Native and other no spray backyard fruits

Lemon tree on the left, fig in the center, kumquat on right

Sunday, October 25, 2026

There are many options for growing your own fruit in small spaces today and more come on the market every year.  You grow them in pots, as part of the landscape or garden bed.  I wanted fruit that can be grown organically that produce enough to preserve for year round enjoyment.

We are growing apples, goji berries, strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, tamarillos, huckleberries, blueberries, mulberries, husk cherries, aronia berries and lemons.  The potted lemon tree is in the house during the winter and taken outside each spring.  Tamarillo trees can either be overwintered indoors or started each spring.  I do have a serviceberry tree that we planted a couple of years ago but it is not producing berries yet.  This summer I started watering it during the drought.  I hope next year it will take off in growth and the following year provide berries.  

I have also grown fig trees.  You either have to bring fig trees in every winter or be sure to get one hardy for your zone.  Ones recommended for Zone 7 are Chicago Hardy, Brown Turkey or Celeste.  There are likely others available that are hardy.

I don't grow conventional plums, peaches, apricots, cherries or big apple trees because of the spraying required to keep pests and disease at bay.  However, there are other options.  There is a native American plum that has smaller fruits than its European counterpart and does not require spraying.  I plan on getting one of these next year.

Apples Modern apple trees require a lot of spraying to keep the bugs and worms away.  If you have your heart set on apples, look for old fashioned varieties.  One that a friend grows and said produces well and they never spray is Arkansas Black.  There are farms that specialize in antique apple trees that likely are the same as they have been around since before all the chemicals came into use.

Aronia bush  Also known as black chokeberry for its tart dark purple berries.  Aronia melanocarpa is a native bush that has clusters of white flowers in May, followed by dark purple clusters of berries.  I put the berries in my yogurt.  You can also use to make pies, jellies and jams.  It grows 3-6' feet tall.  Mine is about 5' tall at 3 years old.  There is also a red chokeberry bush that grows 6-12' tall, Aronia arbutifolia.

Blackberry and Raspberry  Both are natives.  The ones we buy are cultivars from the native.  For raspberry lovers, the “Shortcake” variety is a thornless dwarf that grows to a 2-3 foot mound.  It can easily be grown in a pot and is self fertile so only one plant is needed to bear fruit.  It is hardy in Zones 5-9 and fruits in mid-summer.  Both raspberries and blackberries prefer full sun.  

“Doyle’s” thornless blackberry plant can be grown in a pot and supposedly can produce enormous harvests of fruit.  In the ground it can reach heights of 7 feet.  It is hardy in Zones 3-10 and bears fruit in the spring to early summer.  Another option is the dwarf red blackberry which grows to 1.5 feet in height.  

My raspberry and blackberry bushes are on their second summer in the ground.  The blackberries produced enough to put away 5-10 quarts.  I have a thornless and a thorny variety.  The thorny variety produced way more than the thornless and it is much larger.  It has produced a few more berries in the last week.  For some blackberry varieties they produce a fall harvest, too.  The ones that do are called ever bearing blackberries.  The raspberry canes have only produced a few quarts so far and are still producing a few.  My raspberry is an everbearing variety called Joan J. 

I just bought supports for both my raspberry and blackberry bushes as the types I have grow along the ground making it hard to see the fruit and painful picking up the thorny blackberry branches.  I bought supports that should keep the branches a couple feet off the ground.  You can install a trellis system if you have your bushes in a row that you tie the branches to but mine are spaced around the perimeter of an oblong garden bed. 

