It might be blazing hot outside now, but smart gardeners know—it’s the perfect time to start thinking about cool-season crops.🥦
📆I think of June as being like January. In January I plan my spring and summer garden and then six months later, I consider my fall and winter garden.
Most people think of tomatoes when they think of growing a vegetable garden, yet summer crops are only part of what your garden can grow for you.
👍Top Reasons to Grow Food in Fall & Winter
- Eat from your garden year round
- Less bugs and weeds
- Lower maintenance
Let’s look at considerations for starting fall crops in the summer.
As I am sure you know, there are two different to start plants, indoors and outdoors. The considerations for each are somewhat different and so is the timing.
No matter what you decide to plant for the fall and winter garden, some planning will allow you to make the most of your garden in each season.
Space for Direct Seeding Fall Crops
Just as we removed spring plants to make room for our summer ones, we need to remove summer plants so we have space for the fall and winter ones.
Another way to make space for fall planted crops is by saving room when planting summer crops.
One example is to plant summer plants like tomatoes and peppers farther apart so there will be space in between to plant fall lettuce. 🥬
In humid climates, this gives you the added benefit of more air circulation around your summer plants which will help keep diseases at bay.
Summer Weather & Cool Weather Crops
🌱Direct Seeding Cool Crops
While most folks are harvesting tomatoes and zucchini, savvy growers are already sowing the seeds for crisp, cool-weather crops.
Direct seeding may not be possible in areas with hot summers.
There are certain cool loving crops that simply can’t take the heat of summer, and also don’t transplant well, if at all.
For these crops, like cilantro, dill, chervil, arugula, peas, spinach and baby greens wait to direct seed them until the end of your hot summer weather.
Fall crops like it cool and here are the best temperature growing ranges for some popular fall crops. These crops are happier in even colder temps, but won’t grow well, or will die in warmer temperatures.
Ideal Growing Temperatures for Fall Crops
- Beets: 50°F – 75°F (10°C – 23°C)
- Broccoli: 60 – 75°F (16 – 24°C)
- Cabbage: 55 – 75°F (12 – 23°C)
- Cauliflower: 60 – 65°F (15 – 18°C)
- Celery: 55 – 70°F (12 – 21°C)
- Chard: 50°F – 85°F (10°C – 29°C)
- Collards: 60 – 70°F (16 – 21°C)
- Fennel: 60 – 70°F (16 – 21°C)
- Kale: 55 – 75°F (12 – 23°C)
- Lettuce: 40 – 75°F (4 – 23°C)
- Parsnips: 50°F – 75°F (10°C – 23°C)
- Peas: 45°F – 75°F (7°C – 23°C)
- Radish: 40°F – 70°F (4°C – 21°C)
- Spinach: 50°F – 60°F (10°C – 16°C)
- Turnips: 50°F – 75°F (10°C – 23°C)
So you can see, that starting many transplantable plants indoors can be to your advantage.
We will look at them in a minute, but note there are some crops that you can plant in the summer and grow into the fall like carrots which grow in temperature ranges of 45°F – 85°F (7°C – 29°C).🥕
Starting Fall Crops Indoors & Hardening-Off
🌱To begin, seed staring is best done on a warm heat mat. This heats up the soil. Once they sprout, the heat mat could be too hot for them.
The heat mat could also be too hot if they are under hot lights, or in a sunny window in the hot summer sun.
To grow well, they seedlings do need lots of light and cool temperatures, so growing them in a well air conditioned room under lights is ideal.
Hardening off your seedlings slowly will be critical. as the seedlings are not going to be able to withstand harsh hot conditions.
I start by taking them outside at dark when it is cooler. I gradually take them out earlier and earlier in the evening, in a shady spot. If I know I will be transplanting them when it is still fairly hot, I will gradually get them used to full sun. At some point I leave them out all night and bring them in on hot sunny days.
How to Know When to Start Your Fall Plants
When starting summer plants indoors, calculate the days to germinate (or sprout) plus the days maturity (or harvest) + two weeks. Adding two weeks is important because the sun is getting lower on the horizon (vs rising in spring), the plants grow slower.
🔢So as an example: If I have a cabbage that is 10-14 days to germinate, and 62 days to maturity. Then I would add a mid-point or average of the days to maturity, in this case 12 days to sprout, plus 62 days to maturity, plus 14 days = 88 days.
So I would start these cabbages 88 days or twelve weeks before I want to be harvesting and eating them. In this example, if I want to harvest them in November, I would be planting them in August.
Transplanting Fall Crops
For those crops you started indoors, after they are hardened off, you can plant them as soon as you have space.
You’ll want to give them adequate growing time before it gets cold. For example, I like to plant them at least four weeks before my first frost date.
This means you may have to remove some summer plants before you want to. If you are trying to get more tomatoes from plants that are mostly spent, harvest all the tomatoes, even the green ones and process them. This gives you have space for your fall crops.
I know this can be hard, but you can make green tomato salsa for the winter – AND – have fresh fall crops. You get both!
It took three years to convince my volunteers at the Display and Learning Garden I manage to take the summer plants out in this way.
The first year, they were aghast the very idea. The second year they groaned. But – by the third year of having all this fresh food from October through the winter and into spring, they got it. They got it so well, that they started looking for summer plants to take out! 😃
I encourage you to look through your seed packets, check out some end of summer seed sales and make and consider what fall and winter crops to grow and start planning.
Planning a fall harvest in the middle of summer may seem backwards, but it’s the key to a thriving autumn garden. – Debby
Free Fall & Winter Garden Checklist
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