She grew her greens in a large outdoor greenhouse, and this is something I may have to try in Boston! The growing season is just so short!
#12: Fall Vegetable Garden Ideas: Cover Crop
This next tip for our fall vegetable garden ideas comes from gardening educator, @.imperfectbalancebyjenn! If you have poor soil, Jen points out that planting a cover crop can be a great move!
From Jenn:
So I did a little Fall Garden maintenance and yes trying another experiment.
•
I met up with Rusty from @.rossseedcompany who was full of all kinds of information for me.
I walked a way with a Wild Mix of Wheat, Austrian Winter Peas, Fridge Triticale, Forage Oats, Crimson Clover, Purple Top Turnip, Daikon Radish, Trophy Rape and 6 Point Chicory all in one 50 pound bag for $32.
•
This my friends will be my Cover Crop… I planted yesterday in a few of my empty beds.
Why Cover Crop gardening? Well as you know we don’t have the best soil here, mostly clay. Though I compost and add it to the beds I still think I need more nutrients. After this grows all Fall I will cut it back, before it seeds and let it compost itself into the beds. I think it maybe a Win…Win… we shall see.
This post was all about fall vegetable garden ideas.
Hi, I’m Leslie, the founder of PunkMed
Hey gardening friend! I’m so glad that you stopped by PunkMed today. I had a great time sharing these fall vegetable garden ideas and tips! If you’re into vegetable gardening, urban homesteading, or living a more sustainable life–stick around! There are a good number of resources on my blog, and I always love to hear from my readers (that’s you!)! Feel free to send me a DM on Instagram or chat with me on TikTok!
