Fall Gardening: Your Chance to be More Self-Sufficient

Whether you're starting your garden season late (sometimes time really does fly!) or you want to enjoy homegrown vegetables well past August, a fall garden offers a unique opportunity for something beyond the standard summer garden.

Sadly, many gardeners get so caught up in harvesting their summer crops that they overlook this crucial seed-sowing window. However, setting aside just a couple of hours to plant seeds in these fall garden layouts can yield delicious crops come September, October, and even into May! Imagine picking fresh produce well beyond tomato season!

Some of the plants I suggest here are what I planted in my very first home garden, which I started in August. I planted into raised beds that we quickly made in July and topped with freshly delivered compost. Much to my delight, I was able to eat from the garden that fall—sweet carrots, prolific zucchini, basil for pesto, and an overwintering borage that set the foundation for years of borage seedlings to come.

In this guide, we'll also focus on regenerative techniques that you can practice beyond high summer. Each garden design will be detailed to make your home garden more sustainable, ensuring you reap the benefits of a productive fall garden while nurturing the environment.

For instance, did you know that certain cover crops can improve soil fertility for the next growing season by fixing nitrogen in the soil? Or that interplanting crops together into your fall garden can create a more resilient ecosystem?

We'll delve into these practices and more. Read on!

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Regenerative Fall Garden Ideas

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What to plant in July for Fall Harvests + Beneficial Insects

• Pole Snap Beans: 60 days
• Bok Choi: 45 days
• Nasturtium: 60-65 days
• Borage: 50-70 days
• Snow Peas: 60 days

This layout will have you eating a bumper crop of beans in September and nurture late-season pollinators.

As a bonus, if your borage plant doesn't bloom this year, it may overwinter for an early bloom next spring. Both borage and nasturtium are fast growing plants that attract bees and other beneficial insects. Borage creates tons of organic matter in its profuse leaf growth. Leaves can be cut back throughout the growing season to use as mulch or as a compost tea, much like its cousin comfrey.

For self-sufficiency, not many plants can compete with beans and peas! High in protein and heavy producing, planting pole snap beans and snow peas in July will yield a fast-growing crop to boost the nutrition of your fall dinners.

Bok choi is a quick crop that you can cut-and-come-again for continual growth into the fall. Add it to stir fries along with the peppery nasturtiums and sweet snow peas!

Since you'll be planting these crops during the heat of July, it's important to keep the area well-mulched to regulate soil temperatures and conserve water. As the mulch breaks down, it will add organic matter to your soil. I like to mulch with organic straw in the summer, since its light color helps keep things cool. Grass clippings, which are abundant this time of year, also work well.

Regenerative Tip: If you're growing transplants, mulch around them at planting. If you're direct sowing seeds into your garden, wait until seedlings are 1-2 inches tall to add mulch for best results.

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Classic Fall Garden Essentials to Plant in July or August

• Dark Star Zucchini: 60 days
• Carrots: 65-75 days
• Golden Beets: 60 days
• Hakurei Turnips: 40 days
• Purple Sprouting Broccoli: 210-240 days

This garden plan layout reminds you of the delicious taste of fall garden classics.

Carrots, beets, and turnips get sweeter after they experience frosts - which don't phase them too much aside from the sugar rush. If you don't like the extra earthy taste of regular beets, Golden beets will delight your tastebuds with a surprising sweetness that really comes through when roasted. If you're used to the bitter taste of standard turnips, Hakurei will compliment the flavor of the golden beets in a roasted dish with none of the (in my opinion) unpleasant brassica taste. The greens of both beets and turnips are great additions to stir-fries, too!

You'll be grateful for purple sprouting broccoli in April and May, when this crop starts producing ornamental and delicious purple broccoli sprouts when not much else is growing. Broccoli is a heavy feeder, so it will appreciate regular applications of compost, worm castings, and organic nitrogen-rich fertilizers.

Dark Star Zucchini is kind of the odd one out of this bed layout, but it's fast growing so you'll have both fresh zucchini and zucchini flowers to enjoy before the cold weather comes. This variety was specially bred by the Dry Farming Institute, which works to create resilient vegetable varieties that can stand up to the extended droughts that are coming with climate change.