Bed with squash, raspberry and blackberry bushes

Blueberries  Is also a native with many available cultivars.  There are a couple of blueberries that are compact and acceptable for small landscapes and pots, “Draper” and “Tophat.”  Draper is a bush that grows to 3-4 feet.  Tophat is a nice little bush that can easily be grown in a pot.  It grows to a mere 16-24” high.  Blueberries require an acidic soil, a pH of 4-4.5.  Blueberries are self pollinating, but you will get a lot more fruit if you plant two bushes.  You get fruit in early tp mid summer.  If you have an extra, you can easily freeze or dry.  I am growing a few in pots.  They don't produce enough in pots to have extras for freezing.  In our area, southern high bush are large and prolific.  We have Tifblu and Brightwell growing at our local demonstration garden and they produce enough for several families for year round eating on just those 2 bushes.  To have enough for freezing, they need to be planted in the ground and a few years to get established.

Currant Is a native shrub to Kentucky (Ribes americanum) that produces edible black berries.  Grows 3-6" tall.  Prefers afternoon shade and can be susceptible to powdery mildew.  Can also buy cultivars that are more disease resistant.  The golden currant is native to states all around Kentucky and produces edible berries.

Elderberry bushes  Elderberries are natives.  You need 2 different types to get maximum fruit production.  The raw berries are inedible but are great used in syrups, jellies, jams, pies and, of course, wine.  Grow in a variety of conditions.  May need to be cut to the ground every other year to keep manageable.

Figs  A fig tree is cool looking and very easy to grow either in the landscape or in a pot.  It is native to Mediterranean region.  I never had any pest or disease problems with it.  We had ours in a pot for 5 years and then put it in the ground.  It did well in the bed for 3 years until the voles got to it.  We got great fruit from it throughout the summer.  About every 5 years it will get cold enough in Zone 7 to kill it to the ground but the tree will remerge in the spring from the ground.  It's best to plant in full sun.

Ripe figs

If you decide to put your fig in a pot that you want to leave outside year round, this will lower the zone it can survive the winter in by at least one zone.  You can always bring the fig in for the winter, either into your home or a garage.  We had a “Chicago Hardy” fig that is hardy to Zone 6.  It can grow to a height of 25 feet if planted in the ground.  You can eat your figs fresh, dry them or make them into preserves.  Growing “exotic” figs

Table grapes  The Kentucky native grape muscadine (Vitis rotundifolia) can be grown organically.  Just be sure to plant where it gets good drainage during wet spring spells.  If you want to grow grapes for wine making, Norton is one that is resistant to fungal diseases.

Garden Huckleberries  I grew annual garden huckleberries for the first time this year in pots.  They are native to Africa.  They produced lots of small black berries.  I probably won't grow them again.  The taste is okay but you have to make sure they are fully ripe or they can cause an upset stomach.  Plus the berries are small and break at the attachment point when picked so are messy and time consuming to harvest.  There are native huckleberry bushes.  The ones native to Kentucky that produce edible barries are called black huckleberry, Gaylussacia baccata.  They produce sweet, dark purple berries in late summer.  Grows 1-5' tall and needs at least 4-6 hours of sun to produce berries.

Honeyberry is another fruiting bush and they bear in late spring/early summer, as early as two weeks prior to strawberries.  They are a blue oval type berry and is hardy in Zones 2-8.  The “Smokey Blue” reach 3-4 feet in height, making them a good candidate for a pot as well.  They are high in antioxidants and taste similar to blueberries.  Most require two cross-compatible cultivars for pollination for fruiting.  No special soil type is needed, but prefer partial shade.  For Zone 7, I would look for a self-fertilizing cultivar that is rated for up to Zone 8 and plant them where they get afternoon shade for them to have the best chance of surviving and producing in our hot, humid summers.  They will likely need extra watering in our Zone 7 summers.  I have not tried growing these.

Strawberry

Goji berry  I grew the red goji berry bush from seed.  Goji berries are high in antioxidants and easy to grow.  They are self fertile so only one is needed to produce fruit.  They are a shrub that can grow 8-10 feet at maturity.  If you keep them in a pot, they will remain smaller.  They are hardy down to Zone 5.  I brought mine in for several years and planted it in the ground a couple of years ago and it is doing great.  One watchout for goji bushes as they do get "thorns" so don't plant them where you would brush up against them frequently.  There is also a black fruiting goji that I have the seed for and will try to get going for next year.

