I have officially become the kind of person who gets excited about planting a second garden when everyone else is starting to wind theirs down for the year.
This was my first real attempt at setting up a dedicated fall garden, and I kept it pretty simple. I used one raised planter, mixed a few established starts with seeds, and focused mostly on things that actually like cooler weather.
I am still very much learning as I go with my heavily wooded garden, so this is less of a perfect fall garden plan and more of what I planted, why I chose it, and what ended up working for me.
Why I started with lettuce plants
I bought lettuce starts instead of starting everything from seed because I wanted something I could harvest sooner. This also happened to be right around the time of the multistate Cyclospora outbreak linked to iceberg lettuce, so growing at least some of our own salad greens felt especially beneficial.
The starts gave the bed an instant head start while the slower crops got established, and within a pretty short window I had lettuce that was actually ready to cut and eat.
The cool-weather crops I planted from seed
For the rest of the bed, I prioritized crops that can handle cooler temperatures and give me a mix of greens, roots, and herbs through fall.
- Beets
- Carrots
- Arugula
- Parsley
- Cilantro
I like having a mix of things I can harvest quickly, like arugula and herbs, alongside slower crops like carrots and beets. It makes the planter feel productive even while I am waiting on the root vegetables.
A few transplants for flowers and herbs
I also transplanted some chives and nasturtiums into the bed. Part of that was simply using what I already had growing, but I also like tucking flowers and herbs into my vegetable beds whenever I can. They add a little more variety to the planter and give pollinators something else to visit.
My very loose fall garden strategy
The biggest thing I learned from putting this bed together is that a fall garden does not have to be complicated. I gave myself a head start with a few nursery plants, filled in the rest with cool-weather seeds, and used some plants I already had that just needed a better home.
And honestly, watching that first round of lettuce fill in while the rest of the bed started catching up was wildly satisfying. Enough that I am pretty sure fall gardening is going to become a regular thing around here.