As mentioned in the previous design, mulch this bed with organic straw or grass clippings to help your garden thrive in the summer heat as it gets established. Keeping the soil covered with mulch also has the benefit of creating organic matter to feed your soil microbiome.

Regenerative Tip: The purple sprouting broccoli will create massive root systems as it grows from summer through winter and into spring. Keep the roots in the ground when it bolts in the summer - just cut it back at the base. They'll break down, keep carbon sequestered, and feed beneficial microbes while adding organic material to your garden.

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What to plant in August for a Fall Garden

• Parsnips: 100 days
• Spinach: 40-60 days
• Mesclun Salad Greens: 28 days
• Comfrey Bocking 14
• Basil: 60 days
• Fall Rapini: 55 days

This layout plan features some tasty greens for late-season salads: spinach, basil, rapini, and of course mesclun all make for excellent healthy meals. Basil is pretty fast growing, so you can sneak in a few more batches of pesto before winter. When you grow these four veggies in your own garden, you also save some money as they can be pricey in the markets.

Parsnips are a great crop to sow in August, as they'll grow slowly throughout the fall and winter, and sweeten up for spring harvests. Leave a parsnip behind to send up a tall stalk that will turn into a stunning yellow bloom. As University of Wisconsin-Madison shares, Swallowtail butterflies, bees, and other beneficial insects will thank you!

According to High Desert Seeds, Comfrey enjoys being fall sown. I recommend Bocking 14, as it is a sterile variety that will not over run your garden. Comfrey is an essential permaculture plant, and its traditionally used for homemade compost teas and chop and drop gardening.

Regenerative Tip: Comfrey is considered a dynamic accumulator, as its deep tap root draws up ample amounts of potassium (the "K" in NPK) into the leaves of the plant. As the leaves break down or are brewed into a compost tea, those nutrients can help feed other crops. Organic fertilizers like this are better for the environment, and making your own at home further reduces your carbon footprint.

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Last-Minute Garden Bed Idea

• Early Cucumber 45-50 days
• Bush Snap Bean: 50 days
• Gem Lettuce: 45 days
• Tokyo Turnips: 30 days
• Fall Broccoli Raab: 45 days

Whether you've been procrastinating on starting your garden or have new space available to you for growing, a sowing date of August 1st should get you some tasty harvests in growing zones 6/7 and up.

Early cucumbers are reliable for early harvests to make a late batch of pickles or for fresh eating. Cover with fleece row covers when temperatures drop to keep production going for as long as possible.

Bush snap beans and fall broccoli raab grow rapidly in the heat and sunshine of August for a hearty boost of protein and nutrition to your homegrown meals.

Tokyo Turnips are another sweet variety that will open your tastebuds to the world of turnips - a hardy, no fuss addition to salads, stir-fries, or roasted dishes.

Finally, Gem Lettuce provides a gourmet salad experience - according to The Washington Post, this one is a chef favorite at fancy restaurants!

Since these are fast growing crops, you might be able to sow a winter-hardy cover crop mix into this bed as you harvest out your plants. Cover crops will nourish your soil throughout the winter, and can add essential nutrients like nitrogen to the soil for your spring plantings.

Regenerative Tip: Notice how these gardens are designed with several crops together? That's because a sustainable gardening aims for biodiversity. Mixing up your garden beds with crops from different species - there are 4 separate species in this design - will help your plants be more robust and resilient to pests and disease.

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Cold Hardy Raised Bed Garden

• Rainbow Chard 30-60 days
• Winter Density Lettuce Mix 30-60 days
• Gold Turnips: 55 days
• Over the Rainbow Carrots: 65-75 days
• Ton Hom Nuan Green Onion: 65 days

Maybe you've noticed that I'm on a mission to change your mind about turnips. Maybe you're interested in growing turnips to sell in a real-life Animal Crossing. Or maybe you're already hip on the plethora of turnip varieties out there and appreciate their range of tastes.

Either way, give golden turnips a try. They're winter hardy, fast growing, and offer a double harvest with their edible greens. If you try some and you don't like them, chickens will gladly accept any leftovers.