Husk cherry  I've been growing these for a few years.  They are a prolific self seeder.  The fruits have a pineapple banana flavor when fully ripe.  I grow mine in medium size pots so I don't get a ton of fruit from them but they are fun and tasty so I keep growing them.  I let a volunteer grow in the garden bed and it did produce many fruits but wasn't as easy to get to as the potted fruits.  I'll do both again next year.

Kiwi vines  Another fruit for small spaces is kiwi and they are hardy for Zones 3-9.  These are vines that can grow to 10-20 feet.  You can use these over an harbor or on a fence.  A male and female are required.  They prefer a part sun location.  The foliage of the Artic Beauty is beautifully variegated with pink, white and green leaves.  These vines fruit in September.  I keep thinking about growing these.

Mulberry tree  Another native fruit tree is the red mulberry tree, Morus rubra.  Don't confuse it with a white mulberry tree which is invasive and non-native.  Mulberries are similar to blackberries but sweeter and more fragile.  This is why we don't see the fruit in grocery stores.  Mulberry trees are great for wildlife and produce prolifically.  I bought one this year.  You can get dwarfs so you can reach all the fruit so it doesn't become messy.  You can also cut the central leader when the tree is about 2 feet tall to make a regular tree stay small.  I probably only need one to have enough fruit for year round eating.

Passionflower vine  “Maypop” is a hardy passion flower vine that survives down to Zone 5.   It is a very hardy vine so either grow it in a pot or make sure it is blocked off from being able to expand into other areas.  They taste a lot like guavas and their flowers are beautiful.  I keep trying to grow from seed but have not had good luck.  I discovered they are growing wild in our field so I'll dig one this fall to transplant.  They are natives to our area.

Pawpaw tree  A slow growing fruit tree that reaches a height of 12-15 feet is a native to North America is the pawpaw.  It tastes tropical with a banana/mango like flavor.  It is also high in protein, vitamins and minerals and hardy to Zone 5.  The fruits weigh around a pound each and are ready to pick in late summer/early fall.  Two plants are required for the tree to bear fruit like Susquehanna and Sunflower.  Foraging for wild edibles

Pear trees   Our neighbor has a couple pear trees that he does not spray and they produce very well without pest or disease issues.  They are a Bartlett and a Keiffer pear tree.  He always has lots to give away so I don't need to grow my own but if I do, these will be the two I plant.  You do need 2 different compatible pear varieties for successful fruiting.

Asian-American persimmons  This fruiting tree does well in our summers and is hardy for our zone.  Grows 20-40' tall bearing fruit in mid-September through November depending on the variety.  There are non-astringent types that can be eaten fresh and the astringent types that need to soften considerably to be sweet.  Popular varieties are self-fertile while others need 2 to set fruit.  There are native persimmons and they are astringent types.

Wild plum (American plum)  It can either be a thicket forming shrub or small tree.  The trees can grow to 35' and prefer at lease some shade.  The native has small red fruits.  There are many cultivars that have been developed from the native for improved fruits.  The native fruits are eaten fresh and used in jellies and preserves.  The tree spreads by sending out root sprouts.  It has beautiful white flowers in spring.  

Serviceberry tree  A native tree that is a great provider of spring nectar for bees as well as tasty purple berries in early summer.  It is one of the first trees to flower in spring and grows 15-25' tall.  When purchasing be sure to look for Amelanchier arborea to make sure you are getting the native tree.

Strawberry  Strawberries are another easy to grow perennial fruit.  The ones we grow today are hybrids from the native strawberry vines.  They prefer full sun and should be planted in the spring.  There are two types of strawberries, June bearing or Everbearing.  June bearing have one large harvest in early summer whereas the everbearing types produce berries from spring through fall.  They enjoy a rich soil so plant with lots of compost and bone meal.  If they begin to decline in production after 4 years, plant new plants in a different area of the garden.  We have ours in a raised bed.  This was their second year and we put up about 10 quarts of berries.
Back yard strawberries  

I also like to grow Alpine strawberries.  They produce spring through fall but their berries are small, but intensely flavored.

