The Fall Garden: Plant or Put to Rest?

As summer draws to a close, it’s time to either put your garden bed to rest and prepare it for spring or prepare it for fall crops by removing the warm-weather annual crops!

Putting Your Garden to Rest

If you’re not planting fall crops, try the no-till method. Just remove large plants and debris, add some compost, then turn your soil over gently with a garden rake. All of the smaller debris should decompose while your garden bed rests over the winter. You also can add a cover crop to restore nutrients to your soil, using it as a green manure or a mulch when spring arrives.

Planting a Fall Crop

It’s also possible to grow well into the fall! Here’s what Kymisha, our Community Gardens Coordinator, recommends.

Prepare the Bed

Start by removing all the big annual plants and debris. These can go on your compost pile; just be sure to break large branches and stems up before adding them. This will help them decompose more quickly so you can use your compost sooner.

Once the large plants and debris are cleared from your garden bed, add new compost and amendments—like worm castings, blood meal, and bone meal—to replenish the soil’s nutrients so the fall crops have something to feed on. Gently turn the soil and amendments with a garden rake. Once the soil is prepped and ready, let it sit and relax for about a week. Then you can proceed to transplant your fall crops.

Deciding What to Plant

Not every plant will grow well in cooler weather. Brassicas and leafy greens are a great choice for a fall harvest. Ideally, you’ll plan out your fall garden in the summer months so that you know where you’ll place your crops—but if you didn’t do that this year, don’t worry! You can still take some time to make a plan now.

One option is to place collards, kale, and cabbage around the outside perimeter of the bed and lettuce on the inside of the bed. Since salad greens typically don’t make it to the next year, this approach gives you the opportunity to plant more in early spring. By that point, the brassicas’ leaves should be large enough to shield new lettuce from the bright sun, preventing it from bolting when temperatures rise.

Setting Your Crops Up for Success

Time to actually plant your fall crops! Dig a small hole for your transplant, then add a little bit of compost and worm castings to the hole to give your plants a boost of nutrients. Make sure to leave enough space between your plants so that they have room to grow.

Once your plants are transplanted, you can continue the feeding process by watering them twice a week with a mixture of fish emulsion and water. Adding amendments can help your plants recover from the shock of being transplanted.

Protecting Your Fall Crops

If the weather is still fairly warm when you’re starting your fall garden, there may be a good number of pests around. Using a frost cover can protect your new transplants from unwanted visitors. Later in the season, upgrading to a plastic hoop house will give your plants the opportunity to grow tall and full throughout the fall and hopefully into the winter.