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Garden Advice

10 Heirlooms Perfect for the Fall Garden

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It’s hard to believe it’s already July! If you’re hoping for fall and even early winter harvests from your garden, now is the time to start planning, prepping beds, and starting some seeds. While we love talking about heirloom tomatoes and other summer crops, today we’re sharing ten heirlooms that could make up the backbone of the fall garden.

January King Cabbage

This northern European heirloom dates back to 1897 and is probably one of the only crops you’ll be harvesting mid-winter. They’re slow-growing but super hardy, producing 3 to 5-pound heads in 110 to 160 days. We love their firm heads with light green inner leaves and beautiful semi-savoyed purple-tinged outer leaves. Plant them in early fall for a January or February harvest.

Buy seeds.

Amber Globe (Yellow Globe) Turnip

What’s a fall garden without a few turnips? These heirloom turnips date to 1840 and excel in the cool fall weather. They have sweet, creamy yellow, fine-grained flesh and are best harvested around 3 to 4-inch diameter though they will grow to a 6-inch diameter.

Buy seeds.

Kohlrabi (fall heirlooms)Gigant Winter Kohlrabi

Gigant is another heirloom that’s great for winter storage. It can even stay in the garden in warmer areas all winter, especially if you protect it with mulch. This variety is a Czechoslovakian heirloom that E. M. Meader reselected at UNH. It was introduced in 1989 by SESE and is resistant to root maggots.

This kohlrabi typically grows 8 to 10 inches in diameter but remains tender. It has grown to 62 pounds but is typically between 15 and 20 pounds. It’s delicious used fresh or cooked in any size, small to large. The leaves are also good and can be used like kale.

Buy seeds.

Lutz Green Leaf (Winter Keeper) Beet

Developed before the days of refrigerators, Lutz is a great choice for stocking the larder. These beets are excellent keepers and retain their sweetness and texture even when large (unlike most beets, which become woody when large). Just peel off the skin.

We also enjoyed the tender fall greens in salads. We’ve had problems finding good “true” seed for Lutz Green Leaf, but finally, this is the good stuff – thanks to the fine folks at Uprising Seeds for sharing theirs!

Buy seeds.

Nadmorska Rutabaga

This exciting variety is from seed collected in Lithuania in 2007 by the Seed Ambassadors Project. They’re large, vigorous, and early maturing. They produce green tops and long, oval-shaped roots with sweet golden flesh. They’re great for midsummer planting for a fall harvest.

Buy seeds.

Crawford Bibb (Butterhead) Lettuce

This tasty lettuce is a Texas favorite. It was originally brought to Texas from Oklahoma by the Crawford family. It’s famous for its great flavor, heat resistance, and fast growth. In Texas, it’s normally planted in fall and winter, but we’ve had luck with Crawford during the summer and winter here in Virginia. It’s a favorite of SESE founder Jeff McCormack.

Crawford produces Bibb-type heads with slightly savoyed leaves. It features some red/brown on the leaf edges.

Buy seeds.

Black Spanish Round Fall Radish

This 1846 heirloom is very hardy and an excellent winter keeper. One of my favorite fall radishes, it produces round roots that grow 3 to 4 inches or larger in diameter. The roots have thin black skin and white flesh that’s crisp and pungent.

Buy seeds.

Shallots (fall heirlooms)Grey Griselle Shallot

French gourmet chefs prize grey griselle. It produces these small, teardrop-shaped (1 x 1½ in.) bulbs with hard, grey skin and tender, pinkish-white flesh. They’re ready for harvest in 180 days.

Grey griselle has a distinctive, rich, earthy smell and mild, delicious flavor. Grey shallots are considered by many to be the only “true” shallots.

Buy seeds. Ships in the fall.

Green Glaze Collard

Introduced in 1820 by David Landreth, this unique collard variety produces smooth, bright green leaves. They grow 30 to 34 inches tall and have excellent resistance to cabbage looper and cabbage worm. 

Green glaze is heat- and frost-resistant, slow-bolting, and non-heading. We recommend it, especially for southern and warm coastal states.

Buy seeds.

Oxheart Carrot

These unique-looking carrots date to 1884. They’re a great storage variety that produces thick, sweet “oxheart”-shaped carrots, 5-6 in. long and 3-4 in. wide, weighing up to a pound!

