What are you doing? Cleaning your hand shovel and dibber already? “But fall has come; I won’t need them till spring,” you may say, but no, this is a great season to plant lots of vegetables and fruiting varieties in your back garden! You can get crops in September, October, November and all through winter! Why waste all this time and your land?
So, get your tools out of the shed, and find out why you should be planting fruiting varieties and lots of veggies in fall, and I can suggest 12 safe choices for you as well!
Shall we start with some good reasons to plant vegetables and fruits in fall? Off we go then…
Plant Vegetables and Fruits in Fall to Extend Your Growing (and Harvesting) Season
It’s such a pity to see all those sad, barren, forgotten vegetable gardens in fall and winter! Why, I wonder? There are so many vegetables that grow so well in this season… When do you find cabbage on the shelves of your local store? From October onwards, some varieties even later. And cauliflowers, and radicchio? These are all plants that like it cold, along with many lettuce varieties, chard, spinach…
Hey, we have a full three course meal already. No, fall does not mark the end of the harvest season – don’t fall for it!
Use Your Land Efficiently – Grow Veggies in Fall and Winter
Plant in fall and you will have fast crops by the end of the season, and longer ones in winter (or even later, with onions, for example)… Why should you waste these months? Depending on where you live, it could be anything between 3 and 6 a year… What are we, “part-time gardeners”?
What’s more, unless you cover it (with mulch or “green mulch” like alfalfa or clover etc.), the cold and rainy season will impoverish your soil. Yes, it needs rest, but that’s done with rotation. What’s more, if you grow crops in fall and winter, you will avoid soil erosion.
Active soil is healthy soil, so, get the best out of these months and keep your land fertile at the same time!
Don’t Waste Bountiful Rains – Grow Crops in Fall and Winter!
So, you spent all summer irrigating regularly, saving water, and maybe even worrying about drought, and now that water is abundant you really want to waste it? One of the great things of planting veggies and fruiting varieties in fall is that you don’t need to water them – virtually never…
That saves you a lot of time, and you make the best of a very precious resource. Let Nature do her part when it’s getting cold and wet.
What’s more, if you grow crops in winter, the soil will keep humid till spring, with little runoff, so, you will have a healthier start in spring.
Ornamental Perennials to Plant in Fall
Shall we start from your front garden? Why not, beauty first, and then we’ll see some vegetables and fruiting varieties to plant in fall.
1: Daylily (Hemerocallis spp.)
If you have a decorative garden, you must absolutely plant daylilies in fall! The “perfect perennial”, easy to grow, and so generous with its large blossoms offers you and jaw dropping 100,000 varieties to choose from, in vibrant shades from white to purple, via red, orange, pink, yellow, lavender and even near black. With single and double blooms, and super vigorous lush and strap like foliage, it would be mad not to grow it!
Daylilies are also cheap and easy to propagate, so, maybe you could ask a neighbor for a clump, and they are also cold hardy, despite their exotic look.
- Hardiness: USDA zones 4 to 9.
- Light requirements: full Sun or partial shade.
- Spacing: 18 inches apart (45 cm).
2: Plantain Lily (Hosta spp.)
You can plant hostas in spring, but there’s a problem: your garden will be full of snails and slugs then! There are fewer of them creeping around in fall, and this gives plantain lilies a bit of a head start. They will also grow new shoots earlier in the new season, with their amazing large and luxurious foliage, and, later on, delicate and charming spikes of lavender, pink or white flowers.
However, you don’t have much time if you want to plant hostas in the fall, you should do it early in the season, or at least 4 to 6 weeks before frost comes. This will give them time to establish themselves before you cut them down to ground level to prepare them for winter.
- Hardiness: USDA zones 3 to 9.
- Light requirements: partial shade, light shade or dappled shade.
- Spacing: 1 to 4 feet apart (30 to 120 cm), depending on the variety.
3: Coneflower (Echinacea spp.)
Here’s another classic decorative perennial for you to plant in fall, coneflower! Great for pollinators and for your health, but also offering you long lasting floral displays in vibrant colors, this sturdy and easy to grow plant is a magnet for butterflies, a must have in cottage gardens, ideal for borders and for a natural looking garden, bringing you the beauty and peace of the countryside.
You can plant coneflowers in fall, so they get established by the end of the season, and they will double their efforts in spring, giving you better results. However, give these perennials 6 to 8 weeks before frost, so they settle in before winter comes.
- Hardiness: USDA zones 4 to 9.
- Light requirements: full Sun.
- Spacing: 12 to 18 inches apart (30 to 45 cm).
4: HerbaceousPeony (Paeonialactiflora)
And a final classic – you cannot have a romantic and traditional looking garden without herbaceous peonies! Long-lived and so iconic, these perennials are actually best planted in the fall. In fact, they are early starters in spring, and you will see the first shoots grow as soon as winter is over and snow thaws, so, if you transplant them now, they will be ready to impress you at the very beginning of the new season.
