Early August is the time to plant for a fall garden. Later In the Fall when the heavy frosts hit put garden to bed for Winter . Here’s Dave’s method of Fall Garden chores to prepare our garden for the winter and prep it for next Spring. Happy Gardening!

Fall Garden chores

This is our Tuesday in the Garden Blog Hop! Please make sure you click on all the  other blog Posts listed at the end of this article. There are many great suggestions, tips and ideas for fall gardening from several experienced gardeners from all over the country. 

The plants you see here are mostly cold hardy, like the kales and swiss chard. They will easily last into late fall and may winter over!

Our chest freezer is ready to fill to the top with our garden harvest.   Corn on the cob , homemade Marinara sauce, homemade sun dried tomatoes, whole frozen tomatoes, zucchini, blackberries, dried peppers of all sorts, frozen apples, rhubarb, homemade salsa and much more! In the meantime, Dave is stretching the garden season by planting a fall garden.

• Plant fall crops in behind the harvested ones in mid to late summer.
• Some plants, like the carrots, parsnips, leeks, and kale can be held through from summer and harvested throughout winter and early the next spring!
• Other short crops like Asian greens can be planted in late fall. They only need 30 days to mature and love cool weather!
  

  Gorgeous Red Cabbage perfect for the fall garden.

  

  broccoli does well in a fall garden

Any crop that does well in early spring should be fine in the fall if you get them started in August.

Dave is trying to squeeze in an extra planting of purple potatoes. He just re-planted a couple of our potato barrels in them. They take 90 days to mature so it’s iffy they will be harvested before the first frost. We live in U.S.D.A. climate zone 8A. We have relatively mild winters and lots of rain. If our weather stays warm we should harvest them in time.

Purple Potatoes. Nutritious and delicious!

As earlier crops mature and garden spots are cleared. Plant cool weather crops for fall. The bare spot you see above is planted with broccoli.

End of the Season Fall Garden Chores:

Allowing garden crops to decompose in the garden bed will spread diseases and promote unhealthy fungi in the soil.  Pests will gladly winter over in decaying vegetation. They will be hale and hardy next spring looking for garden snacks!

Late Fall Garden chores: Prep for the Lasagna Gardening Method

and our Winter Garden with Raised Hooped Beds.

Dave is laying cardboard with landscape fabric and plastic over it to keep the weeds down this winter and prep the garden space for spring planting.

• Dave is preparing for Lasagna Gardening. Click the link for more information on it.
  • Layering cardboard in layers, lasagna style, will prep the soil for spring planting and provide a weed barrier.
  • Dave is putting landscape fabric and plastic on top. The plastic will keep those weeds from getting started while the cardboard mulches the garden soil.

This method works well for us. It’s so nice in the spring to have a garden ready to plant without roto-tilling or weeding! In Spring, Dave cuts through the mulch to the soil where he wants to plant. Easy! Straw goes on the top of the plastic.

Dave pulls the watering system off the lower garden area to prep the area for cardboard. He is leaving the system in place. drained, on the raised beds, however. In our mild winters this works without damage to the watering system.

watering system runners put up for the winter on the garden fence. Handy in spring to have them close.

Fall Garden chores in the greenhouse:

Our tomato trellis at work

As the tomatoes slow down their growth in the greenhouse Dave has been trimming them back. The yellow spots you see on the leaves are a fungal virus. He is trying to keep it under control by constantly trimming the vines. We are plagued with fungi in the garden and greenhouse. Our humid warm summers encourage various fungi and mildew.

We love the flavor of our greenhouse grown Arbason tomatoes!

As you can see, he has left only the barest amount of leaf needed to support the tomato plants, as they grow fewer and fewer tomatoes.

Peppers beautifully red ripe in the greenhouse! As long as he can, Dave will baby along his greenhouse peppers and tomatoes. They are slowing down for sure, but we should get another month out of them barring a very cold November. If the winter is very mild they will last into January!

Happy Gardening and Don’t Forget it’s

Tuesday in the Garden Blog Hop!

Be sure to check out the tips from these other great garden blogs!

An Oregon Cottage: 

Frugal Family Home 

Simplifylivelove

Angie’s Freckled Rose 

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