While they require more space than other carrot varieties, oxhearts are particularly suited to rocky or heavy clay soils. The shorter, broader roots tolerate shallow soils that most carrots won’t like.

Buy seeds.

When asked to name our favorite vegetables, many of us will name one of the quintessential veggies of summer. We’ll say summer squash, tomatoes, cucumbers, or sweet corn. The more we garden, the more apparent it becomes that all of these are best in their season. While we may be able to preserve some, it’s also nice to have other crops that are the flavors of fall and winter. These heirlooms provide their unique, homegrown flavors to all of our winter meals. 

Garden Advice

Late June Garden Checklist

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Here in the Southeast, June is an exciting time in the garden. Depending on your zone, you’ll be harvesting various crops like the last of the spring snap peas and broccoli and the first tomatoes, cucumbers, and squash of the year. It’s also a time where staying on top of the garden chores is critical for continued production into the late summer and fall. This late June garden checklist will help you stay on track and keep your garden healthy and productive. 

June Maintenance

The late June garden to-do list includes some general maintenance tasks to keep your garden growing strong.

Weed, Weed, Weed.

No one loves to spend time weeding, but this time of year is critical. Keep the weeds knocked back to ensure they don’t steal precious water and nutrients from your rapidly growing crops. 

Harvest Regularly

Staying on top of harvesting is essential. You want to pick and use or preserve produce at its peak and encourage continued production. Many crops like cucumbers, summer squash, and green beans will produce more if picked regularly. Allowing the fruit of these crops to fully mature, like you would to save seed, will tell the plant it’s time to die back and stop producing. Check out our previous post, Food Preservation Resources, for information on putting up your harvest.

Add Compost

Heavy feeding crops like corn, tomatoes, and peppers benefit from extra nutrients this year. Sidedressing these crops with good, finished compost can give them a boost to ensure good production. Sidedressing with compost when the plants are flowering is ideal.  

You should also add an inch or two of finished compost to a bed before sowing new successions. This will ensure your soil has enough nutrients to maintain good production.

Stay on Top of Watering

In the Southeast, the temperatures really begin to climb in June. This time of year and further into the summer keeping the soil cool and moist will improve production. A wilting plant is not the only sign of water stress. Deformed cucumbers are often a sign of too little water. Blossom end rot in tomatoes, eggplants, and peppers may also indicate water deficiency, as insufficient water can prevent the plant from taking up enough calcium. 

Remove Old Plants

Remove any plants that are no longer producing, like peas or plants past their prime. You can replace these plants with successions or cover crops, which we’ll discuss below.June garden checklist

Starting the Fall Garden

One of my mistakes as a new gardener was waiting too long to start a fall garden. If you live anywhere with a late first frost date, it can be easy to assume that you have plenty of time to grow crops in the fall. 

Unfortunately, it’s not just the temperature that affects how your garden grows. Dwindling hours of daylight slows crop growth in the late summer and fall.

To know when to sow summer successions and fall crops in your garden, take your first frost date and count backward by the days to maturity for a chosen variety plus an additional 14 days for cool-weather crops and 21 days for frost-tender crops (this accounts for slowed growth). 

For example, if your first frost date is November 15th and you want to grow another succession of Anne Arundel Muskmelons, you should plant your last succession by August 7th at the latest. To get that date, I started on November 15th and counted back 80 days (Anne Arundel’s days to maturity) and then counted back another 21 days to account for decreased daylight.

Late Summer & Fall Crops

Many crops can be planted in June, July, or even later, depending on your USDA zone. Some great options for late summer successions and fall crops include:

  • Snap Beans
  • Summer Squash & Zucchini
  • Cucumbers
  • Cabbages
  • Cauliflower
  • Broccoli
  • Turnips
  • Rutabagas
  • Beets
  • Carrots
  • Greens

When sowing and transplanting this time of year, you’ll want to take extra care to keep plants and seeds cool and moist. Transplant in the evening or on overcast days. Water often and use shade cloth or other plants to keep some afternoon sun off of cool-season crops like lettuce. Place seed trays in a root cellar or fridge to help seeds like cabbage and broccoli germinate in hot weather.

Heat-Tolerant Greens

As spring turns to summer, the last of the cool season greens are being harvested. Any leftover will soon bolt and turn bitter (pollinators love the flowers, though). Thankfully, there are a few ways to continue green production in the hotter parts of the year. 