Dwarf tamarillo tree  I started one of these last year in a pot and overwintered it indoors.  You can also start it each year.  It produces small orange fuzzy fruits.  The taste was better on the one grown in the garden bed than the pot but I will keep my potted one because it is ready to produce so much sooner than growing from seed.

Fall Decorative and Edible Garden Checklist

 

October 24, 2026

As summer comes to an end and the cooler temperatures of fall start moving in, let's not forget to give some attention to our gardens.  

 

There are a few things to tend to in the fall decorative, edible garden.  It's not as exciting as spring but very appreciated for the health of your garden and be ready for next season.  Here are some items to consider for tidying up and getting ready for your next garden season:

-Save seeds from your best producers.  Seed saving will help your plants adjust to your specific microclimate and have the most abundant harvests.  I keep mine in plastic baggies, labelled with the variety, year saved and store in the refrigerator in an airtight container.  Add any other helpful information for identifying and growing.  My top 10 seed saving tips

-Take cuttings from any of the plants that you want to start indoors for the winter.  Basil is an edible that you can easily start from a cutting to have handy for cooking.

-Be sure to prepare any tropicals you had outdoors for pests before bringing indoors.  I spray well with an insecticide a day or so before moving indoors.  Since the light will be less indoors, pruning before bringing indoors will help minimize leaves dropping.

-Cut back and dry herbs to make spice mixes mix.  Make your own "Herbes de Provence"

-Keep harvesting your veggies and fruits as long as they continue to produce.  Tomatoes, peppers and eggplant will continue to give you fruits until the first hard freeze.  If you can't eat them all, preserve them for winter and spring eating!  Preserving the extras from the summer garden

-If you haven't already, remove any dead or dying plants from the garden.  Any that are diseased should be burned or put into the trash; don't compost these.  For the rest and any trimmings, put in the compost pile or bin.  Composting basics and troubleshooting

-Keep your garden weeded.  You want to be sure to keep weeds from going to seed otherwise you will have lots of the little buggers to pull next spring!  I add weeds to the compost pile as long as they don't have seeds.

-Clean, sharpen and weatherproof your tools.  Make a list of tools and supplies that you would like to add to your repertoire for next year's gardening season.  Quick tip 15-sharpen tools, buy needed tools

-If you have clay pots, be sure to empty them out or place under cover so they don't fill with water, freeze and crack.  You can either revitalize soil next spring with added compost and fertilizer or can add to the compost pile.  Re-energize your potting soil!

-Take a soil test to see what amendments to add.  Enriching the soil now will have it in top shape for the spring season.

-Take a look at your garden journal and make notes of what went well or not so well, what varieties did well in your garden, what you want to plant in next year's garden, how many you want to plant, etc., etc.  I always try to put together my plan for next year's garden at summer's end while everything is fresh in mind.  I will make additions to it or maybe some switches in what varieties to try, but the bulk remains the same.  Keep a garden journal  Reflections on the 2025 garden and the 2026 garden plan

-For fall edible planting, look for empty spots in the garden to put winter veggies, like leeks, onions, carrots, cabbage, kale, radishes.  I get pots going with lettuce and greens that I will keep under my portable greenhouse for fall and winter salads. 

Fall edible garden

Winter edible garden

 

Many like to clear all debris from the garden, but I leave flower and edible seed heads for the birds over the winter and for volunteers next spring.  Come spring, I clear away all debris.

