The gardening season is winding down now. A chill has settled in, and the time has come to pull up your spent crops and harvest your final vegetable.
It’s bittersweet. But once you’ve cleaned out the beds, you might think the gardening season is over. Certainly not! The fall’s mild temperatures are ideal for getting a jump on the next growing season.
Make these preparations now, and your future self will be grateful.
1. Plant Garlic
It’s common for garlic cloves planted in the fall to grow larger and taste better than those planted in the spring.
If you plant your bulbs in the fall while the soil is still warm, they will have a head start when the ground thaws in March or April.
Once the weather warms up again, garlic plants will flourish. When spring finally arrives, one of the first things you’ll notice is the emergence of the green shoots.
Thanks to the prolonged growing period, you can gather substantial bulbs by midsummer. If you wait until spring to plant garlic, the bulbs will be smaller or have only one clove, and you won’t be able to harvest them until the following fall.
The best time to plant seeds for your fall garlic patch is from mid-September to November. But the sooner you plant them, the more roots they will develop.
