Soil and Garden Bed Maintenance
It’s going to be tough to plan ahead for your fall crops if your garden space is overrun by weeds, debris, or simply full of poor soil that is nutrient-depleted from your spring and summer growing.
After you’ve finished clearing out some space – or at the very least hashing out a mental checklist of what you’re going to pull out once summer harvesting is complete – then you can assess how much room you have for the crops you want to grow in the fall.
If you have nothing in your garden area currently, you can go ahead and start tilling and breaking up compacted soil to prepare your beds. At this point it should be easy to assess whether your soil is in need of a boost or not. Fall is a great time for fertilizer. You can opt for using compost or earth worm castings as effective nutrient boosters too. We sell lots of high-quality options here at Franz Witte Garden Center if you’re not able to source your own!
Looking Ahead and Looking Local
A common rookie mistake you will want to avoid is planting along with the wrong guide.
The way you plant your garden out on the East Coast or in the Deep South are going to differ greatly from the way you plant here in Southern Idaho. This is because we don’t share the same frost dates or perennial zones among different states or regions.
Something you can plant and winter over in Arizona or Southern California where snow is scarse is simply not going to survive our harsher winters here in the Treasure Valley. Word to the wise – bring that cactus inside!
So how do you determine your planting schedule?
You need to look as locally as possible. There are pockets of cold or warm microclimates that exist between our cities – they can even be within 30 minutes of your area. You may have a friend out in Kuna that has plants behaving differently than your plants up in Eagle.
To get a fairly accurate read on the best time to plant and an estimate of your frost date, it’s a good idea to figure out what the climate will do in your city or town instead of zooming out to the whole state or region.
Two online resources to find your frost date and planting calendar are:
Garden.org Frost Dates OR Planting Calendar: The Old Farmer’s Almanac
Pick, Plan, Prioritize
It’s time to start looking at the fall crops you want to grow! When choosing what and how much of each crop you will plant, it helps to determine what is important to you.
Are you growing for the challenge? Are you looking to preserve a harvest to eat? Are you harvesting to sell? These goals may change your priorities from dedicating a large amount of space to the arugula you love adding to salads to making more room for growing garlic for the garlic braids you’re going to sell at local autumn markets this year.
Once you’ve determined WHY you’re growing, the choices for WHAT you’re growing should more easily follow after.
If you have a large garden space, you can plant more liberally, but if you’re struggling to find room, you may have to consider creative methods like container gardening or simply settle for smaller crop sizes and compromise a bit of your harvest goal. Prioritization is key!
Tip: Some veggies, like lettuce, can actually grow in hanging baskets! It’s a great space saver and adds delicious greenery to your overhead space.
Being Prepared for When the Weather Turns
So, you found your frost date! That’s great – but remember that weather can change at the tip of a hat. What do you do when your tender lettuce or seed starts you JUST sowed are in danger for a last minute, overnight frost? Have your preferred cover method in mind – plastic cloches or frost cloths could be good to have on hand for this scenario. Better to have them and not need them than to need them and not have them, right?
Sometimes these things can’t be helped, though. Don’t sweat it when this happens, just let it roll of your shoulder and soldier on. If you haven’t killed a whole bed of plants, are you even a gardener? Many other gardeners will tell you that losing plants is all a part of the game. Maybe you can have a good laugh when you tell your neighbor about the time your homemade trellis fell over and squashed all your chrysanthemums. We’re all in this together!
So, what are you planning to plant this fall? Radishes? Corn? Beets? (I see you, Mr. Schrute)
Keep us in mind when you’re looking forward to fall! Our garden experts would love to help you pick out your compost, slam in some fall perennials, or just answer some of your burning garden questions. Come visit us soon – I’ll meet you by the big pink flamingoes!
