Start planting now for fall and winter harvests

Sunday, August 16, 2026

The great thing about fall and winter edible garden is little to no pests!  The insects die off in fall so your harvests are safe from pest destruction.  Once you have spent the effort to get the plants established and cool weather is here, fall and winter gardening is very low maintenance.  As it gets cooler, veggies will get sweeter too.

For more on how to choose varieties to grow, starting seeds and transplanting, see this post.  Time to plant for fall and winter harvests!   Add 2 weeks to the seed packet time to harvest as fall growing is slower than spring.  You're targeting for your edibles to be full size by early November before daylight hours dwindle to less than 10.  The winter slow down  

 

Look at the germination temperatures of the cool season crops you are starting from seed as some will not germinate well in the hot summer temperatures and you may have better luck starting them in shade or indoors.  Lettuce is one that germinates best at temperatures below 70F.  I like to start my seeds in pots in the shade on our north covered patio.  It gets morning sun but is shaded all afternoon.  Being on the patio lets me keep a close eye on them, too.  After they sprout and are a good size, I move into their permanent spot.

 

Here is a by month schedule of what to plant for fall and winter harvests in a Midwest garden. 

 

June

Seeds-Parsnips, potatoes 

 

July

Seeds-Beets, carrots, Asian greens (pak choi, tat-soi), cilantro, collard greens, endive, escarole, frisee, fennel, green beans, kale, kohlrabi, leeks, mustard, onions, parsnips, rutabaga, scallions, lettuce, sweet corn, turnips, turnip greens, and Swiss chard.  

Transplants-broccoli, Brussel sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, Chinese cabbage, Bibb lettuce.

 

August

Seeds-Beets, carrots, greens (arugula, Chinese cabbage, collard greens, corn salad, kale, lettuce, miner’s lettuce, spinach, mustard, endive, turnip greens), fava beans, green beans, herbs, kohlrabi, onions, snap peas, scallions, snow peas, rutabaga, winter and summer radishes, and turnips.  Early August is last chance for cucumbers, squash, and corn.

Transplants-Asian greens, broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, Chinese cabbage, endive, kale, lettuce.  

 

September

Seeds-hardy lettuce and greens, kale, collards, turnips, radishes, kohlrabi, spinach, Asian greens, scallions, carrots, and winter radishes.  Quick maturing peas, favas, and bush beans at beginning of the month. 

Transplants-hardy lettuces, spinach, collards, broccoli, all perennials, trees, shrubs, greens, spinach

Greens in a portable greenhouse

October

Seeds-more spinach, kale, traditional southern and Asian greens, carrots, winter radishes, beets, short day onions if overwintering, peas, perennial onions, garlic and shallots.  In our Zone 7 garden, garlic and shallots can be planted into November.  Order your favorite garlic early as many sell out quick.  Time to plant garlic! With growing tips......

 

If you don’t want to start seeds, have waited too long for seed starting or just want to see what varieties do well in your area, some big box stores and local nurseries will have fall planting veggies.   If none in your area do, there are many mail order seed companies that carry fall bedding plants.

 

  Late August, early September is the best time to get transplants into the garden for fall and winter harvests.  Don't forget to fertilize when planting like you would in the spring.  Keep your transplants watered for them to get established until the fall rains start.

 

Extend the harvest by covering when the first frosts and freezes come to those crops that don’t overwinter without cover.  I grow all my greens and lettuce in pots that I cover around Thanksgiving when it gets consistently down in the 20’s.  I’ll still have lettuce and greens growing in the spring.

What's happening in the mid August edible garden

Saturday, August 15, 2025

August sees the full swing of the summer, warm season garden harvests.  Late sweet corn (plant corn in succession and different varieties to lengthen the harvest), summer squashes (like zucchini), peppers of all types (sweet to hot, hot), tomatoes, Mediterranean herbs, cucumbers, okra, apples, peaches, pears, grapes, beans, melons, figs, eggplant, honey, artichokes, huckleberries, blueberries, raspberries, onion, and fennel are all in season in the Midwest.  

If you are not growing these in your own garden, your local farmers market is a great place to pick up these seasonal veggies to either eat or preserve.  The best buy and taste on any fruit or vegetable is when it is in season.  You can get even better deals on any produce that has a few blemishes which have no effect on the flavor.  If you are going to can, freeze or dry them, just be sure to remove any blemishes first.  The easy preservation garden

I pick what to have in our garden based on the harvest per foot of garden space needed.  Our garden is incorporated into the flower garden mulch bed and in pots so we have to be choiceful on what to grow.  Grow what you love to eat, too.  It won't be a lot of fun to have a bumper crop of veggies you don't really like.  How to decide what to plant for small spaces?

