Fall seems like the end of the gardening season, but it doesn’t have to be. Whether you’re growing a backyard garden or vegetables in pots on an apartment balcony, you’re probably still harvesting tomatoes, peppers, beans, eggplant, zucchini, squash, and everyone’s fall favorite—pumpkins.
Take advantage of the cooler temps to get a jump on garden cleanup. Remove dead plants, weed the spaces, add organic matter (i.e., compost), and give the garden a fresh layer of mulch to help retain soil moisture and regulate temperature. Give marigolds and other pollinator-attracting flowers a quick trim of leggy branches and dying flowers (unless you’re saving them for seed, then let them dry out on the plant); you might be rewarded with a new flush of blooms.
This is also the time to organize pots and tools that have been lying around all season; there’s nothing more satisfying than a neat and tidy garden. The sight is inspiring as well, inspiring enough to try to get in one last quick planting.
Keep Plants Producing
There’s a temptation to leave what one assumes will be some of the last tomatoes, peppers, beans, eggplants, etc. on the vine as a way to extend the season. But that’s absolutely the wrong thing to do. Instead, pick, pick, pick. Plants grow fruit filled with seed so that the species survives, so letting the harvest fully mature (or, as the plants see it, “go to seed”) makes the plant feel it has fulfilled its mission and it can perish in peace. Picking forces it to keep putting out new fruit to fulfill its destiny.Even though the heat of summer has passed, regular watering remains critical. Plants that dry out will see it as a signal that the season is over and will drop any remaining blossoms—i.e., no more delicious veggies. Remain vigilant in checking for bugs, mold, and other problems; while the dangers have lessened, they can still occur.
Treat the plants—which have worked hard all summer—to a nice, light meal in the form of a low-nitrogen fertilizer (as too much nitrogen can cause leaf growth at the cost of vegetables) or their regular fertilizer diluted to or reduced by 50 percent. This brings up the topic of weeds: It’s too easy to let this slide as winter approaches, but remember that weeds steal precious resources from the plants we’re asking so much of.
Fall’s shorter days also mean less sun, yet vegetables still need a minimum of six hours of direct sunlight each day. If the plants are in containers, it’s easy to move them into a brighter spot. There’s not much that can be done for plants in the ground, except perhaps thinning surrounding plants that may now shade them. Keep light requirements in mind when positioning late-season crops. Happily, leafy greens can grow with as little as two to four hours of sunlight per day.
Late-Season Crops
If the empty spaces that resulted from the garden cleanup are calling out and you’ve got roughly two months until the first frost, there’s time for a fall planting. In fact, even a month will do, as some varieties of radish produce a crop in as little as 30 days. They take up minimal space and work well for succession planting every two weeks if you’ve got more time. Beets are similar but need 55 to 65 days before the first frost.Popeye’s favorite—spinach—takes an average of four to six weeks to go from seed to harvest. Superfood kale can be harvested in as little as 45 to 60 days after planting seeds. Kale comes in a variety of “flavors” from warm and peppery to a more traditional lettuce-like taste, with purple and green leaf variations, and can handle temperatures down to an impressive 10 degrees F. Leaf lettuces are another consideration, with varieties ranging from 40 to 70 days for harvest, with an average of 50 to 55 days. Extend the production of spinach, kale, or lettuce by taking only the outer leaves, which allows the inner leaves to continue to grow.
Two surprising plants that love fall are sugar snap peas and the herb cilantro. Sugar snap peas, which are eaten pod and all, should ideally be planted eight to 10 weeks before the first expected frost, though they normally start giving snap peas six to eight weeks after seeding. Cilantro is typically ready between 45 and 70 days; it’s a cut-and-come-again plant and produces more leaves the more you trim it.
If, for some reason, there isn’t time to start seeds, simply head to the local nursery.
Also, these vegetables, with their short growing times, work equally well next spring for an early-season crop.
