Skip to playerSkip to main content
Sidney Explains
  • 2 months ago
Boost your fall planting success with these 15 resilient crops. Learn which varieties thrive in cooler temperatures today.



⚠️ Visual source note:
This video may include a mix of original footage, custom visuals, stock media, public-domain material, and occasional brief third-party visual clips used only to support original commentary, instruction, and educational storytelling. All narration, editing, music, and overall presentation are original to this channel.
Transcript
00:00That empty bed in September is not the garden shutting down. It is the one window where cold
00:05does the work and you get paid in March. Garlic you push in in October does not even look alive
00:10until spring, then it comes up as a whole bulb. Spinach you sow in September can sit under snow
00:16and still be salad when the grocery clamshell is four dollars. Today I am going to show you 15
00:21crops you plant in fall on purpose. Which end of the clove points up why grocery garlic often sits
00:27there like a rock, the frost trick that turns kale into a different vegetable, the onion that plants
00:32itself by falling over, and the one crown you plant once and pick for 15 years. By the end of
00:37this you
00:38will know what goes in the ground in September, what waits until October, and which ones come back
00:42so you stop buying them. I have run garlic through Canadian winters. When the snow melts, the bed that
00:47looked dead is the one that pays. Warm soil, cold air, roots still grow while the tops it's quiet.
00:54A freeze does not kill these. On several of them, a freeze is the whole point. Number one is garlic,
01:00and this is the crop people pretend is complicated. It is a clove in dirt with one cold rule.
01:07Hard neck garlic needs a winter, not a chilly night. A stretch of soil around freezing, roughly four to
01:14eight weeks below about 40 degrees Fahrenheit. Or the clove can come up as a single round instead of a
01:19proper bulb. That cold clock is called vernalization. You are not being fancy, you are telling the plant
01:25it survived winter so it is allowed to split. Do not plant the grocery bulb and expect a miracle.
01:30A lot of supermarket garlic is stored warm, or treated so it will not sprout on the shelf. If a
01:36clove is
01:37rock hard, slightly green at the tips from a farm stand, or sold as seed, plant it. If it is
01:42a sad mesh
01:43bag that has been under supermarket lights for a month, cook it. Split the bulb the day you plant,
01:48skins on. Pointy end up, basil plate down. Two inches of soil over the tip, four to six inches apart.
01:54October, once nights are cold and you can still push a trowel. Mulch after the ground chills,
02:00leaves or straw. That is a winter coat, not a heated blanket. A green spike in November is fine.
02:06Snow is extra mulch. You harvest the following July when the lower leaves brown. Hard necks throw a
02:12bonus scape in June you can cut and eat. One bed. Zero watering all winter. You stop paying two dollars
02:18a bulb. Number two is shallots. Same ocean, different math. You plant one set. The next summer
02:25you dig a cluster. That is the whole secret. Pointy up, an inch or two deep, about six inches apart,
02:31same October window as garlic. Grocery shallots are the same gamble as grocery garlic. Seed sets,
02:36or hard farm stand bulb. Soft, sprouted in the bag, produce aisle shallots go in the pan.
02:43Let the cluster dry in shade after you lift it, or it stores like wet socks. Fall planted shallots
02:49look like you forgot a bed. Then they multiply. Number three is Egyptian walking onions. The ones
02:54with little bulbs on the stalk. Those top sets get heavy, the stalk keels over, and they root where
02:59they land. That is the walk. Plant bulbils in September, about an inch deep, six inches apart,
03:04and they spend winter making roots instead of drama. You get green onion tops in cool weather,
03:10a bottom bulb if you want it, and a new generation of sets you can move or eat. Plant them
03:15once in a
03:15corner and you have onion flavor in fall, and again in spring without buying a rubber-banded bunch that
03:21goes slime in the crisper. They look weedy. That is why the idea never spreads down the street.