In pots, we have great luck with Egyptian walking onions (which can be harvested year round), peppers, eggplant, greens, sweet bay, bush cucumber, pole beans, greens, tomatoes, herbs and celery.

I do use vertical space for the green beans and cucumbers, growing pole types on trellises whether grown in the garden or in a pot.  You can also use trellises for squash or grow bush types that stay compact.

So, what is doing not so well in the garden this summer?  The record heat we are having is hard on many edibles.  Right now, the tomatoes are having a hard time developing fruits.  When temperatures stay above 85F, their flower pollen is sterile in most varieties.  We had temperatures go down into the 80's a couple of weeks ago so we are getting some ripe tomatoes now, but with it being back in the 90's for another couple weeks, the harvest will likely drop back down again.

The last couple of years, I planted a second crop of tomatoes in mid June.  I planted some more a couple of weeks ago this year but they haven't grown at all.  Again I think it is because of the crazy heat we have been having.  I planted a few Brandwine and Mortgage Lifter plants.

Tomatoes 101, How to Grow Great Tomatoes

My yard long bean vines have just taken off in the last couple of weeks.  I have started getting yard long beans to freeze.  Yard Long beans are much more productive than typical snap beans so I switched to them a couple of years ago.  I did try another variety of yard long bean this year but it is just sitting there while the Chinese Red Noodle is motoring right along.  I do also have Christmas Speckles lima bean vine and 1500 Year Old Cave bean vines growing.  I have gotten a few pods from Christmas Speckles but none from the Cave Bean vine.  

Growing beans 101

The Trombetta squash I planted in the garden bed is about 15' long and has just begun making fruits.  I have harvested a couple so far.  I had planted another variety of summer squash vine but it died.  My melon vines are looking very healthy and I have a large melon that should be ready to pick in a couple of days.  The other vining crop, cucumber is doing pretty well.  I have 4 different kinds growing to see which does best against disease and in our heat.  I have more cucumbers than I can eat or pickle at the moment.

Growing squash 101     Growing melons 101  Growing cucumbers 101

Newly sprouted zucchini, ready to be transplanted

Have many sweet and hot peppers and cucumbers and okra. I tried Heavy Hitter okra for a second time.  The first time I didn't get much off of it.  This time, it is producing heavily!  Have had a few fruits from the eggplants and the plants are getting to a good size.  

Most of my pepper plants look nice and green.  I do have a couple t hat are on the yellow side.  I added more fertilizer and minerals with Azomite to see if that helps them.  My sweet peppers are flowering and have had fruits for the last month.  Peppers will produce all the way until there is a hard freeze.  It seems their best month is September.  They love warm days, cool nights and lower humidity.  I grow the sweet peppers to snack on and freeze for football salsa.  I had plenty of chili powder left so I am not growing Anaheims this year.  

Growing peppers 101

The flea beetles are having their usual summer feast with my eggplants but it seems less than in past years.  They love to eat holes in the plant's leaves.  They don't eat the fruits, but with the damage to the leaves can reduce the plants ability to produce fruits if it gets too bad.  We have purple and green varieties this year.  Err on the side of picking early versus late.  Leaving the fruits on too long makes the skins taste on the bitter side.  You want to pick when the skin is glossy.

Growing eggplant 101

Beans on trellis in garden bed

The first round of lettuce, sweet mustard and spinach bolted long ago.  I left them to go to seed.  I have many volunteer sweet mustard and lettuce plants coming up.  Greens are heavy nitrogen users.  I make sure to fertilize them monthly.  I grow most of my greens in pots.  Pots need to be fertilized about twice as often as garden beds.  I always use natural organic fertilizers like Espoma or for an extra boost of nitrogen, blood meal, bat guana or liquid fish fertilizer.

Summer Edible Gardening Tips

A quick reminder, save the seeds from your best performers to plant next year!  You can replant seeds from any heirlooms or open pollinated plants.  What do the terms GMO, natural, heirloom, organic, hybrid really mean?  Not only does it save you money, but it also gives you the plants that do the best under your garden and zone conditions.  Only save seeds from your best fruits and only from disease free plants.  My top 10 seed saving tips

The easy preservation garden

 

Sunday, August 9, 2026

If you are interested in being more self-sufficient, to have nutritious food at the ready, reduce your food bill or just want to save the extras from the garden this year, there are simple ways to preserve many different crops from the garden: freezing Freezing the extras for winter, drying Dehydrate or sun dry your extra veggies, canning Easy, low tox canning of summer's bounty, and pickling.

