Here in Central Pennsylvania it’s almost time to plant the fall garlic seed that will grow into enormous cloves of delicious gourmet garlic by the middle of next summer. Sure you can plant garlic next spring, but in most areas you’ll get healthier plants, larger cloves, and better results from a fall sowing of this cold hardy root vegetable.

Yesterday’s entry examined strategies for planning and planting a fall vegetable garden, today we’ll look at tips for raising, harvesting, and selecting crops for growing fall vegetables. Fall vegetables don’t require any special care; in fact you’ll spend less time caring for your fall crops because of the favorable autumn growing conditions. The plants will grow rapidly at first and gradually slow as the days become shorter and colder.

Summer is ending, the days are growing shorter, and temperatures are dropping, but there’s still a little time left for the home gardener to begin Planting a Fall Vegetable Garden. Just think about it; no bugs, no weeds, no watering, no sweat… fall is the perfect season for planting delicious home-grown vegetables.

The summer isn’t half way over and temperatures reached triple digits today but I’ve already begun planning and planting my fall vegetable garden. Last week I sowed seeds of rutabagas, turnips, and various kale varieties directly into an empty raised bed.

Winter Vegetables are the cold hardy varieties that don’t flinch at the arrival of fall frosts, and have no problem withstanding a moderate amount of freezing weather. In fact, some winter vegetables can survive to enjoy the warmth of spring and continue producing harvests for the crafty gardener.
Here’s a list of my favorite cold hardy [...]

The leaves took longer to fall this year, but they’re finally down, except for one Japanese Maple out front. I spent part of the past weekend gathering them to use for next season’s compost.
I can’t say that I enjoy the raking and collecting, but it is satisfying to look over the huge piles that will [...]

This past weekend was ideal for getting in a little fall gardening. Despite the calendar saying that it’s November, the temperatures were more like springtime. High temps reached into the seventies, while the lows were no where near freezing. Overall, weather conditions were about 25 degrees warmer than normal for this time of year.
Of course [...]

If you enjoy growing vegetables but have never delved into fall gardening, it’s time to add a new adventure to your list of accomplishments. Fortunately, I think that you’ll discover that planting a fall garden is even easier than gardening during the summer.
The Joy of Fall Vegetable Gardening
It’s the middle of October here in South [...]