What to Grow in the Fall

Welcome to carrot season and lettuce and kale and well I could go on for over 20 different crops which love to grow in Florida in the fall!  

In fact, we are at the cusp of the largest growing season of the year. Florida cool weather months bring a harvest variety like no other. Hold on to your hat, because you can practically grow every root vegetable – from onions to garlic, from beets and radishes to turnips. 

If you plant turnips, you better like them, because they grow like weeds. Purple Top to be specific will reach softball size. The number of ways to prepare turnips comes to roughly four. You mash them. You sauté them. You throw them in salads. You thinly slice and roast them to make turnip chips. A crisp chip still escapes my limited cooking skills. So good luck on that one and if you master them, let me know. 

What is a tomato, you ask? Is it the one fall crop with a multiple personality disorder? Is it a fruit or vegetable?  Whatever it is, the tomato is primed for the cooler weather with an aversion to humidity. In fact, humidity is tomato’s kryptonite. Why do you think they wilt and die in June?  By mid-September get them in the ground. Treat them like your pets and they will give you love in the form of “Ts” as in BLTs.

Lima beans are also primed for fall planting as well as peas. If you go with pole beans get ready for them to grow up only with help from poles or you can grow corn next to them. Our native American brothers and sisters taught us the three sister’s trick. Corn acts as the pole for the pole beans. Corn however is extremely finicky and demands lots of nutrients. There is a farmer’s story that basically says every wild animal loves chicken and in the same vein every insect loves corn.   

Kales and spinaches love the fall as well. So, get them in the ground now and you can have kale until the point where you almost never want to eat it again. Harvesting a few leaves per day will give you your iron and Vitamin C supply and enough roughage to keep you lubricated.

As a child I thought chickpeas were hatched from eggplants and thus eggplants came from chickens. The point is eggplants can be grown now as well, yet chickpeas need a March sowing. Along with eggplants, peppers find fall as the best time to thrive. 

The brassicas/cruciferous vegetables which include broccoli, cabbage, mustards, Brussel sprouts, cauliflower, collards and mustards love the fall. And if you are a squash lover, plant them now as well. I recommend Seminole squash since they are native to Florida and grow like weeds as well. Fall season is the reason we can grow lettuces which has the possibility of giving us almost three harvests. 

Now is the time to really decrease your grocery bill by using your own yard or raised bed garden or pots to produce most fall vegetables. A word of advice, if you are way too kind to your fall vegetables they may produce all year for you. If you can carry a tune, sing to them. Yes, they do like music. If you see brown leaves on the bottom of your plants, trim them off. Give them plenty of water and visit them every day. The visit keeps the pests away. And if you cannot carry a tune and you have a pest infestation, sing to them. That is what I do.

Banks Helfrich, your local Farmer teaches edible gardening. On October 12 at 9 am join Banks on his seven-acre,15 different garden Farm Tour in the Clay Road District of north Clermont. On October 20th at 1 pm, Banks teaches a complimentary gardening class at Florida Blue Clermont. At both events, fall seeds and plants will be giving out to all attendees.