Tag Archives: fall garden

Choosing the Perfect Garlic for Your Garden

Garlic is a tasty, easy-to-grow, wonderful crop for beginners. While most crops in the vegetable patch are sown in spring, garlic is planted in the fall. While most of the grocery store garlic available is a single type, there are many types and varieties of garlic to choose from for your garden. Each garlic has its own traits, including the conditions it will thrive in. Learn how to select the best variety for your garden.

Types of Garlic

At Southern Exposure, we currently carry three basic types of garlic: softneck, hardneck, and elephant garlic. Unfortunately, we’re already out of stock of elephant garlic, but you may be able to find it from another small seed company or seed exchange.

Softneck

Softeneck Garlic is the favored garlic of southern regions. It thrives in warmer winters and does best from Virginia southward. It’s more domesticated than its hardneck cousin and lacks scapes (a type of flower stalk produced by hardneck). Its soft, bendable stems and leaves make it the ideal garlic for braiding. Softneck is also a prolific producer and great storage garlic.

Hardneck

Hardneck garlic, sometimes called rocambole garlic, does best in cooler climates, typically from Virginia northward. Hardneck varieties are beloved for their wide range of flavors, and tasty flower stalk called a scape. These scapes grow from the top of the plant and curl around, maturing for cutting in early summer. They share the bulb’s garlic flavor and make a tasty addition to pestos, stir-fries, and other dishes long before your bulbs are ready to harvest. 

Elephant Garlic

If you’re not sold on garlic’s intense flavor, elephant garlic may be the right choice. Its large cloves and mild, savory flavor have made it incredibly popular in recent years. 

Elephant Garlic gets its name from its large size and resemblance to garlic, but it’s not actually a true garlic at all. Elephant Garlic is a type of bulb-forming leek, which is why it’s milder than the true garlics. 

Elephant Garlic is suitable for USDA Hardiness Zones 3 through 9, making it a viable choice throughout most of the US.

Inchelium Red Softneck GarlicChoosing a Variety

Once you’ve narrowed down the type you’d like to plant, it’s time to pick a variety! All of our garlic varieties offer their own advantages, but these are a few choices you may want to get started with. 

Opt for a cold-tolerant variety in northern areas with German Extra Hardy.

This super cold-tolerant variety produces large cloves with a purplish blush. The cloves have a strong flavor when eaten raw, but it mellows some when they’re cooked. German Extra Hardy is a good storage variety, too!

Grow an excellent storage variety with Silver Rose Softneck Garlic. 

This is a great variety for Southern growers. Silver Rose is great for braiding and keeps up to a year under ideal storage conditions. It produces rose-colored cloves with a smooth, mild flavor that is perfect for your favorite recipes. 

Try out our best baking variety, Chesnok Red Hardneck Garlic.

Chesnok Red comes from the Republic of Georgia, near Shvelisi. The cloves are more numerous and elongated than most hardneck types and very aromatic with an abiding flavor.

Start with something simple with California Early Softneck Garlic.

California Early Softneck Garlic is probably the most widely grown garlic in the US and is very easy to grow. California Early has a mild flavor and excellent storage capabilities. 

Still can’t decide? Grab a Garlic Sampler.

If you can’t narrow down your choices or just want a surprise, we offer two sample packages. The Beginner Sampler includes a hardneck and softneck, while the Garlic Garden Sampler includes four different varieties.

Use this guide to consider what you want your garlic for and what will perform the best in your area. In the next few days, we’ll begin shipping out garlic and perennial onion orders and will continue into November. We ship garlic based on location, starting with northern areas first. Be sure to get your order in soon to get your garlic planted on time!

Protect Your Crops with Row Cover

If you’ve ever visited an organic vegetable farm, you’ve probably seen large sections of field blanketed in white cloth. Sometimes, it’s laid directly over the crops, and sometimes it’s held above them over small hoops, giving it the appearance of a long caterpillar sleeping in the garden. This gauze-like white fabric is called row cover. It’s typically made from woven or spun-bonded polyester or polypropylene and is designed to be permeable to air, light, and water. Farmers and gardeners can use this fabric to help protect crops from pests, cold temperatures, too much sun, and windburn.

Protect Your Crops From Wind

Wide open fields may be many gardeners’ dream, but they can be windy places! High winds can be tough on plants, especially tender transplants. Constant winds pull moisture from the soil and plants’ leaves. They can also tear leaves and damage limbs, leaving plants more susceptible to pests and disease. Using row cover in windy areas, especially as plants are getting established, can mitigate these issues.

