Fall is a great time to plant vegetables, as the cooler temperatures create the perfect environment for many plants to thrive. Fall vegetables planting also allows for an extended harvest season, providing fresh and nutritious produce well into winter.
However, choosing the right vegetables to plant during this time can be challenging, as certain plants may not be able to withstand the cooler temperatures. This article has compiled a list of the 10 best vegetables to plant in the fall based on their nutritional value and ability to thrive in cooler weather. Whether you are a seasoned gardener or a beginner, this list will provide all the information you need to create a successful fall vegetable garden.
What autumn vegetables can be planted in the patch in the patch?
As the gardening season draws to a close in autumn, a variety of vegetables can still be sown or planted as young plants in your garden. While you may have already harvested crops such as courgettes and pumpkins, several fast-growing varieties of lettuce and cabbage can thrive in cooler temperatures and are often ready for harvest after a short period. Lamb’s lettuce, rocket, and lettuce are all excellent options that can be grown in garden beds. Some varieties can even survive the winter months.
In addition to these varieties, chard and radishes are well-suited for autumn planting. Chard, known for its colorful stems and large, flavorful leaves, can be sown directly into the ground or transplanted as young plants. Radishes, with their crisp texture and spicy flavor, are also great options for fall vegetables planting.
When planting these vegetables in the autumn, it is important to consider the care required to ensure their survival through winter. Providing adequate water and nutrients, protecting the plants from frost and harsh weather conditions, and monitoring for pests and diseases are all essential components of successful autumn vegetable gardening. With careful planning and attention to detail, you can enjoy a bountiful harvest of fresh and nutritious vegetables well into the winter months.
Growing lamb lettuce
Lamb’s lettuce has no special demands on the soil but prefers calcareous, loamy soil. You can also make the development of your plants easier in the fall by composting the soil before sowing. Lamb’s lettuce also doesn’t get along very well with weeds. Therefore, remove this as regularly as possible to enable unhindered growth and a rich harvest. Choose a location that is as sunny as possible for your lamb’s lettuce. Spring onions are good bed neighbors.
To cultivate lamb’s lettuce, dig long seed grooves into which you place the vegetable seeds about 5 cm to 8 cm apart. The seed furrows should be 0.5 cm to 1 cm deep. If you want to create several seed furrows in parallel, leave a distance of about 15 cm between them so that the individual plants do not crowd each other. Then you fill the seed groove back up with soil and press it down firmly. You can use a board for this, for example. Then you water the seed evenly.
Note: Make sure that your lamb’s lettuce does not suffer from too high temperatures with direct sunlight. Otherwise, it will not grow as well and will yield less. Even after sowing, the bed should always be free of weeds. Also, keep your lamb’s lettuce moist but not too wet; otherwise, fungal diseases such as powdery mildew can spread. If you want to overwinter your lamb’s lettuce, give it some organic vegetable fertilizer in late winter and cover it with winter fleece in case of frost and snow.
Planting chard
As a biennial plant, you can also leave Swiss chard in your bed over the winter. So look for a spot in the bed where the vegetables can find as much sun as possible for two years. The freshly dug, ideally deep and humus-rich soil should offer around 40 cm of space on all sides as the chard grows quite large. It also needs a lot of nutrients – so make sure that you enrich the bed with compost and horn shavings before cultivation and that no heavy consumers such as cabbage, tomatoes, or pumpkins have been cultivated beforehand.
Tip: As a medium feeder, chard only needs moderate fertilization in the form of compost and horn shavings to grow well. You should also water it extensively, especially on dry days, but avoid waterlogging. Since chard tolerates light to medium frost, you can leave it in the bed over a mild winter.
Planting Spinach seeds
Spinach is a deep-rooting plant that prefers deep, loamy soil with a high proportion of humus. Remove weeds, loosen the soil before planting, and keep it moist as the soft leaves dry out quickly. When choosing a location, spinach is particularly good when planted in a sunny spot as a follow-up crop after vegetables such as tomatoes, cucumbers, potatoes, or cabbage. These plants also make good bed neighbors for the spinach. Spinach also tolerates a light frost and can remain in the garden during the winter.
