Digging in the Dirt > Gardening Information > Fall Gardens: Harvest Well Into Winter

Fall Gardens: Harvest Well Into Winter

These helpful tips from the Seeds of Change staff originally appeared in the 1998 Tool Catalog. For more detailed information, check out Eiliot Coleman's Four Season Harvest.

Gardening for many of us is a seasonal affair. In the depths of winter we dream of the first hint of green. We excitedly pour over garden catalogs, place our orders and anxiously wait for our seeds to arrive. Spring is a flurry of activity involving soil preparation, repairing cold frames, building compost piles, fixing up the watering system and planting, planting and more planting. By early June much of this focused activity comes to a grinding halt. We figure everything is planted and other than some maintenance and weeding, we sit back and anticipate harvest.

As we become more experienced gardeners we soon realize that we need not restrict our gardening passion to a few brief months. With timely and successive plantings throughout the summer and early fall, we can more fully enjoy our gardens and the fresh vegetables they provide almost year-round. A successful harvest from these later plantings depends largely upon our knowledge of the particular crop and variety being grown. You'll find in this article a series of tips designed to help you maximize your harvest and enjoy your garden year round.

For example, lettuce is a cool-weather crop that tolerates light frosts as well as summer heat. Therefore, it can be successively sown every two or three weeks from early spring to late summer in order to assure a continual harvest up to several weeks after your first frost in the fall. Your latest summer plantings should occur about 6-8 weeks after early spring until late summer. Some varieties such as Reine des Glaces and North Pole are particularly cold resistant and are excellent choices for your first spring plantings and your last planting in late summer. In moderate climates like the Pacific Northwest, these lettuce varieties can even survive throughout the winter and can be planted as late as September. Varieties planted in late spring until mid-summer must be more resistant to heat and slower to bolt (go to seed), which would include our Craquante D'Avignon and Four Seasons.

Carrots also lend themselves to successive plantings throughout the spring and summer and a great feature of late plantings is that they tend to be much sweeter than summer harvested roots due to their exposure to light frosts. However, in warmer regions such as South California, Arizona, Texas and Florida, these rules of thumb do not apply. In these locales fall plantings are not only appropriate but may be the only planting time for good carrot growth. Carrots can grow in cool fall conditions but their growth slows down considerably as the days become progressively shorter. Thus, in most regions of the United States, 10-12 weeks before your first fall frost is the latest that carrots should be planted.

Chard is a crop where successive plantings are not necessary because you can continue to harvest from the same plant throughout the season. Just clip the leaves and leave the roots undisturbed. Set out transplants about 3 weeks before your last spring frost, or direct seed on the garden 2 to 4 weeks before your last spring frost for a harvest well into winter.

Many of the leafy green vegetables, such as spinach, mustard and arugula have two "windows of opportunity". These crops not only prefer cooler weather, but do rather poorly when it becomes hot and tend to bolt quickly. Thus they can be planted in early spring for late spring/early summer harvest, or they can be planted in mid to late summer (6 to 8 weeks before your first fall frost) for a fall harvest. In milder climates, these crops can continue growing and providing during the winter months. Even in climates with severe winters, spinach can be sown in the fall. After it emerges from the soil, liberally mulch it with straw. It will remain dormant during the winter and resume growth during the first warm days of early spring.

Peas are another crop that can be planted in either early spring or late summer, but the spring planting usually results in a better harvest.

Broccoli, cabbage and kale also have two optimum planting times (i.e. early spring and mid-summer), but these crops should generally be transplanted rather than direct seeded. Plant your seeds 12 to 14 weeks before your first fall frost and then transplant your seedlings into the garden 6 to 8 weeks before your first fall frost. In milder climates these crops can even survive through the winter. Some kale varieties are recommended only for a mid-summer planting because they do not grow well in hot weather, whereas our Red Russian and Red Ursa are more versatile and can be planted in spring or summer.

Radishes such as our Champion and Cherry Belle are quick growing and can be planted throughout the spring until 2 to 4 weeks before the first fall frost. The long-rooted Chinese Daikon radishes such as Okhura and Miyashige are better suited for summer planting with a fall or even winter harvest.

You can enjoy food from your garden for many more weeks of the year than is usually recognized. Have a great gardening season!