Protect Your Crops From Sun

Shade cloth is similar to row cover but is generally used to protect plants from intense sun and heat. It’s often used to extend the growing season of greens, delaying bolting by keeping temperatures a bit cooler. It can also be used in extreme heat over crops like peppers and tomatoes, which may abort flowers or develop sun-scald.

If you can’t purchase shade cloth, you can hang old torn pieces of row cover or other thin fabrics over crops to provide some shade.

Protect Your Crops From Frost 

As we plan our fall gardens, we think about the dwindling light and drop in temperatures that fall will eventually bring. Row cover increases the temperature and humidity beneath it and can be used to increase growth and protect crops in the spring and fall.

How much protection your row cover provides will depend on the weight. Some thinner row covers only provide about 2°F of frost protection, while others offer 6° to 10°F of protection.

Garden beds with row cover
Row cover protecting White Beauty Eggplant from flea beetles.

Protect Your Crops From Pests

Keeping crops pest free can be challenging without resorting to some form of pesticides. Even those OMRI (Organic Materials Institute) certified pesticides can have unwanted adverse effects, harming beneficial insects in the area along with pests. Row cover allows you to block out pests, no sprays needed.

Row cover works with many crop and pest scenarios, including keeping brassicas like cabbage and broccoli free from cabbage loopers, preventing flea beetles from destroying young eggplants, stopping bean beetles from defoliating your bush beans, and preventing pesky vine borers, squash bugs, and cucumber beetles from ruining your cucurbit harvest.

Isolating Crops with Row Cover

Finally, growers can use row cover to isolate specific varieties. Just as it keeps out pests, it keeps out pollinators. While this is unnecessary for most home-scale seed savers, seed companies and plant breeders sometimes use row cover to block out pollinators and hand pollinate crops. This method allows breeders only to cross desired plants, helping keep varieties pure or creating new cultivars and hybrids.

Selecting Row Cover

As we’ve discussed above, many different types of row cover are available depending on what you need it for.

Frost and Cold Temperatures

If you’re looking to protect crops late into the fall or winter, choose a heavier row cover that offers greater protection from cold temperatures. However, heavier-weight row covers must be removed earlier in the spring as they can quickly hold in too much heat as temperatures rise and you head into summer.

Pest Protection

Lightweight options are generally all you need to protect crops from pests and allow you to keep them on without overheating your plants and soil.

Shade Cloth

Shade cloth also comes in varying options with densities ranging from 10% to 60% or more. It’s important to weigh the pros and cons of keeping crops cool while blocking sunlight which can ultimately slow growth.

When purchasing row cover, it’s worth checking with local garden centers as shipping can be pricey. If none is available, many online retailers carry it. You may see row cover listed under several common name brands, including Reemay, Agribon, Agronet, Agryl, Harvest Guard, and Typar.

If you can’t purchase row cover, we’ve found that tulle works as an excellent substitute. You can find it at most fabric stores, and they generally allow you to buy any length you need.

Row cover in kitchen gardenUsing Row Cover

In the spring, you can drape row cover directly over small, flexible transplants and seedlings. The edges should be weighted down, but leave slack for the plant’s to grow. If you’re using row cover for pest protection, bury the edges in the soil.

You’ll want to support the row cover for larger crops or sensitive plants like spinach, lifting it off the crops. You can form mini hoop houses or low tunnels. Many suppliers sell wire hoops to drape the row cover over, but you can also make your own with PVC pipe or other smooth, flexible material. Again, be sure to weigh down the edges of bury it in the soil.

Weeding and Watering

Especially if row cover is on hoops, it’s relatively easy to lift for weeding and watering. However, to keep your setup as low maintenance as possible, consider adding a water system like drip irrigation or soaker hoses before setting up your cover. You should also mulch well around your crops to keep the soil moist and help block weeds before placing your row cover.

Pollination

Just like row cover blocks out pests, it also blocks our bees, butterflies, and other pollinators. If you have row cover over insect-pollinated crops like the nightshades, including eggplants, tomatoes, and peppers, or cucurbits like cucumbers and squashes, you must remove your row cover when they flower. Removing the row cover will allow pollinators to do their jobs so that your crops will fruit! If you feel you still need row cover or shade cloth in place, you can remove it in the morning when pollinating bees are most active and replace it for the afternoon and evening.

