Have you been gardening this summer? Ready to take it a step further and plant a garden for a fall harvest? It’s super easy to plan out your garden for fresh veggies the rest of the year!
The trickiest part of fall gardens is knowing when to plant your veggies, during the summer. For example: in order to have a good harvest of sugar snap peas in late September, seeds need to be planted at the end of July.
I am going to include a list of what we are planting and growing for a fall harvest. And even what/how we can cover crops to extend even after a hard frost!
But first I want to share with you about this new seedtime app that I discovered this summer. It’s free and amazing! If you get easily overwhelmed by knowing what to plant and when, this app is going to be for you.
In a nutshell, it’s essentially a plug in crop planner that tells you exactly when to prep a bed, start seeds, direct or transplant, when to weed your bed, and then when you should expect a harvest. The layout is a calendar and each crop is color coded.
It’s as easy as hitting the button “Add Crop” and choosing carrots, and the software does the rest for you! Check out the screen shot below of the start of my calendar.
So you can see if you look at the left column, each crop is color coded. You can click on each one and it will highlight it on the right and show you each step, and when it needs to be done.
Again, this is free to use! You simply just need an email to create an account and you can get started right away designing your fall garden. This can of course be used in the spring too, to plan out your garden. Including multiple successions of crops like lettuce or beets.
I won’t go back. Haha, once I tried this, there’s no way I’m going back to planning my garden on my own anymore. This is such a simple way to do it!
You can customize it to your zone, as precise as adding your address so it knows your exact location. The light and dark blue shaded areas show you when your area would expect light and hard frosts. So that’s helpful too!
Here’s another look at my calendar going into October.
So you can see that some of my crops go into the time of year where we might get a light frost. Since I know that, I might cover some of my crops like root veggies with straw or plastic just to keep the soil warm enough to harvest until they’re gone.
There are many ways you can cover your crops to extend harvesting (and growing) times. You can use hoops with a row cover or plastic, straw, old windows by building a frame around/above your plants, or if they are in containers, by bringing them into a side porch or small greenhouse structure. I plan to just cover mine with hoops + plastic, and straw over things like the carrots and beets.
What I’m grown this fall/late summer:
Peas, Carrots, Green Onion, Beets, Radish, Lettuce, Spinach, Kale, Broccolini, Late Cucumbers, Zucchini, Green Beans, Sunflowers.
Be sure to check out the Seedtime App by clicking the photo above and creating your free account. You can schedule your fall garden right away.
And if you’re interested in more resources from the site, they do have a paid option starting at just $10 a month with lots of webinars, courses, classes, and a store! You can purchase all your seeds right from the site too.
Check it out! Happy gardening!
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