I only do canning of high acid vegetables like tomatoes or pickling so only a large pot is needed.  If you decide to can low acid vegetables, then a high pressure canner is needed.  Sites & resources for canning

Crops that are easy to put away for year round eating:

Beets, Basil, Broccoli, Cabbage, Carrots, Cucumbers, Eggplant, Garlic, Green Beans, Greens, Herbs, Onions, Peas and Snow Peas, Peppers, Tomatoes and Squash.

The easiest to start with are herbs.  They thrive under neglect and are very drought and heat tolerant.  Spices are very expensive in the store.  Herbs are carefree and produce alot that can be dried or frozen to use year round.  My 2 favorites are making pesto from basil (Basil basics-harvesting, preserving, growing basil) and using a variety of dried herbs to make “Herbes De Provence” (Make your own "Herbes de Provence") that I add to almost every dish!  Since most herbs are from the Mediterranean region, they thrive in mediocre soil and dry conditions.  Start a kitchen herb garden!

For spring and fall planting for a preservation garden: 

Beets, broccoli, cabbage, carrots, garlic, greens, cool season herbs like cilantro and parsley, onions, peas, potatoes and snow peas.

Beets, broccoli, cabbage, carrots, greens, and snow peas should be blanched and then frozen.  Blanching stops the degradation of the vegetable in the freezer, increasing the shelf life to months.  Blanching simply means putting into boiling water and then immediately into ice water or very cold water to stop the cooking of the vegetable.  For the bigger veggies, 3 minutes in boiling water is sufficient.  For greens, just a couple of minutes.  After blanching, remove the excess water.  I like to then put on a cookie sheet in the freezer in a single layer.  After freezing, I scoop them into freezer bags.  This way your veggies will defrost quicker and you can remove only what you want to use for that meal.  If just put directly into the freezer bag, they will all freeze together in one big block.

You can also dry any vegetable, store in a sealed jar, and rehydrate when needed for cooking.  The trick is to make sure that they are dried enough that they will not mold.  If in doubt, your dried produce can be stored in the frig or freezer, taking up much less room than the whole vegetable.

I also like to grow sprouting broccoli as it can be harvested from for 8 months of the year.  Carrots and onions can be left in the ground over the winter and pulled when needed.  My favorite onion to grow is Egyptian walking onion.  It produces a small bulb that is just the right size for using for one meal.  It can be grown in a pot, too, and harvested year round.  Egyptian walking onions

Garlic is planted in the fall and harvested in mid summer.  There are 3 ways I preserve garlic.  One is to harden off and keep several garlic bulbs to use fresh.  The second is to separate the cloves and put into vinegar with peppers.  I store these jars in the refrigerator.  This preserves the garlic and adds a little kick.  The third is to dry some garlic cloves to make garlic powder.  Quick tip-make dried garlic into garlic powder

Preserving the garden's bounty

For summer planting of a preservation garden: 

Corn, cucumbers, eggplant, green beans, warm season herbs like basil and rosemary, peppers, squash.

I don't blanch my summer vegetables before freezing.  If you want to keep them in the freezer longer than 4-6 months, blanching is the best way to go.  For small peppers, I freeze them whole. Peppers a Plenty in September  Large peppers and all tomatoes, I slice and freeze.   As the tomato harvest heats up, any that we can't eat, I freeze.  Come fall when it cools off, I will take all of last year's frozen tomatoes and make into sauce.  A few tomato plants give us enough to freeze and make sauce for the coming year.  Preserving the tomato harvest 

  For peppers, I also make hot sauce Quick tip-make your own hot sauce and dry them to make chili powders and seasoned salt.

For squash, I like to freeze them whole.  When I am ready to eat them, I slice them while frozen and grill.  If you are going to use them in recipes, I would cut them into the size you want to use in your recipes, blanch and freeze.  I also make spaghetti and lasagna noodles from extra zucchini, blanch them and freeze them in quart bags.  For the lasagna noodles, first lay them flat on a cookie sheet to freeze before putting into a freezer bag.  What to do with all that zucchini?!   

For eggplant, I make baba ganoush and freeze.  It is a tasty dip.

Green beans, I break into the size I will use in my recipes and freeze.  Cucumbers I make into pickles and relish.  Make your own pickles without a store bought seasoning mix  For corn, the easiest way to store is just blanching the whole ear of corn.  After removing the silks, you can either freeze whole or slice off the cob and freeze the kernels.

All your summer vegetables can be dried as well.  Dehydrate or sun dry your extra veggies

Now you are ready to eat fresh and preserve the extras to get you through to next year's garden!

