One of my favorite things about fall is that the cool weather provides a second opportunity to grow lettuces. There are so many varieties to bring color, beauty, and flavor to your autumn garden and plate. Here are some tips for starting your own fall lettuce garden.

Varieties

Here are a few of our favorite varieties for fall plantings though many others will do well too.

• Outredgeous Romaine Lettuce
• Rouge d’Hiver (Red Winter) Romaine Lettuce
• Sweet Valentine Romaine Lettuce
• Winter Density Buttercos Lettuce
• Red Salad Bowl Looseleaf Lettuce
• Salad Bowl Looseleaf Lettuce
• Anuene Batavian/ Crisphead Lettuce
• Crawford Bibb (Butterhead) Lettuce
• Schweitzer’s Mescher Bibb Bibb (Butterhead) Lettuce

Sowing

Lettuce germinates best when soil temperatures are 75°F or lower and thrives in cool weather when temperatures are in the 60°s. In areas where temperatures are still high during the early fall you may need to a few tricks to get lettuce growing well.

Waiting longer to plant isn’t always a great option because as the weather cools we lose daylight. Lettuce and other plants will take longer to mature during the fall as the light dwindles. 

One way to help provide your lettuce with cool temperatures is to mist the soil regularly, at least once a day. This helps keep it moist and cool, especially important while its germinating. You can also use a thin row cover or material like tulle to shade the soil a bit.

Alternatively, you can sow lettuce in trays in a cool room and transplant them later. Romaine, crisphead, and butterhead lettuces work well for this.

Lettuce can be sowed in rows or gently broadcasted. Generally, broadcasting works better for looseleaf and cut and come again lettuce mixes that will be harvested small. Broadcasting over the entire bed for these types of plantings can help block out weeds. If you want full heads of lettuce it’s typically easier to plant in rows so you can easily weed and ensure they have enough space to mature.

Thinning

No one likes thinning but it’s critical for healthy plants. As previously mentioned, looseleaf lettuces are better suited to tighter plantings however, it’s still best if they have some air circulation. Larger, heading lettuces need more space and should be thinned to 10-16 inches depending on the variety. If you wait to thin until plants are 1-2 inches tall, they make excellent baby salad greens.

Season Extension

There are a number of ways to keep your lettuce garden alive later into fall and even winter. Cold-frames and low tunnels are affordable, simple to set up options. Even tulle or light row cover like we mentioned above will provide some additional protection. Check out our post, Easy Season Extension for Fall for more ideas.

Lettuce will eventually stop growing as the hours of daylight dwindle but will still provide a nice supply of fresh greens. Small, young plants can be overwintered using these methods to provide an extra early spring crop. We had success overwintering Rouge d’Hiver under row cover here in Virginia.

Fall/Winter Care

While the rest of your garden may wind down as we continue into fall, your lettuce and other fall crops may still require some attention. Thankfully, there should be little pest or weed pressure but your lettuce will still need to be watered occasionally. This is especially true if you live in the Deep South or your area experiences additional warm, dry weather.

If you’re growing lettuce in a cold frame or high/low tunnel covered with plastic you’ll need to be sure to open or vent them on warm, sunny days. Temperatures can rise surprisingly quickly in a cold-frame and could kill lettuce plants.

Bring a little extra beauty and flavor to your garden this autumn with a fall lettuce garden. Show us your gardens on Facebook, we’d love to see how they turn out!

We’re starting to have some cooler nights and the hours of sunlight our getting shorter. Though the days are still hot it’s time to start thinking about a number of fall chores in the garden.

Preserving Your Harvest

August and September are abundant times in the garden. Especially if you’re a new gardener, this season can be a bit overwhelming. Aiming to spend a bit of time 2-3 days a week will be well worth the effort this winter. Here are some recourses to help you put up your harvest:

Canning

• Canning Garlic Dill Pickles
• Pickled Peppers

Drying

• Drying Beans: Seed to Storage
• Harvesting, Drying, & Eating Popcorn
• How to Properly Harvest & Preserve Herbs

Fermenting

• Farm Ferments: Swiss Chard Kimchi
• The Power of Fermented Foods: Making Sauerkraut
• Easy Fermented Cucumber Pickles
• Fermenting Vegetables

Winter Squash, Pumpkins, Potatoes, Sweet Potatoes

• Harvesting & Curing Winter Squash & Pumpkins
• Sweet Potatoes From Order to Plate

Miscellaneous/Multiple

• Extend Your Pepper Season and Preserve Peppers
• Fall Harvest: 5 Ways to Use Green Tomatoes
• Preserving Leafy Greens
• Quick Pickled Dilly Snap Peas
• Processing Flour Corn at Home
• How to Store Crops Without a Root Cellar
• Zucchini Abundance: 10 Great Ways to Use It
• 5 Ways to Use and Preserve Herbs this Summer
• 10 Easy Ways to Use Cucumbers
• Pumpkin Butter

Planting Root Crops

In most of the Southeast, there’s still time to sneak in a few fall root crops. Crops like carrots, turnips, radishes, beets, and rutabagas are a great way to get a bit more out of your garden.

Our friend, Pam Dawling, wrote a great, informative post about growing fall root crops for the SESE blog: SESE Candy Carrots and Sweet Roots.