What we are harvesting in the mid-October edible

Tomatoes and peppers with zinnias in the background

Sunday, October 18, 2026

The garden continues to produce well; more than we can eat fresh.  We are harvesting tomatoes, onions, sweet and hot peppers, lettuce, zucchini, cucumbers, Red Malabar spinach, New Zealand spinach, eggplant, chard, sorrel, mustard greens, yard long beans and many herbs.  I am freezing about a pint of peppers, and 1-2 quarts of tomatoes a week as well as drying the herbs we need for the winter.  I have more okra, zucchini and eggplant than we can eat.

Our tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, zucchini, okra and yard long beans are still yielding decent.  The 6 week drought and late heat wave we had were hard on the tomato vines this year.  For tomatoes, be sure to take all the tomatoes off the vine before it frosts.  You can either wrap the green tomatoes in newspaper and store in a cool place to ripen, make them into relish, or eat them as fried.  For fried green tomatoes, we like a Cajun batter.  Gives them a nice, spicy flavor.  A late fall tradition-fried green tomatoes!

The year, my cucumbers produced until the end of September; I am still getting a few small fruits.  My Trombetta zucchini is only giving an occasional fruit now.  In years past, it would produce well until the first hard freeze.   

As you straighten up your garden beds as the summer crops wind down, be sure to compost!  Any plant that has a disease, do not add to your compost pile.  Throw away!  Composting may not kill all spores and you could be spreading the disease next season wherever you use the compost.  For more tips on composting (even indoors),  Composting basics and troubleshooting tips

Peppers love this time of year.  They are native to the mountains so October is perfect for them.  They will continue to produce even after frost.  My peppers did well this year.  I had a couple of California bell pepper plants in the ground and they did very well.  The sweet chocolate pepper that I saved from seed did okay this year.  The sweet Jalpapeno hybrids did well.  The Doe mini bells did great.  The hot Jigsaw pepper plants just kept producing their pretty purple peppers all season long. My Tunisian Baklouti hot pepper plant that I had had a couple of years died for some reason.  I harvest my peppers when they start to get some color in them and let them finish ripening on the counter.  Removing the fruits encourages the plant to replace them, giving you more peppers.  Peppers get sweeter when they ripen, but are good to eat even when green.  

I will bring in the Jigsaw pepper plant and the two Chipetlin pepper plants for the winter.  It seems like the hot peppers overwinter well inside.

Basil is doing pretty decent right now.  Basil are very tender annuals and will turn black with the first frost.  Make sure to harvest all the leaves prior to the first frost.  You can dry basil, make it into pesto or freeze it in water.  My favorite is to make pesto.  I have plenty of pesto in the freezer so I probably won't make any this fall.

Stevia in bloom, covered in butterflies

You can also dig them up and bring them in for the winter.  Place them in a full sun spot.  You can put them back outside again in the spring after all danger of frost has passed.  I typically have volunteers that pop up in my tropicals so I don't need to start any others.

Bay, chives, thyme, marjoram, oregano, papalo and tarragon are all robust.  Tarragon smells wonderful.  Even if you can't eat all that you can harvest fresh and dried, it makes a wonderful potpourri.  I just use dried, whole stems in a vase to freshen an entire room.  I bring the bay tree in for the winter every year.

The greens are doing just okay that I seeded in early September.  They love this time of year, cool with plenty of rain so I hope they start popping. As soon as they are a bit bigger, I will put in the permanent spot for the winter.

Fall is a bountiful time for gardening.  I have planted many winter hardy varieties of lettuce, broccoli, mustards, and cabbage to keep the garden producing into December and hopefully beyond.  With the portable greenhouse, we should have greens all winter. 

Easiest ways to "peel" garlic

 

Saturday, October 17, 2026

If you have ever tried to “peel” fresh garlic, it can be maddening.  The thin, light paper covering each garlic clove is almost impossible to pick off and as you try to peel off the paper, you get sticky garlic juice on your fingers which the papers stick to like glue!

When I started growing garlic, I tried to find the types that had long storage life.  I never found any that consistently stored even to spring no matter where or how I stored it.  When I went into an old fashioned general store in Albany, Georgia, I saw and bought pickled garlic.  I've been using that method for preserving ever since.