You can plant autumn spinach in August and winter spinach in September. The spinach is grown in rows of plants that should be around 20 cm apart. The plants in the individual rows need a distance of 15 cm. Use your finger to make holes in the soil about 3 cm to 4 cm deep to place the seeds. Then all you have to do is cover them with soil and water them with water.
Tip: Once the young plants have grown a little, you can check whether they need to be separated; This is what you see when many plants grow in one place. Also, make sure to remove weeds in good time so that the growth of your spinach plants is not inhibited. Water your spinach regularly, as the leaves wilt very quickly when drying.
Note: However, you should not fertilize your spinach regularly, because the vegetables tend to convert the nitrogen in the fertilizer into harmful nitrate.
Sowing and Planting broccoli
Early varieties can be preferred from January to March. It takes about 30 days for the seed to sprout. With a room temperature of 15 °C to 20 °C, you create optimal conditions for the seedlings. It is best to use small plant pots and potting soil for cultivation.
Tip: If you want to grow several broccoli sprouts simultaneously, multi-pot trays are ideal for growing them. As soon as the seedlings have developed the first leaves, transplant them into individual pots about 5 cm in size.
From around mid-May, you can also sow broccoli directly in the bed. Plant three seeds in each planting hole and plant about 40 cm apart. After germination, only leave the strongest of the three plants. Sow winter broccoli directly in August and September so you can harvest in spring.
When the young plants have rooted well through the soil and have three to five leaves, you can plant them outdoors from April. Protect the plants in the bed from frost with fleece. You can use a propagation hood in the raised bed.
Keep a planting distance of 40 cm to 50 cm. Add plenty of compost to the soil. It should be 3 l to 5 l per square meter. About 30 g of algae lime per square meter provides the plants with calcium and other minerals such as magnesium.
Planting kale
Since kale is not harvested until winter, it is sown relatively late. The leafy vegetables are not planted until mid-May after the last night’s frosts. The latest planting date is mid-July. The plant should be planted so deep that the soil reaches the cotyledons to avoid cabbage fly infestation. Place the individual plants with a row and side distance of 40 cm to 80 cm.
If you want to sow the kale, you can sow it earlier in a greenhouse. After germination, however, it must not be too warm. Otherwise, the plant will grow too quickly. As soon as the young plants are around 5 cm to 10 cm tall and have individual leaves, they can be planted in the bed from June.
As with all types of vegetables, you should pay attention to the right plant neighbors when planting kale. However, kale goes well with a relatively large number of vegetables. Beans, peas, cucumbers, leeks, radishes, rhubarb, lettuce, celery, spinach, and tomatoes are suitable. It does not get along well with other types of cabbage. But potatoes, garlic, and onions are also not ideal plant neighbors for kale.
Sowing radishes
Whether in a vegetable patch, raised bed, or the balcony box: the small radishes only need an airy location with a few hours of sunshine and loose potting soil, ideally mixed with a little sand.
Then draw rows in your bed or window box with a distance of 10 cm to 15 cm and a depth of 1 cm. Tomatoes, beans, and lettuce are good bed neighbors for a mixed culture. On the other hand, you should not plant cucumbers and other cruciferous vegetables, such as kohlrabi, next to radishes.
You grow the seeds in a row from 4 cm to 5 cm from each other. Cover the seeds with soil and water them well with a fine stream. Always keep the soil constantly moist during the cultivation period, so you can cut radishes you have harvested onto bread after just 30 days. At first, you can cover the radishes with foil or fleece when it is colder outside.
Radishes are considered to be easy to care for because they grow very quickly; This is precisely why you should water them sufficiently and evenly every day when it is dry. If there are major fluctuations in the water supply, your radishes will become furry and the tubers can burst.
Tip: If you have already loosened the soil when preparing the bed and it has been supplied with nutrients by the pre-cultivation, you do not have to fertilize your vegetables additionally. If you want to fertilize, avoid fresh compost – radishes are very salt-sensitive. Occasional hoeing can also loosen the soil and allow your radishes to grow well.
