Fall Vegetable Planting Guide for Virginia

Extend your harvest and your wallet with a fall garden.

Planning a fall garden at the height of summer in Virginia may seem like madness, but it is well worth braving the intense heat and humidity for all the rewards you will reap. Take advantage of Virginia's long autumn season--its warm days and cool nights, ample rain, and diminished pest activity--with a few techniques to stimulate and protect your fall garden. When produce stands close and prices begin to creep up at the supermarket, your fall vegetable garden will be full of new, cool weather crops or succession plantings of summer vegetables.

What to Plant

Plant both summer vegetables and cool weather crops in your fall vegetable garden. The milder Virginia climate permits succession plantings of summer crops like sweet corn, beans, squash, tomatoes, cucumbers and melons. Replant spring vegetables like peas, broccoli, carrots, onions and brussels sprouts in your fall garden. Be sure to use quick maturing plants to ensure a good harvest before the first frost.

Cool weather crops such as turnips, rutabagas, cabbage and all kinds of greens, including lettuce, spinach, mustard, kale and collards, should also make their way into your fall vegetable garden. Fall weather brings an added sweetness to cool and warm weather crops alike, but greens and root vegetables like carrots taste particularly sweet after a few heavy frosts.

Don't forget herbs like garlic, shallots, parsley and basil. Lush herbs not only add a variety of flavor to your harvest but can serve to ornament your vegetable garden too.

When to Plant

Determine planting time by counting back about 12 to 14 weeks from the average date of the first frost in your area. Fall garden planting should occur somewhere between mid-July to late August in Virginia. The 12- to 14-week guideline takes into account the time of seed germination to transplant, average time to harvest and a buffer of about two weeks to account for slower plant growth during the cooler and shorter fall days. The first frost date will be earlier in the Shenandoah than in Central or Tidewater Virginia. Check with your local extension office for the frost date in your area.

Soil Preparation

The soil in your fall vegetable garden will need to be replenished after summer's heavy growing season. Add a new layer of compost or a complete (10-10-10) fertilizer to the soil. Remove any weeds or debris from spring or summer crops. The soil will probably be dry due to the high Virginia temperatures and midsummer droughts. Try to plant seeds and transplants a day after it rains to give young plants enough water to get established. You can also water the garden area thoroughly yourself a day before sowing fall crops.

Mulch your fall garden to protect against heat and moisture loss. Mulch seeds with light pine straw and transplants or established plants with a heavier layer of organic mulch.

Fall gardens will not have to contend with the height of summer insect activity, but you still need to watch out for fall pests like cabbage worms. Avoid infestations by rotating crops around your garden. Don't plant vegetables of the same family in the same place season after season. Rotate cucumbers and melons with tomatoes or beans. Rotating crops will also help balance out nutrient levels in the soil--try planting heavy nitrogen feeders like collards, spinach or kale over your harvested corn.

Harvesting

The first frost indicates harvest time for many crops in your fall garden. All tomatoes, squash, cucumbers, sweet corn and other summer vegetables should be picked at the first frost advisory. But frost doesn't necessarily mean the end of fall gardening. If the frost warning is mild, not lower than 30 degrees Fahrenheit, cover your plants with buckets, old milk cartons or unused nursery pots for added insulation during cold nights. You can also use old bed sheets or pick up row covers from your local garden supply store to cover whole sections of your garden.

Some crops can even stay in your garden all winter--harvest them as needed for a welcome taste of garden-fresh vegetables in the depth of winter. Good crops for overwintering include parsley, garlic, carrots, turnips, rutabagas, collards, kale, lettuce and some onions.

Preparing for Winter

The end of fall should be a time for preparing your garden for winter. Cover overwintering vegetables and perennials, like rhubarb, with about 8 inches of heavy mulch. Cut perennial vegetable stalks to the ground. Remove weeds, cages, trellises and stakes. Clean tools and garden implements thoroughly and keep them together so you can easily find them in the spring.

Considerations

If you want to extend your harvest of warm weather crops past the date of your first frost, consider using a cold frame. Peas, broccoli or hearty paste tomatoes make good candidates for late fall cold frame gardens. A cold frame is an enclosure that is ideally set below the frost line in your soil with a tight fitting lid or roof. Cold frames can be made of almost any material. Cinder blocks make inexpensive and sturdy walls, while an old window makes an ideal roof that allows light to enter while retaining heat. A good cold frame roof can easily be propped up during warm days and closed on chilly nights. Cold frames can also give you a head start to house seedlings early in the spring, before the soil is ready to be worked.

References

• Virginia Cooperative Extenstion Office: Fall Vegetable Gardening
• "Grow Your Best Fall Garden", Mother Earth News, August/September 2009