Have garlic any time you need it, just pickle some!

Now, the tricky part is peeling the cloves.  I quickly figured out that I wanted garlic that had only large cloves with thick skins because they were the easiest and fastest to get the skins off an entire harvest.  Hardneck garlic fits that bill so that is all I grow now.

How to choose garlic to grow

 Over the years, I have tried several different ways of "peeling" my garlic clove harvest.  The three best ways I found were using a garlic peel remover, smashing the clove to make it easier to remove the skin and putting the cloves in a bowl with a lid and shaking vigorously.   Now, I use the bowl technique and the crush technique or peeler for any that the skin doesn't come off.  Much quicker than trying to remove the skin of every single clove with your fingers!

Pickle your garlic harvest for year round use

Homemade pickled garlic

Sunday, October 11, 2026

If you had a bumper crop of garlic or just want to have garlic cloves on hand all the time, it is super easy and inexpensive to simply pickle garlic cloves.  All you need to buy is apple cider or white vinegar.  Or you can make your own.......

I first learned about pickled garlic when I went to a general store in Albany, Georgia.  They had many local canned items in Mason jars for sale.  I saw the jarred garlic and bought it.  They had added some spicy peppers in the jar which gave it a kick.  I loved it!  It has become my favorite way of preserving my garlic harvest.

How to pickle garlic

  1.  Get quart canning jars.  I use Tattler or glass lids.  The vinegar eats at metal lids.  Easy, low tox canning of summer's bounty
2.  Either make or purchase raw apple cider vinegar.  Any neutral tasting vinegar will work.  I just like the nutritional benefit of raw vinegar.  Make your own apple cider vinegar

3.  If using your own garlic or purchasing whole cloves, separate the cloves and remove the "skin".  You can also buy separated cloves, sans skins in many grocery stores that you can use.

4.  Slice 2 or 3 hot peppers and place in the jar, if you like garlic with a kick.

5.  Fill the rest of the jar with garlic cloves to an inch or so below the mouth of the jar.

6.  Fill the jar with vinegar.

7.  Put the jar in the frig.

8.  Use cloves any time a recipe calls for it!

When picking garlic to plant, I look for types that have large cloves and say "easy to peel" in the description.  Of the garlic I have tried, hardback garlic has the biggest cloves and a thick skin, making them the fastest and easiest to peel. 

How to choose garlic to grow  

I save the biggest and easiest to peel cloves from each harvest to save for planting my next crop.  I plant in October or early November for our Zone 7.  
Time to plant garlic, shallots and perennial onions!

What to plant in the October garden

Fall edible garden

 Saturday, October 10, 2026 

October's favorite to plant is garlic.  But it's not the only edible or ornamental that you can plant.  There are many cool season loving crops that can transplanted as well as perennials, fruit trees and bushes.  Cover can be used to extend the edible harvest all the way through to spring.  

What is a four season garden?
You can garden year round in small space
Planning for a four season garden

This month you can transplant more greens, any perennial veggies, fruits, and herbs as well as flowers, trees and shrubs.   Midwest Perennial Vegetable Garden   Greens can still be sown by seed if you have a cold frame or a portable greenhouse cover.  Sow the seeds, then after sprouting and developing a couple of sets of leaves, you can put a cover over them at night to keep them warm and growing faster.  You want your plants to be as close to full size by mid November as you can get!  That's when the daylight hours get less than 10 hours and growth outdoors pretty much slows to a crawl.

Here are the crops you can start in the October Midwest edible garden:

October seeds outdoors
Austrian winter peas

Fava beans

Garlic

Lettuce-winter hardy varieties

Snow peas

Spring bulbs

October transplants
Arugula

Broccoli
Brussel sprouts

Cabbage

Cauliflower

Celery
Corn salad

Endive
Escarole

Frisee
Italian dandelion

Kale

Kohlrabi
Lettuce
Mache
Mustard and Mustard Greens

Winter and Perennial Onions

Parsley

Scallions

Shallots

Sorrel
Spinach

Sprouting broccoli

Trees, bushes, and perennials

Transplants for winter and overwintering

Look for cold hardy edible varieties when planting for fall and winter harvests.  You may be surprised that you can harvest all through the winter months things like greens, onions, Austrian peas, carrots, and cabbage.  You can also extend the harvest by looking for the same crop with different days to harvest timing so that they mature at different times.  