Growing arugula
Rocket prefers a location on humus-rich, sandy-loamy soil where no brassicas have previously stood. To provide the seeds with optimal starting conditions, prepare the bed accordingly. To do this, loosen your soil well and work in about 2 liters of mature compost per square meter. You can also use horn shavings. The bed should also be in a sunny to partially shaded location.
As needed, you can sow rocket directly into the bed from May to September. The arugula seeds are placed 1.5 cm deep in the ground. You sow them in rows and leave about 15 cm to 20 cm between them. Once the seeds are in the ground, most varieties germinate for 5 to 15 days.
Since the roots of the arugula spread shallowly in the soil and do not penetrate deeper layers of the soil, you will need to water the areas where you have seeded regularly. You should also regularly loosen the soil and remove weeds. You don’t have to fertilize your rocket because it is a weak feeder and doesn’t need as many nutrients. Annual arugula cannot survive the winter.
Sowing lettuce
You can plant lettuce both on the bed and on the balcony. Lettuce thrives best in sunny or partially shaded locations. It prefers nutrient and humus-rich soil. Lettuce should not be planted twice in a row in the bed or follow other asters such as lettuce, artichokes, or chicory. Good bed neighbors include radishes, dill, radish, spinach, beets, and collard greens.
From the end of March, your picked lettuce can be sown directly in the bed or in a pot on the balcony. When direct sowing, be careful not to place the plants too close together. A distance of 25 cm between the plants is optimal. Alternatively, you can plant the lettuce as a seedling.
Tip: To ward off unloved blackheads, protect your lettuce planted in the bed from pests with a snail fence.
Sowing Leeks
When you sow, leeks depend on when you want to harvest. Summer leeks can be grown in a greenhouse or on a windowsill from January. From March you can put the plants in the cold frame. You sow winter leeks directly outdoors from May. Flat trays are best for sowing. To do this, place two seeds in earth press pots or pot trays with a diameter of 3 cm to 4 cm.
Tip: If you treat the seeds with a decoction of valerian, they will germinate faster.
You can plant young plants directly in the bed as an alternative to sowing. Plant the leeks at a planting distance of 15 cm to 20 cm and leave a 40 cm to 60 cm gap between the rows. Trim the leaves of vigorous plants by a third for summer planting. As a result, less water evaporates.
Plant the leeks in 15 cm deep grooves and place the vegetables vertically in the soil. Make sure that no soil falls into the leaf axils. Water the young plants so the soil is covered, and the leek is firm.
Sowing cabbage
If you want to sow cabbage, you prefer or sow it in the bed. When you start sowing depends on a few points. Firstly, it depends on what variety you sow. On the other hand, you have to decide when you want to harvest.
If you want to use cabbage directly, sow early cabbage. You sow late cabbage if you want to store the vegetables. From March you bring out early varieties. Late cabbage sowing begins in April. Kohlrabi is suitable as a follow-up seed. Do not sow Chinese cabbage until mid-June, Pak Choi even from July. Sow the stalk cabbage and turnip greens in batches.
If you want to prefer cabbage, do so in early spring. Place the seeds in a seed tray and place them on the windowsill. In the beginning, the seeds need a cultivation temperature of 18 °C. Then you lower it a bit. Once the seeds have germinated, transplant the seedlings into individual pots. Keep these moist.
Water head cabbages regularly. They need enough water, especially in July and August. They form their minds over time.
Fertilize the vegetables with organic fertilizer. Horn shavings are ideal for this. Occasionally hoe the bed so that the soil remains loose and weeds are suppressed. Also, mulch the soil so that the layer retains heat and moisture in the soil. With plant manure, you promote head formation.
Cabbage varieties with fewer leaves require less maintenance; This applies to pak choi, turnip butter, and cima di rapa, among others. You don’t have to fertilize these species either.
Final thought
In conclusion, planting vegetables in the fall can be a rewarding and enjoyable experience for any gardener. With the right selection of vegetables, you can enjoy a bountiful harvest in fall and winter. By choosing cool-season and frost-tolerant vegetables, you can ensure that your plants thrive even in cooler temperatures.
Remember to plan your garden ahead of time and choose vegetables that are suited to your climate and growing conditions. With careful planning and attention to detail, you can create a thriving fall vegetable garden that will provide fresh and nutritious produce for months to come.