Set Up Season Extenders

Season extenders are a simple way to keep your garden growing longer. Depending upon what you choose to create you may even be able to overwinter some crops. Check out Easy Season Extension for Fall and Easy, Affordable Hoop House Options.

Sow Fall Greens

Greens are the the workhorses of the winter garden and with a bit of protection can provide you with fresh food through the winter. Sow some this fall!

• Last Chance Sowings
• Fresh Greens to Harvest from Fall through Winter
• Grow Your Own Baby Greens Mix
• Tips for Growing Awesome Fall Greens

Test Your Soil

Get ahead for next season by having your soil tested now. You’ll find out what’s lacking in your soil and be able to make amendments and grow cover crops through the fall, winter, and early spring to make sure your soil is ready for next year. Check out our post, Understanding Soil Tests to learn more.

Save Seed

Saving seed is a great way to take your gardening experience to the next level. It’s an opportunity to begin adapting a variety to your local climate, be a little more self sufficient, and help preserve genetic diversity.

• Seed Saving for Beginners
• Seed Saving from Biennial Crops
• Saving Lettuce Seed
• Seed Saving: Selecting Plant Characteristics
• Seeds: Tips for Storing, Testing, & Saving
• Fall Reads: Five Books on Seed Saving
• Garden Planning for Seed Saving

Plant Cover Crops

Fall is the perfect time to improve your soil’s health. Fall cover crops add nutrients to the soil and protect it from erosion during the winter and spring.

• Cover Crops for Great Green Manure, Mulch, and More
• Fall Cover Crops & Their Importance
• Austrian Winter Peas

Prepare for Garlic and Perennial Onions

Later in the fall it will be time to plant garlic, perennial onions, and shallots so place your orders! While you may not be planting them quite yet, it’s also a great time to begin prepping beds. Add and inch or two of compost and fork the soil to loosen it before planting. You’ll also want to have some mulch on hand for after you plant.

• Beginners Guide to Growing Great Garlic, Perennial Onions, & Shallots
• 8 Tips to Help Your Garlic Thrive
• Time to Order Garlic and Perennial Onions: How to Pick Which to Grow in Your Garden
• Winter Storage: Garlic & Perennial Onions

Fall Sow Flowers

When you think about fall gardening your probably think about vegetables but did you know you can also fall sow flowers? Check out Fall-Sown Flowers for Spring Blooms for ideas.

Get Your Compost Pile Ready for Winter

Making your own compost is a great way to improve your soil without spending a lot of money and reduce your family’s waste. Even if you’re new to composting, you can use the winter to start creating compost for next season.

• Black Gold: Making Compost
• Winter Composting

Take Notes

After a long winter it can be hard to remember the details of last year’s garden. Take note of things like your favorite varieties this year and what was planted where. This will make planning next year’s garden much easier.

One of the easiest to grow, most productive crops for any garden is dry beans. With pole and bush varieties available, they’re well-suited to any size garden. A tidy row of bush beans can be tucked in alongside other crops. Pole beans require trellising and are perfect for Three Sisters Gardens or growing along fences to save space.

Recommended Varieties

The pandemic surge in seed sales has severely affected our inventory. However, the varieties listed below are still in stock. We’ll also have more seed available November/December 2020.

Bush beans:

• Jacob’s Cattle
• Tiger Eye
• Pinto 

Pole beans:

• McCaslan
• Kentucky Wonder (Old Homestead)
• Genuine Cornfield

How to Grow

Beans can be grown in nearly any well-drained garden soil. They thrive in soil where the pH is above 6.0. To have a steady supply, plant beans every three weeks. In the Deep South, you can plant beans in the spring as well as fall and early winter.

Beans should be planted about 1 inch deep and 2 inches apart for bush beans and 4 inches apart for pole beans. Thin to 4 inches apart (bush) and 8-12 inches apart (pole).

Harvest

If desired, many drying beans also make excellent snap beans if picked when they’re young and tender. To harvest dry beans, wait until the pod turns brown and dry out. Pick before rains to avoid the beans molding in the pods.

Spread the pods in a single layer and allow them to dry for 2-4 weeks before shelling.

Threshing 

If you just grew a small patch of dry beans, you can certainly shell them by hand. However, for larger amounts, you’ll probably want to thresh and winnow your beans.

One method is to spread out your beans on half of a clean tarp or drop cloth. Fold the other half over the beans and walk on it or hit it with a stick. Alternatively, place your beans in an old pillowcase or sturdy bag and beat it against the ground or a post. These methods break up the dry shells allowing the beans to fall out.

Winnowing

Next, you’ll need to remove the shells and debris or “chaff” from the beans. Thankfully, the chaff is much lighter than the beans and can easily be separated with a couple of buckets and a box fan.

Place your beans in a clean bucket and place another empty bucket in front of a fan. Slowly pour the bucket of beans into the other empty bucket. The beans should drop straight down while the chaff blows away. You may have to do this a few times before you get it all.

Traditionally, beans and grains were winnowed using a large flat basket and the wind. Using the basket the beans were tossed into the air and were caught with the basket while the chaff blew away.

Storage

To ensure the beans are fully dry, lay them in a single layer for another week or so. Then you can pack your beans into airtight containers. Store them somewhere cool out of direct sunlight.