Many gardeners focus exclusively on springtime as the time to plant things in your lawn and garden. Fall may seem unexciting and solely for lawn maintenance, but there is a lot you can do during this season in terms of planting seeds and growing anything from trees to flowers to vegetables. Here are five things that you can and should plant during that fall.
Cool-season Crops
The ideal type of vegetable to plant varies greatly by season. In the cooler seasons, the vegetables you were planting during the spring and summer will not grow well, if at all. During the fall, vegetables that thrive include broccoli, spinach, kale, and carrots. Those with a short maturity time, such as lettuce and spinach, are acceptable to plant later in the season.
Fall Shrubs
Trees and shrubs planted in the fall can use these months to develop roots and then acclimate and recover during the winter. With less water lost through their leaves due to the cooler temperatures, trees and shrubs are great for fall planting. Plant them at their natural soil lines and keep them watered well until the ground freezes.
Turfgrass
The fall is an excellent time for lawn care. In addition to general lawn chores, fall is best for planting new turfgrass. Additionally, if you live in the North, you should fertilize cool-season grasses like bluegrass, ryegrass, and fescue in September and October so that they get green earlier in the spring.
Pansies
Spring Bulbs
There are many flowers that bloom in the spring yet need a period of cold weather in which they remain dormant in the ground. Make your fall planting list ahead and plant those spring-blooming bulbs that you desire so that your garden looks beautiful when springtime arrives. Some common spring-blooming bulbs are daffodils, English bluebell, tulips, Dutch irises, and hyacinths.
Pansies
The soil temperatures are still warm in the fall, which makes it the best time to plant pansies so that they can establish roots. These are cool-season flowers and thus planting them in the fall gives you two seasons with them in your garden. Keeping the soil moist is very important, and mulch plants after the soil freezes.
Lettuces can be grown quite successfully throughout the fall and, given the right varieties and a little protection, on into winter too.