Moving on, carrots and rainbow chard are two other crops that don't really flinch during light frosts. I've had rainbow chard come back after hard frosts too, for baby greens that add a colorful addition to meals. Over the Rainbow is a specially-bred carrot variety that was selected for over-wintering in the cold temperatures of New England and Minnesota, so give that one a try if you want to keep carrots growing in the coming months.

Ton Hom Nuan Green Onion is a pretty hardy variety for green onions that can be added to stir fries, soups, and salads. Harvest just the top greens, and the onion bulb will continue to send them up for continue harvests into the spring.

Winter Density Lettuce Mix really lives up to its name. If you live in an area with mild winters, a fleece row cover over these will keep your salads fresh for a long time. Cut and come again for this crop to extend your season.

Regenerative Tip: Mulch your winter-hardy garden with dark mulches like compost or leaves. This will help protect the soil and keep your crops warm to protect them from light frosts. As the mulch breaks down it adds - you guessed it - organic matter to the garden. Most of these crops can handle heavy mulch application, except for the lettuce greens.

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Overwintering Cover Crop + Mulch Generator

• Winter Rye

Did this one stand out to you? While you might not grow enough winter rye for a sizable grain harvest, it's still worth sowing in your garden a few weeks before your first frost.

Winter rye checks a lot of boxes and should help you stack functions in your permaculture garden.

As a cover crop, winter rye protects your soil from heavy rains and wind. When your beds could lie dormant during the off season, planting a hardy green manure like winter rye keeps the photosynthesis - and the carbon sequestration - process going. This is a huge benefit in and of itself, but winter rye has a few other positive points. According to the University of Vermont, it is known for its ability to reduce soil compaction, even in heavy clay soils; and it collects nutrients; it can be cut to give to animals.

As a regenerative gardener, perhaps the most interesting part about winter rye is that it can be turned into garden straw! While all cover crops have some mulching abilities, straw offers long-lasting protection for your plants. This is especially helpful if you live in an area where it's difficult to find pesticide-free straw for your mulching needs.

Regenerative Tip: If you have an excess of rye and want to use it in the summer, you can dry it out and store it in a dry place for safekeeping.

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Cold Stratification + Cold Hardy Garden Special

• Garlic
• Hunger Gap Kale: 25-50 days
• Marshmallow
• Poppies
• Scabiosa

This garden plan is based on some of my favorite flowers and herbs that need a period of low temperatures in order to germinate. This process is called cold stratification. While I have a guide here for how to mimic this natural process with the help of your fridge, you can also just let nature do its thing and direct sow your seeds outside.

As an added benefit, your poppies, scabiosas, and marshmallow will germinate on the early side, so they can get established in the spring and bloom a few weeks ahead of schedule.

Did you know that garlic needs a period of cold in order to germinate? If you've ever planted garlic cloves in the spring after your last frost, you may have experienced spotty germination because of this!

Oh, and I've added in Hunger Gap Kale so that you have something to harvest while you wait for spring and early summer.

Regenerative Tip: Try some JADAM home made fertilizers as your garlic gets established to help boost the soil microbiome activity!

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Cover Crop + Nightshade Support

• Hairy Vetch

I snuck in another cover crop into the mix! And with good reason - hairy vetch is an excellent soil health boost. It's especially beneficial to plant after any nightshade crops, like tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, and potatoes. This is because it actively reduces the amount of blight, pests, and other diseases in the soil. Even if you didn't see any blight on your nightshades, it's still a good ideas to plant hairy vetch for its legumenous nitrogen-fixing capabilities. In the spring, when the plants bloom in a lovely display of purple-blue flowers, the bees will happily flock to your garden.

Regenerative Tip: Chop and drop the hairy vetch in place after it blooms but before it goes to seed for best results and maximum nitrogen release.

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Overwintering Crops for Hunger Gap Harvests

• Fava Beans (see options below)
• All the Year Round Cauliflower
• Purple Kale: 65 days
• Purple Sprouting Broccoli

Have you ever tried to eat 100% from your garden in April, May, and June? It's challenging - your storage crops like squash and onions are dwindling, and you're reaching the last of your canned tomatoes and frozen zucchini. There's only so much nettle that you can forage during this time to add some vitality to your meals.