If you plant peonies in spring, they will delay their growth, and it’s a pity, because they actually start off the new buds by late fall. However, do give them 6 to 8 weeks to establish themselves before frost comes, so, in temperate regions, that means transplanting them in early to mid fall.
- Hardiness: USDA zones 3 to 9.
- Light requirements: full Sun.
- Spacing: 24 to 30 inches apart (60 to 80 cm).
Perennial Vegetables You Must Absolutely Plant in Fall
Time to move to your back garden, and I have a short selection of vegetables that you should really plant in fall. Here it is…
5: Asparagus (Asparagus officinalis)
Asparagus takes a couple of years to give you a crop, but it’s such a delicacy and quite an expensive one, that if you want to make the best out of your back garden, it’s a great choice… Rich in iron, magnesium, calcium, vitamins C and B6, it also has great properties for your health, not just your kitchen! In fact, it has antioxidant qualities, it lowers blood pressure, it’s a brain booster and it is diuretic, and it may even help prevent cancer!
To grow asparagus, the easiest way is to plant the bare root crowns 8 inches deep (20 cm), making sure the soil is loose, so the shoots can come through easily and thus keeping soft and juicy. While it is a super cold hardy vegetable, you should plant it 6 to 8 weeks before the first frost, so it can establish itself before winter.
- Hardiness: USDA zones 3 to 10.
- Light requirements: full Sun.
- Spacing: 8 to 14 inches apart (20 to 35 cm), but 6 to 8 inches apart (15 to 20 cm) for purple varieties.
6: Rhubarb (Rheum rhabarbarum)
Plant rhubarb in the fall and it will be ready to harvest in spring. This amazing (and colorful) leafy vegetable likes a bit of chilly weather, which actually makes it sweeter… But you will keep eating it till it gets hot and sunny, up to mid-summer. Its red shade is due to anthocyanins and proanthocyanidins, which are antioxidants, but they also have anti-bacterial, anti-inflammatory and even anti-cancer properties. What is more, it is good for heart problems and to prevent diabetes.
Rhubarb is also very generous as a vegetable, and it can grow quite large and tall, so you will be using your land efficiently with this perennial. Plant rhubarb crowns in mid-fall, or up to 4 to 6 weeks before the first frost, and it will be safe in winter. You may even harvest it as early as March!
- Hardiness: USDA zones 3 to 8.
- Light requirements: full Sun, but it tolerates light shade.
- Spacing: 3 to 4 feet apart (90 to 120 cm).
7: Jerusalem Artichoke (Helianthus tuberosus)
Why do I think you should be planting Jerusalem artichoke (or sunchoke) in fall? It requires little care, it produces a lot, and it is very expensive indeed! Your main problem will be harvesting it fast enough in winter and till May, and cutting it back. As it is a tuberous and perennial variety of sunflower, you can also grow it in your front garden for its abundant golden yellow flowers! Rich in vitamin C, iron and potassium, it also contains inulin, a prebiotic fiber that promotes good bacteria in your gut!
Give your Jerusalem artichoke tubers 6 inches deep (15 cm) 6 to 8 weeks before frost when you plant them in fall to protect them from winter temperatures. You can splice into even small pieces, as long as each has an eye, to save money.
- Hardiness: USDA zones 3 to 9.
- Light requirements: full Sun and partial shade.
- Spacing: 12 inches apart (30 cm).
8: Walking Onions (Allium cepa var. proliferum)
Walking onions are just such wonderful perennials! Plant them once and you’ll never be left without… But why do we call them so? Unlike other varieties, they produce bulbils at the top, and they become so heavy that the stalks flop till they touch the ground, propagating spontaneously, and “creeping” around your garden, so to speak.
You can harvest them all year round, and the whole plant is fully edible (don’t forget the leaves). They are rich in vitamins A, C, and K, folate, potassium, calcium, and phosphorus, and they are great for your health. Just a short list of their properties includes: anthelmintic, anti-inflammatory, antiseptic, antispasmodic, carminative, diuretic, expectorant, febrifuge, hypoglycaemic, hypotensive, lithontriptic and you can use them against infections as well!
Very cold hardy, they are suitable for most climates, they are cold and drought tolerant and you can plant walking onions in your vegetable garden in fall 4 to 6 weeks before the first day of frost, and you will keep harvesting them forever!
- Hardiness: USDA zones 3 to 10.
- Light requirements: full Sun.
- Spacing: 4 to 5 inches apart (10 to 12.5 cm).