My top 10 seed saving tips

Seeds from heirloom tomato bought in store

Saturday, August 8, 2026

Saving seeds has been the foundation of farming since it began thousands of years ago.  Seed saving is easy and saves you money.  Always save the seed from the best vegetable you grew! Or the tastiest you buy at the farmers market or store.

 

1.  Pick the fruit or plant that has the characteristics you want to grow again.  The one that was the biggest or had the best taste or produced the most or produced the longest or gave you harvests the earliest or was the most drought or pest resistant.  Whatever characteristic that you want to have in your garden next year is the plant's seeds you want to save from this year. 

2.  One caveat, you cannot get "true to parent" plants from hybrids or cultivars.  If they grow, they will often be totally different than the parent or could get weaker with each generation.  You need “open pollinated” or heirloom vegetables for the seed to for sure produce a baby like the parent.  You can always save seed from hybrids to try as an experiment, but don't be surprised if it is very different from the parent plant.  

3.  Some plants “cross pollinate” with others like it if close to each other.  Others rarely do.  The ones that do not are called “self-pollinating”, ie, they pollinate themselves.  Examples of cross pollinators are zucchini, pumpkins, and zinnias.  If you want to save seeds from them, you’ll have to either grow only one variety or plant them a mile apart and hope your neighbors aren’t growing them, too!

    4.     It doesn't cost a thing to save seeds from store bought veggies or fruits you like and you can end up with some great plants for your garden!  To be sure that the seeds you save will come back true to the parent, heirloom is a sure bet.  One of my favorite paste tomatoes is one I saved the seed from a tomato bought from the store.

  5.     Do not save seeds from any diseased plant as the disease can be in the seed itself and passed to the new plant.  You wouldn't want to save seed from a plant that is susceptible to disease any way.  You want to save seeds from plants that thrive in your garden conditions.  

    6.     For garlic, you save the best, biggest cloves.  You divide up the garlic head into individual cloves and plant them in the fall when it cools off.  Typically, sometime in October or November.  Most store bought garlic has been treated to prevent them from sprouting so you may or may not have luck using the ones from the grocery store.  Organic garlic is not treated. Your farmers market is also a great place to get garlic well suited for your area.

     7.  In our garden, seeds can be saved from tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, zucchini, lettuce, broccoli, cilantro, dill, celery, borage, salad burnet, garlic, okra, Egyptian walking onions (bulblets), and basil.  I have many zinnia, amaranth, garlic chives, celosia, and basil "volunteers" in the garden every year from seeds dropped by the plant last fall.

   8.  For peppers, squash and tomatoes, just scoop out the seeds, lay them on a paper towel on a plate and let them dry completely.  Some suggest for tomato seed to put them in water and let them ferment a bit.  The ones that sink are the ones you want to keep for planting, not the ones that float.  After drying, I put in plastic baggies and keep in the frig to prolong seed life.  Don't forget to label the variety and date saved.

I have finally found/grown two kinds of sweet peppers that produce well.  I'll keep saving the seed and growing them out.  They are now a mainstay for my garden.  This year I had great luck with California bell peppers so I will try these again next season. 

 9.   Many greens, like chard, parsley, lettuce, broccoli, will shoot a large stalk up then flower.  This is called "bolting."  The easiest thing to do is to let the seeds form, cut the stalk, then put the stalks with seed heads attached into a paper bag.  Let them dry thoroughly, then shake the seeds out.  Some may require that you roll the seed heads between your fingers to free the seed.  

You can actually re-sow seeds from cool season crops like lettuce, cilantro, parsley, chard, chives and get a second fall/winter harvest!  I re-sow seeding about every other week starting the first of September.  In about two weeks, you will have sprouting greens.  When they have grown a bit more, I will separate and transplant into pots and the garden.  I like starting seeds in long narrow pots what are self-watering to be able to move easily to the best growing conditions.  Can also move under the portable greenhouse when it gets cold.

 10.   I put my dried seeds in labelled ziplock bags and store them in the refrigerator, include the seed type, descriptor and date.  A picture of the plant can be helpful to remember the plant the seed belongs to.  Fun gift to give, too.  You can use any sealed container to save seeds.  The seeds last for years this way! 

Last year, I have saved seeds from the best tasting butternut squash I have grown ever, Giant Blue Feather lettuce, Egyptian walking onions, garlic, orange Cactus and California Giant zinnias, cockscomb, Turkish Orange and Antigua eggplant, my bushiest sweet basil and Cardinal basil, Purple Yard Long and Blauhilde pole beans, Christmas Speckles lima beans, many different types of squash and Jigsaw pepper seeds.  I left my celery, Red Malabar spinach, celosias, and some Giant Blue Feather lettuce plants go to seed for volunteers in the spring.