Covering plants when there is a cold snap in the fall will keep them warmer and growing quicker.  You can use cover to possibly extend the harvest all the way to next spring.  I use a portable greenhouse for my lettuces that works great.  Extend the season with protection for plants  Homegrown, organic salads in a Midwest winter

When planting when temperatures can get hot, be sure to keep the soil moist until the plants are well established.  Lettuce won't sprout when the ground temperatures are above 75F.  If it is too hot in your garden, you can start them indoors.  My lettuce seedlings are starting to get their first set of true leaves.  I'll likely transplant them in another week or two in their winter pot.  

Summer and fall planted crops take longer to come to harvest than they do when planted in the spring.  Rule of thumb is to add 2 weeks to what the "Days to Harvest" on the seed packet.  It's because the days are getting shorter rather than longer and cooler rather than warmer.  

Once there are less than 10 hours of daylight, most plants growth will slow to a crawl.  This occurs at our latitude on November 24 this year.  We get back to more than 10 hours of daylight on January 17.  Once we get back to 10 hours of daylight, plants come to life and start growing quickly again.

What you want to do is to start your seeds and transplants early enough in late summer and fall so that the plant is at full size before daylight gets short and the cold really sets in.  Then you harvest what you want through the winter.

A great and easy way to start your fall garden is to sow the seeds in a pot on a covered deck or patio.  This makes it easy to keep an eye on the seedlings and protects them from the hot sun and frosts.  After they have a couple of sets of their true leaves, you can transplant into the garden bed or pot.  Harden them off first by moving the pot to full sun before transplanting.  "Hardening off" seedlings  After transplanting into the garden, keep them watered regularly during dry weather until well established.

For more seed starting tips Outdoor seed starting tips  Indoor seed starting tips  Ideal soil temperatures for starting your seeds

You can also get fall transplants on-line and sometimes at local nurseries.  So if you haven't started seeds yet or don't have the time, this is another great option to have a fall and winter garden for fresh eating.  They are selling out quick!

I will be transplanting blackberry bushes again this fall.  Any perennial, including fruit bushes or trees, can be transplanted or planted in the fall.  It gives them all winter to establish a strong root system to thrive next year.  Out of the 12 I transplanted last fall, only 1 didn't make it to spring.

Time to plant garlic, shallots and perennial onions!

 

Perennial onions

Sunday, October 4, 2026

There are many perennial alliums.  Alliums include garlic, chives, leeks, and onions.  Fall is the time to plant perennial alliums like potato onions, walking onions, shallots and garlic.  

Garlic, leeks, shallots and onions will continue coming back year after year unless you pull them.  If they are not big enough the first year, leave them and they will come back bigger the following year.  For the biggest onions and cloves, fall is the best time to plant.  You can plant in the spring but your garlic cloves will be much smaller and your shallots and onions will have many fewer and smaller bulbs.

There are also Egyptian walking onions, potato onions, and shallots which are considered “multiplier” onions.  They continue spreading out from the single bulb you plant.  As long as you leave a few bulbs behind, they will come back the following year.  Egyptian walking onions are usually pulled and used fresh, but they can be conditioned for a couple of weeks and stored for months like potato onions.  Egyptian walking onions  

If you grow garlic, you will likely find that the following year you have garlic sprouting again even after harvesting the bulbs.  Many garlic bulbs will have little “bulbils” that become detached from the bigger bulb when you pull them.  These babies come back up the next spring.  I also had many bulbils from my hardneck garlic flower tops.  