That's where this garden layout really shines - providing you with homegrown goodness during these otherwise sparse months.

Be sure to plant winter-hardy fava beans such as Sweet Lorane, Ianto's Return, Midnight Black, or Loreta. Keep the roots in the ground after harvest - simply cut the plant back and let it compost in place.

All the Year Round Cauliflower doesn't seem to mind cold temperatures, and in my garden it provides a delicious harvest even before the Purple Sprouting Broccoli starts to come on! Sprouting broccoli, though, has the advantage of a prolonged harvest whereas this cauliflower variety doesn't produce side shoots after the main harvest.

Did you know that the anthocyanins in purple kale help to keep it growing stronger throughout the winter and might even make it less palatable to slugs?

Regenerative Tip: Let some of your purple sprouting broccoli go to seed in the summer. Then, you'll have your own supply ready to plant with perfect timing. Bees and other beneficials enjoy the yellow flowers, too!

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Fall Gardening with Regenerative Practices

→ What is regenerative gardening? Regenerative gardening is an environmentally-conscious way to tend to the earth while growing food at the same time. This organic gardening technique sequesters carbon and builds a healthy ecosystem with strategies such as no-till, cover crops, mulch, and diverse plantings.

Regenerative gardening looks to improve the environment by tending to the soil ecology. In turn, you can grow abundant vegetables in a way that is organic, requires less machinery, and oftentimes less overall work and inputs. The biggest benefit of regenerative gardening is that you are able to sequester carbon right in your backyard, as the no-till organic practices are a nature-based solution to climate change.

How to align Your Fall Garden with Regenerative Principles

1. Go no-till
   ‍No-till gardens are better for the environment. The process of tillage turns up stored carbon in the soil and releases it back into the atmosphere.
   

2. Embrace plant diversity to attract beneficial insects and overall soil health
   ‍Avoid monocropping in your garden and instead practice interplanting. In this way, pests are less likely to destroy crops in one fell swoop, and the diversity of plants encourages beneficial insects into the garden to help with pest control.
   
   Diverse plantings also encourage a diversity of soil microbes, which helps build soil health and benefits the environment.
   
   You can also mix crops of different families together. For example, interplant beets in between broccoli, or alternate rows of onions with carrots.

3. Mulch around plants to add organic matter, keep the soil covered, and avoid water evaporation
   ‍Mulch is one of the key ingredients to a regenerative garden. During dry summers, organic straw mulch helps to keep the soil cool and keeps the soil moist. I’ve noticed that I need to water my garden less when it’s mulched. Water conservation is essential of keeping our local rivers, streams, and aquifers supplied with water for wildlife.
   
   The prevention of water evaporation also supports the soil microbiome, which does not like to be dried out.
   

4. Install drip irrigation to conserve water
   ‍Another eco-friendly practice is drip irrigation. According to UMass Amherst, drip irrigation uses up to 80% less water than overhead watering. This reduction is due to how dripline delivers water directly to the roots of the plant and at a slower pace to prevent excess water from evaporating.
   
   Drip irrigation can also help to prevent disease on plants, since no water splashes back from the soil onto the leaves of plants.

5. Keep roots in the ground as much as possible
   ‍At the end of the season or when you harvest certain crops, cut plants back to the ground whenever possible and keep roots in place. This keeps the carbon that the roots stored in the ground. As the roots break down, they add organic matter to your garden, which feeds the soil microbes.
   
   While this isn’t possible with root vegetable crops, there are plenty of annuals that this can be done with. Brassicas, lettuces, annual herbs and flowers, and beans are all examples of plants that lend themselves to cutting back and leaving the roots behind in the soil.
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6. Crop rotation
   ‍Crop rotation helps to prevent disease and pest issues in gardens, which in turn reduces the need for pesticide inputs.
   
   

Before you go...

Learn about regeneration agriculture, or how to get started with regenerative gardening here. There's also this no-dig gardening transition guide if you do have some in-ground beds.