Here are some great heat-tolerant greens to try:

Using row cover and keeping the soil moist can be especially helpful for lettuce.

Cover Crops

If you have empty beds that you aren’t going to fill with crop successions, it’s an excellent time to start some cover crops. Cover crops suppress weeds, keep the soil moist, and add nutrients and organic matter. Some cover crops you can sow in June include:

  • Buckwheat
  • Sorghum Sudan
  • Cowpeas
  • Soy
  • Millet

Check out these other Summer articles and tips:

Keeping up with summer garden chores is a demanding but rewarding process. Following this June garden checklist and completing these essential maintenance tasks, plus succession and fall planting, will allow you to keep fresh food on your family’s table through late summer and fall. 

Garden Advice

Crops for Succession Planting

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There’s nothing like meals with homegrown ingredients straight from your garden. Grocery store produce can’t compare in flavor or price. If your goal is to eat as much fresh food from your garden as possible this season, you’ll need to use succession planting. 

Succession planting means that you don’t plant all at once. For example, you can sow a patch of lettuce or salad greens every couple of weeks so that when some bolts, another batch will be ready to harvest. This method also works great with crops like sweet corn that mature all at once. Sow a block every two weeks to have sweet corn over a more extended period. 

Here in the Southeast, you can get several successions of many crops. Just check your estimated first frost date. Then look at a crop’s days to maturity and count backward. Note, when daylight hours are dwindling during the fall, you need to add on some extra days. 

Here are some of the crops that are ideal for succession planting:

Collards

Especially in the Southeast, collards can be grown for quite a long season. Here in zone 7a, we begin sowing collards on March 10th and continue until September 1st.

Sweet Corn

As I mentioned above, sweet corn planted simultaneously will all be ready to harvest at the same time. This method of planting is excellent if you want to freeze or can a bunch, but not ideal for fresh eating. In zone 7a, we plant can plant successions of corn from about April 21st through July 15th.Zinnias (succession planting crop)

Zinnias

Flowers can be succession planted too! Zinnias are one of the easiest cut flowers to grow, and sowing several successions can keep you in beautiful bouquets all summer long.

Beans

Succession planting may not be necessary for dry beans, but planting a few successions can be a good idea if you’re growing beans for fresh eating. Planting beans at different times can also help figure out a good planting time to avoid bean beetles. In zone 7a, we begin planting beans around April 15th. We sow pole beans until July 15th and bush beans until August 1st.

Summer Squash & Zucchini

If you’ve been gardening for a few years, you’re probably familiar with the gluttony of squash just a few plants can provide. To help mitigate this, plant just a couple of hills at a time and spread that harvest out! In zone 7a, we plant summer squash and zucchini from April 21st through July 21st.

Cucumbers

Like summer squash, cucumbers can provide an overwhelming abundance if you plant a large patch. If you’re canning pickles, this is a great thing! However, if you want to enjoy the crunch of fresh cucumbers over a longer season, you’ll need to plant multiple successions. Succession planting can also help you get a larger crop even if you struggle with losing plants to Downey mildew and other diseases. Here in zone 7a, we’ll sow cucumbers from around May 1st to July 21st.

Beets

Beets thrive in cool weather, but you can still get several successions in. We recommend doing a few in the spring and a few in the fall. Fall beets are ideal for storage. In zone 7a, we sow beets during the spring from March 15th to June 15th and then again in late summer from August 15th through September 15th.Broccoli (succession planting crop)

Broccoli

Many gardeners think of broccoli just as an early spring crop, but with a little work, you can get multiple broccoli harvests throughout the season. Here in zone 7a, we can do a combination of direct sowing and transplanting. We begin sowing indoors on January 31st and continue until May 31st. We start transplanting out on March 15th and continue to July 15th. We also direct sow from March 10th through July 1st. Check out our post, Tips for Direct Sowing in Hot Weather for advice on sowing cool-season crops like broccoli during the summer.

Turnips

Like beets, we sow turnips in the spring and again for our fall garden. In the spring, we sow them from March 10th through April 15th. In the fall garden, we sow them from August 7th through October 1st.

These are just a few of the crops well-suited to succession planting. You may also want to try carrots, radishes, spinach, Swiss chard, and other vegetables. We even do tomatoes to ensure we have enough late tomatoes for our fall taste testings! Use succession planting in your garden to have smaller quantities of fresh produce over a longer season.