 

For more information on gardening, see these blogs:

What do the terms GMO, natural, heirloom, organic, hybrid really mean?

October is prime time to plant garlic

Try self-seeding veggies and flowers

Tomatoes 101, everything you need to know to grow ...
Growing zucchini and summer squash
Warm joys of winter squash

 Peppers are for every taste and garden

Ideal soil temperatures for starting your seeds
Outdoor seed starting tips

What we're harvesting in the early August garden

 

Sunday, August 2, 2026

August sees the full swing of the summer, warm season garden harvests.  Late sweet corn (plant corn in succession and different varieties to lengthen the harvest), summer squashes (like zucchini), peppers of all types (sweet to hot, hot), tomatoes, Mediterranean herbs, cucumbers, okra, apples, pears, grapes, beans, melons, figs, eggplant, honey, artichokes, blackberries, blueberries, raspberries, onion, and fennel are all in season in the Midwest.  

It has been crazy hot again this summer with a good deal of surprise thunderstorms.  Right now, I am harvesting cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers, herbs, greens, lettuce, Egyptian walking onions, eggplant, goji berry, yard long beans, raspberries, husk cherries, annual huckleberries, and tamarillos.  

If you are not growing these in your own garden, your local farmers market is a great place to pick up these seasonal veggies to either eat or preserve.  The best buy on any fruit or vegetable is when it is in season.  You can get even better deals on any produce that has a few blemishes which have no effect on the flavor.  If you are going to can, freeze or dry them, just be sure to remove any blemishes first.

I pick what to have in our garden based on the harvest per foot of garden space needed.  Our garden is incorporated into the flower garden mulched bed and in pots so we have to be choiceful on what to grow.

In pots, we have had great luck with Egyptian walking onions (which can be harvested year round), peppers, eggplant, cucumber, greens, moringa, sweet bay, huckleberries, tamarillos and celery.

I have tried sweet and hot peppers in pots and the garden.  Overall, they seem to do the best in pots.  I am growing a few hot peppers-2 pequin types (red and orange), an ornamental small purple pepper with variegated foliage and Bakhoulti.  I’ll use the tiny peppers and the purple peppers in my season salt I make and the Bakhoulti for hot sauce and salsa.  

Preserving peppers

My sweet peppers are doing well.  I  have gotten many peppers off my Doe Hill and a few off my Tricked You Jalapeño and a maroon meaty sweet pepper from saved seed.

Peppers are for every taste and garden

The yellow crookneck summer squash in a pot died earlier.  It did well in the pot previously.  May have been vine borer.  It's best to wait until mid June to plant summer squash to avoid it.  I'm still waiting on the trombetta to start producing.  Eggplant is producing plenty to make up for it.

Growing zucchini and summer squash

What to do with all that zucchini?!

The tomatoes are really slow going, but we are getting all we want to eat fresh.  The Better Boy in a pot produced well for June and July but has slowed now.  Cherokee Purple, California Tulip and Chocolate Pear in the ground have all produced a few ripe tomatoes.  Mannon's Majesty is loaded but none close to ripe.  The Brandywines have a few small ones on it.

Choosing which tomatoes to grow

 

Okra just really kicked in this week.  I tried Heavy Hitter again and it is pumping out the fruits.

Everything you need to know to grow okra, in the garden or pot

I grow all of our herbs in the ground except sweet bay.  Sweet bay is a tender perennial and will not survive winters outside so I keep it in a pot to bring in each fall.    I had one last year that was supposed to be hardy in our zone and it didn’t make it.  I put my new ones in pots and will overwinter them in our unheated garage this winter.  Fall is a good time to plant perennial herbs.

Midwest Perennial Vegetable Garden

Rosemary is also tender.  I have tried the two varieties that are supposed to be able to survive a Midwest winter and finally had one survive this year.  I have tried to also keep in a pot and bring in each winter, but have not had good luck with this approach, but many do.  So, this is an herb I will buy each spring if overwintering does not work out, plant in the garden, then preserve for the winter by harvesting late in the season and drying.

Harvest and preserve your herbs

Make your own "Herbes de Provence"

Doing well on small fruits this year!  Will grow the same next year except for the annual huckleberries.  They are small and messy to pick but they do produce quite a bit in pots. 

Backyard fruit that can be grown organically

A quick reminder, save the seeds from your best performers to plant next year.  You can replant seeds from any heirlooms or open pollinated plants.  Not only does it save you money, but it also gives you the plants that do the best under your garden and zone conditions.

Seed saving-fun, easy and a cost saver