Maintaining Row Cover

Row cover isn’t super expensive, but costs add up, especially in large gardens. By making your row cover last, you can help re-coup the costs and be more environmentally conscious. If you care for it well, you’ll be able to use your row cover for several seasons before needing to be replaced. Roll up or fold your row cover and place it in sealed bags or containers when not in use. Make sure that mice and insects can’t get it and make homes out of it while it’s in storage.


Row cover isn’t the answer to all of a garden’s problems, but it is a helpful tool in the organic grower’s repertoire. Whether you’re tired of dealing with ragged heads of cabbage (hello, cabbage worms), are hoping to grow food year-round, or want to keep your lettuce from bolting a little longer, row cover may be a great way to achieve your goals.

When to Plant a Fall Garden

Growing a fall garden allows us to extend our season and get more vegetables, herbs, and flowers out of our space. In Virginia, where we’re located and farther south, it gives us a second opportunity to enjoy some cool-weather-loving crops like peas and spinach for a second time. However, as we’ll discuss below, the name fall gardening can be a bit misleading, you will be harvesting in the fall, but for many crops, you’ll be sowing during the summer.

When Do I Start My Fall Garden?

The short answer is it depends. Where you’re located and what you choose to grow will dictate the sowing times for your garden. The first step is to consider you’re hardiness zone and determine your first frost date. Then look at the days to maturity for crops you’re considering planting.

While frost may seem like the primary factor in a fall garden, you must also consider the day length. During the fall, the days rapidly get shorter, and this, rather than cold temperatures, slows crop growth.

To take this into consideration, you want to add 14 days to the days to maturity time for any variety you’ll direct sow and 14 to 28 days for any variety you will be transplanting. This longer period helps account for setback and transplant shock. 

Once you have your days to maturity plus the added days for daylight, you can count backward from your first frost date to determine your last possible start date. 

For example, let’s say we wanted to plant Capitan Bibb lettuce (62 days to maturity) in a zone 6b garden with an estimated first frost of October 20th. We’ll take 62 days and add 14 days because we’ll be direct sowing it, to get a total of 76 days. If we look at a calendar and count backward 76 days from October 20th, we get August 7th. Therefore we can sow Capitan Bibb lettuce up to August 7th in this garden and expect harvests. 

At 62 days, Capitan Bibb is also a rather quick-maturing crop. If you want a fall garden, it’s best to start planning early! In zone 7a, we begin direct sowing slower maturing crops like cauliflower as early as June 1st.

Garden Apps and Calendars

These days, gardening apps can be very helpful for determining planting dates. Our own garden planner features planting dates based on your zip code. The Farmer’s Almanac also has a planting date calculator and a first frost date calculator on its website. 

If you’d like a more analog option and are located in zone 7, like we are, feel free to check out our planting list pdf. Also, many states and extension agencies offer planting calendars, so be sure to check your local resources as well. 

What Should I Plant?

You can include a wide array of crops in your fall garden, with the exception of some long-season crops like field pumpkins.

We often lean towards cool-season crops like brassicas, peas, greens, and root vegetables when planning fall gardens. While these may last us longer into fall than their warm-weather counterparts, we can still include them in our plans as well. Especially in southern areas, you can start later plantings of squash, beans, sweet corn, and even tomatoes to ensure second harvests at the beginning of fall. 

In the past, we’ve often set out some tomatoes in the second half of June to ensure we had good production for fall tomato tastings. Here are a few of the crops you can consider planting for fall:

  • Cauliflower
  • Cabbages
  • Summer Squash
  • Beets
  • Beans
  • Peas
  • Southern Peas
  • Chinese Cabbage
  • Swiss Chard 
  • Collards
  • Corn
  • Carrots
  • Lettuce
  • Parsnips
  • Rutabaga
  • Broccoli

Planting in the Fall

There are also a few crops that you can plant in the fall to harvest next season. Some, like bulb onions, brassicas, greens, and certain flowers, we overwinter when they’re still small to get an early spring harvest. Others, like garlic and perennial onions, need a cold period to produce well. 

Planning these out ahead of time can help ensure you get a good selection when ordering. For example, we’re already taking garlic orders, even though we’ll ship it out at the appropriate time during the fall based on your location. 

If you’re always sad to see the garden season come to an end, consider adding more fall crops to your garden this season. Start planning your fall garden now to ensure all your crops are in on time and you have abundant harvests!