Fruiting Perennials to Plant in Your Garden in Fall
Finally, let’s see the best fruiting perennials you can plant in your garden in the fall…
9: Strawberry (Fragaria x ananassa)
Yes, the most delicious, sought after and loved fruiting perennial in the world can come to your garden in fall! You can pick any of the 600 varieties on the market, but personally I prefer older, heirloom ones, like ‘Fiorentina’, smaller than the ones you usually find on shelves, it is regarded as the best tasting ever! May and June are the main harvest months for this unique false fruit, and not berry (it’s the only one with seeds on the outside), but they are also easy to grow in small greenhouses and polytunnels.
They are not just sweet though; they also have lots of vitamin C. So, they help your immune system and may lower your chances of getting sick when you’re around germs. They may also help fight inflammation, manage your blood sugar, and guard against health conditions like high cholesterol, cancer, heart disease, stroke, and diabetes!
Not bad for a little fruiting perennial you can plant in the fall, 4 to 6 weeks before frost, which, in temperate and continental climates mean September to mid October, but later in milder regions.
- Hardiness: USDA zones 4, 5 or 6 to 9 (depending on the variety).
- Light requirements: full Sun.
- Spacing: 12 to 18 inches apart (30 to 45 cm).
10: Raspberry (Rubus idaeus)
Here is another classic for you, but with a sour twist: raspberry! This perennial shrub is really generous, and easy to grow, requiring very little maintenance indeed. But its aggregate fruits (not real berries, again!) are very expensive and hard to find fresh, and the reason is that they don’t preserve for a long time. That’s why they are protagonists in the jelly market instead… You will harvest them in late spring and early summer if you plant the bare root canes in fall, giving them an early start in the new season. Packed with vitamin C (hence the flavor), but quercetin and gallic acid, they have antioxidant properties and they help prevent cancer, heart and circulatory disease and age-related decline.
A good time to plant raspberry bare root canes in your garden is up to 4 to 6 weeks before frost, which can be pretty late in the season in mild regions, or up to mid October in continental and temperate climates.
- Hardiness: USDA zones 4 to 8.
- Light requirements: full Sun, but they do grow in part shade too, though they will fruit less.
- Spacing: 2 to 3 feet apart (60 to 90 cm).
11: Blueberry (Vaccinium spp.)
Blueberries are very small perennial shrubs, and if you think about how much they cost, having a little one (or a few) in your back garden, even in containers, surely makes a lot of sense. And as you know, these dark and juicy berries (this time real ones!) are virtually natural medicines in sweet round “pills”! Packed with vitamins C and K, magnesium and potassium, they are great for your immune system, eyesight, blood sugar levels, urinary infections, they promote healthy aging, and you will even feel less muscle pain after you exercise if you eat them fresh or in jams. And their harvest season stretches from May to August! Plant them in fall, and you will start enjoying them next spring!
You can plant blueberries in early fall, but if you live in USDA zone 7 and above, you can stretch this window to October (or beyond in even milder climates).
- Hardiness: USDA zones 3 to 8.
- Light requirements: full Sun (best) or partial shade.
- Spacing: 2 feet apart (60 cm) in wide rows (about 5 feet or 1.5 meters).
12: Passionfruit (Passiflora edulis)
You can definitely plant passion flowers as an outstanding decorative perennial climber in your front garden, but it can also add a touch of exotic beauty to your backyard – why not grace you shed with its impressive flowers? In both cases, passionfruit will give you some of the most exquisite and sought after fruits ever, usually in late summer and fall. Apart from being delicious and very expensive, they are low in sodium and high in potassium, so great for your heart, and they also clean blood vessels from cholesterol, and they are good for your heart and skin too. And despite their exotic look, they are easy to grow.
Unfortunately, this “vine of the gods”, passionfruit is not cold hardy at all, so you can plant it in fall, but only in warm climates (or in a greenhouse) and at least 8 weeks before frost comes, as young plants are quite sensitive to low temperatures.
- Hardiness: USDA zones 9 to 11.
- Light requirements: full Sun.
- Spacing: 4 to 8 feet apart (1.2 to 2.4 meters).
So, When Fall Comes – Get Planting Perennials!
The last thing I must say about fall planting is that it’s really pleasurable. It gives you a sense of life starting again, at a time when melancholy sets in and days get shorter. Not only is it convenient to start growing perennials in this season, and there are many varieties to choose from – it is also very therapeutic!
Written By
Amber Noyes
Amber Noyes was born and raised in a suburban California town, San Mateo. She holds a master’s degree in horticulture from the University of California as well as a BS in Biology from the University of San Francisco. With experience working on an organic farm, water conservation research, farmers’ markets, and plant nursery, she understands what makes plants thrive and how we can better understand the connection between microclimate and plant health. When she’s not on the land, Amber loves informing people of new ideas/things related to gardening, especially organic gardening, houseplants, and growing plants in a small space.