Courtesy: Minnetonka Orchards
After bidding the summer season farewell, you start to see little or no plants blooming in your garden. Well, that doesn’t mean your garden is dead until the next season. Some tips can help you give your garden a boost. Furthermore, some plants thrive in colder temperatures. This article is about these easy fall gardening tips and the best autumnal plants to grow.
Clear out your garden
The first thing to do in your garden is to remove the summer goodies. Before thinking of planting in the fall, you have to remove last season’s crops. This may involve harvesting your last tomatoes and picking your beans or okra.
Plants that have stopped producing should be pulled out and thrown into the compost pile; don’t add too many tomatoes because they are acidic. Then it’s time to remove all the weeds that summer left behind and collect seeds from flowers.
Bush beans
Requiring zero support, bush beans are one of the best plants to grow in your garden in the fall season. Compared to pole beans, they are very easy to grow. One major advantage of planting them is that they grow fast.
Bush beans can start producing between 45 and 60 days after planting them. Furthermore, planting bush beans in the fall helps boost the soil. They return nitrogen to the soil, so you can just till them in the soil after production.
Radishes and Arugula
You might be surprised to see radishes and arugula since both plants are known to grow in spring. However, there is a significant difference between planting radishes and arugula in the spring and fall. Fall radishes and arugula have more flavor.
Radishes grow fast, so you can plant them every two weeks for two to three successions. As for arugula, planting them in the fall prevents them from going to maturity too soon. This guarantees you leaves full of flavor.
Pumpkins
Pumpkins have to be the vegetables of the fall season. There is a wide variety of pumpkins to choose from. You might want to plant Long Pie or Baby Pam if you prefer pumpkins with thinner outer skin and thicker flesh inside.
In the fall, you can plant any pumpkin you like in your garden. However, since pumpkin vines can reach 30 feet, you need to give them enough space to roam. We recommend growing them in trellises to leverage space.
Don’t forget to protect your fall plants!
If you believe that pests cannot show up in your garden during fall, you couldn’t be more wrong. From cabbage worms and slugs to cutworms, there are different pests to prove you wrong. So, protecting your fall plants is vital.
Especially when you have leafy greens or young plants, pests will visit. You could make aluminum foil plant collars to protect your young plants. You could also make cloches to protect your seedlings throughout the night. Furthermore, always pick off pests whenever you see them.