These look like seeds but they are actually clones of the mother plant.   

I planted them last fall and they were just little guys this year.  I'll leave them in the ground to continue growing.  It'll likely take at least 2 years for them to get large enough to harvest.  From the bulbs I harvested this summer, I will take the biggest cloves and plant those for next year's harvest.

Time to plant garlic! With growing tips......

I choose to grow hardback garlic because the cloves tend to be larger and the skins are stiffer, making them much easier to peel than soft neck.  Also with hardneck, you get the pretty purple flower and the bulbets after flowering.  There are probably 50 baby cloves in the top so you can really expand your garlic quickly and economically with hardneck garlic.  If you love scapes or braiding your cloves together, softneck is the way to go.

How to choose garlic to grow

In my Zone 7a, here is the recommendation on fall planting times:

September through October plant Egyptian walking onions

Mid-October until mid-December plant garlic, potato onions, overwintering onions and shallots

Plant about 1" deep in soil rich with organic matter and well-drained, 6" apart for individual cloves or bulbs.  I already added the phosphorous and potassium my soil test said to add this spring so I will put a handful of blood meal for nitrogen under each bulb at planting.  If you haven't done a soil test, you can add a balanced fertilizer in each hole as you plant.  In the spring, continue to side dress with nitrogen every 2-3 weeks when growing resumes.  If using blood meal, use 1 cup per 10 feet of planting.  Alliums prefer a soil pH of 6.5-7.  I usually just dig a trench, put blood meal in the bottom, fill in a bit of the soil and then plant the clove.

I have issues with voles in my garden in the past.  They are supposed to be repelled by blood so I am going to use blood meal as my nitrogen source when planting to see if that helps.  I planted daffodils and creeping thyme all around my beds to deter them and it seems to be working.

To protect against a severe winter freeze, apply a few inches of mulch over the bed.

I ordered potato onions from Southern Exposure a couple of summers ago and planted that fall.  Since they did not grow much, I did not dig and divide them.  I did not see any sprouts from them this year.  I'll dig them up to see if they are still in the ground and move them since this spot is not working well for them.  The Dutch Red Shallots they substituted for half of the potato onions did pretty well so I dug them, divided  them and replanted last fall.  I think I'll just let them go another year before dividing again.  If I need shallots, I can dig them any time.  If shallots are happy in the bed, you should get 4-12 shallots from each bulb come spring.  Potato onions increase by 3-8 fold in weight from fall to spring, but mine were very small when I planted them last fall and did not do much.  

There is a risk if there is a really hard winter that you can lose many or all of your fall planted potato onions and shallots.  Using mulch can help protect against the loss.  Southern Exposure recommends planting the biggest bulbs in the fall and saving the smallest bulbs to plant in the spring as an insurance policy.

In our Zone 7a, I have not had an issue with an extreme winter killing my bulbs, but I do use mulch in all my gardening beds.

I wanted potato onions since they multiple underground and have a long storage life.  I'm guessing that it will take a couple of years to get the potato onions really going so that between them and the Egyptian walking onions, I should not have to buy cooking onions any longer.  

Sweet onions do not store for long so I will still buy one of those every month or two for burgers.  I did also order sweet Egyptian walking onions that I planted last year in a pot and this year they really got going.  They'll be an experiment to see if I can substitute them for sweet bulb onions for burgers.  It's fun to try new things in the garden!

I have many, many bulblets from my existing Egyptian walking onions that I have been giving away to other gardeners.  These walking onions have the taste of a white onion.  Each bulblet with produce a full size Egyptian walking onion bulb (about the size of a leek if planted in a pot) if planted individually so they have room to grow.  The ones I planted in our local Demonstration Garden raised bed got the size of a normal onion.  You can plant them 4-6" apart.  

For more on growing onions,  

Onions-everything you need to know to grow 'em

Alliums are very nutritious, easy to grow, and tasty.  Try some in your garden this year!