Whether you want to garden for color or vegetables, it’s still not too late to plant in your garden. There are many cool weather flowers and crops that will grow and thrive in the cooler weather. The trick is to know when your first hard frost date is for your area. Once you have that date, you can decide what to plant. For Northern climates, that can be as early as October, but in Southern climates, it can be December. Keep reading for some fall gardening tips and tricks.
Vegetables
You’ll want to stick with broccoli, cabbage, Brussel sprouts; you can still get in some fast-maturing summer squash, carrots, lettuce, radishes, and green onions. Remember to keep your plants well-watered and mulched to conserve heat and moisture. Use seedlings for the slower-growing plants like broccoli and Brussel sprouts to extend your season.
Plant Perennial Fruits and Vegetables
These are the ones that you plant once, and they keep on giving year after year. Many of the berries fall into this category for fall planting, as well as asparagus, horseradish, artichokes, herbs, and more. Check with your local garden supply center for varieties best suited to your area.
Decorative Plants
For decorative plants, so many beautiful flowers and shrubs are available for fall.
Plant Bulbs For Spring Color
If you like the color of Spring bulbs, shop for them now, plant in the next month or so, and have glorious flowers all Spring – with very little work! Tulips, Hyacinth, Daffodils, Ranunculus, etc are just a few to get.
Pansies
Fall is the perfect time to plant some Pansies. They will quickly fill in their bed, and only need fertilizer occasionally. Easy color that’s a contrast to the fall leaves.
Mums
Mums, glorious mums…. there are so many colors, types, and sizes of mums, they are the perfect fall plant for gardens and containers. Plant large shrubs as an edge of color on a path, or in pots by the front door. Their bursts of color are always welcoming. It doesn’t hurt that their flowers and color last quite a while, too.
Trees and Shrubs
Many trees and shrubs do well with a fall planting. They will quietly build roots over the winter and burst into life in the Spring. Check with your local garden supply center for varieties suited to your area.
Container Gardens
Container gardens can keep your green thumb alive for many weeks past the first hard frost. The trick is to plant varieties suited to container planting and protect them if a mean frost is predicted. A heavy plastic bag can work wonders to protect container plants – cover them at night, and remove the bag when the temperature rises the next day.
Another advantage of container gardening is combining decorative plants with edibles, such as mums with some herbs or pansies with your cuttable lettuce garden. While trimming some lettuce for tonight’s dinner salad, you can admire those pretty pansies, and since they are edible, too, you can even include a few blossoms in your salad.
Odd Jobs
You should also consider other jobs for your Fall garden. Now is the perfect time to take on some of those labor-intensive projects you’ve been putting off because the weather was too hot. Build a pathway, make some raised beds for next spring, or clean out old dead plantings. Before it gets too cold, now is the perfect time to clean the deck and barbeque, rake the leaves, make a compost bin, or install irrigation.
Fall is the perfect time to spruce up your yard – it’s cooler to work outside, and there are a myriad of colors and plants that are available in the marketplace. Don’t let your fall gardening be limited by anything but your imagination.
We had a garden for the firths time time summer. I didn’t know I could have one in the fall. Awesome ideas.
All the butternut squash, pumpkins and mum are just part of our fall garden. Don’t forget the kale.
Gardening is one of my favorite activities to do now as a homeowner. I would love to do some gardening during fall. You have given me some inspiration on what to grow!
Pansies are the perfect fall flower. Sometimes, when our southern winter weather is mild, my pansies last from fall right into spring. Love those flowers!
I’m excited to try it out gardening in the fall. It is too hot here in the summer to do a garden but the file is perfect for us. I love all your suggestions.
What some absolutely lovely ideas, I have to admit I do love pansies as well they are such pretty little flowers.
These are awesome tips! I have a pretty big flower garden but am still figuring out the times best to plant things. I just got a bunch of mums because I was wanting some fall colors in my yard. They are beautiful!
What great tips. I’m a fan of pansies and I am loving the mums in our neighbors’ yards. Fall gardens are awesome and add color and food to the fall season. Thank you for these ideas.
Good tips. I planted asparagus once and it never grew anything. But after reading this I realized I planted in the summer and that may be why.
My parents have a garden which seems to supply us with food throughout the year on an endless basis. I don’t know the first thing about gardening nor which plants would do well in this season
I would love to plant my own veggies and plants but I have such a black thumb! But I’ve been able to keep my plants alive at work, probably due to the lights. Maybe I’ll get a little herb garden for my desk!
I love mums in the fall. They just make everything look so…well…fall-like! Plus, they’re about the only flowers that will last through the fall here in Ohio!
I’d love to plant some pansies! We took out some shrubs in front of the house and we have a few nice spots for flowers now!
These are some nice suggestions for a colourful garden come Fall. I love the bright colours of the pansies.
Gardening is my one of the longest things I wanted to do but never had the time to start. Though I am happy to say I just set up my garden this year it will mostly consist of vegetables and fruits.
I wish I had a bigger yard to work on. I would love to grow my own vegetables but with limited space, it would not be possible. I have flowering plants though and it sure brings a lot of smiles to see them bloom in different colors.
I miss being able to garden in Texas, we always had two FULL growing seasons every year. It is already cold here, I miss my garden already.
I am slowly working my yard into shape and eventually hope to get a good garden going. Our weather is cold here, so growing seasons are short!
Gardening in the Fall sounds like fun. I love squash and I just might try to grow some this Fall.
I definitely plan to take advantage of the cooler fall weather to get lots of yard work done on our new house. I’m looking forward to planting tulip bulbs for in preparation for next spring and also decorating the porch with mums.
I just planted some more kiwis and trying to grow grapes this year. I love mums, autumn sedum is a beautiful flower too for the Fall.
Gardening is one of my favorite activities to do now as a homeowner. I would love to do some gardening during fall. You have given me some inspiration on what to grow!