03:26Number four is spinach, and this is the one that makes people think you cheated. Spinach is a long day
03:32plant. Spring spinach hits lengthening days and tries to flower. Fall spinach hits shortening days
03:37and stays leaf. Sow it in September, not in May. Half inch deep, a couple inches apart, thin to three
03:44or four. Warm September dirt pops it in days if you keep the surface from crusting. Then you stop fussing.
03:50A light frost does not kill it. A blanket of snow is insulation, not a death sentence. You pick a
03:56fall salad
03:56in October, the plants sit, and you pick again on winter thaws and hard in March before any spring
04:01packet is in the ground. Brutal winter, a clear storage bin, or a cheap low tunnel over a row.
04:07You are blocking wind, not building a greenhouse. A packet is a few dollars. A January clamshell is four.
04:13The bed that looks empty under snow is not empty. Number five is kale, and frost is not the enemy.
04:19Frost is the recipe. The plant starts or so in September while the soil is still warm. Then
04:25you wait for real cold on purpose. The plant converts some of the starches in the leaf to sugars,
04:30so ice is less likely to shred the cells. You taste that as sweetness. Summer kale is
04:35cabbage adjacent and a little bitter. After a few genuine frosts, it tastes like a different vegetable.
04:40Pick outer leaves. Leave the growing point in the middle if you want it to keep throwing through
04:44winter. In a lot of places, the stalk sits looking half dead and then pushes new growth in spring.
04:49Do not put it on a heat mat. You want the cold. That is the trick.
04:53Number six is collards, and they are not just wide kale.
04:57Collards take colder nights than most kale types, and they can look collapsed at dawn,
05:01then stand back up when the sun hits. That wilt is water, leaving the cells,
05:05so ice does not blow them apart. By afternoon, they are food again.
05:08Plant them as sturdy starts in September, so they are big before the dark months.
05:12Same frost sugar idea as kale, but the leaf is thicker, and it keeps coming after kale has had enough.
05:17If you only have room for one brassica in a windy yard, this is the one that still looks like
05:22dinner
05:23in December. If this is the kind of quiet fall trick that pays you in March, hit subscribe.
05:29And if you want the one-page calendar for these 15, what goes in in September versus October,
05:34plus the spacing I actually use that is on the membership.
05:37Number seven is mache, corn salad. The green the seed rack does not shout about. It germinates in soil that
05:43would make lettuce sulk, down in that cool 40 degree range. Direct sow in September. It hates
05:48being transplanted, which is why people fail it once and never buy the packet again. Shallow,
05:53keep the surface barely moist until it is up, then leave it. Low rosettes, no trellis, no feeding
05:58schedule. You pick it in November when the garden looks like sticks, and if your plants allowed to
06:02seed will volunteer the next fall so you stop buying the packet. It never looks like a project,
06:06it just shows up. That is a real secret crop.
06:10Number eight is claytonia, miner's lettuce. Round leaves on tender stems, cool shade,
06:15slightly damp soil. Sow it in September in the spot that stays wetter than you wanted. It keeps
06:20putting out salad when almost nothing else is tender, and if you let it drop seed, it comes back
06:25like it pays rent. Goldrush miners actually ate it because it was what was alive on cold ground.
06:30You are not foraging a mountain. You are tucking a pinch of seed along a fence. People walk past it
06:34because it does not look planted. That is why it works.
06:37Number nine is carrots with an honest clock. This is not an October clove. Carrots need time to bulk
06:43before the ground locks. In a Canadian fall, that means seed in the ground in early September,
06:47not after the soil goes cold in October. Sow shallow, keep evenly moist until they germinate,
06:53then thin like you mean it. Crowded carrots are hairy pencils.
06:57Here is the part that is not on the seed packet. Once they are sized up, you can leave them
07:01in the ground
07:01under a thick mulch and dig them in thaws. Cold turns some of the root starch to sugar,
07:06so a January carrot can beat a July one. If the core freezes solid with no mulch, they go to
07:11mush.
07:12Mulch is not decoration. It is the difference between a living root cellar and orange soup.
07:16If you are already inside two weeks of the ground freezing, skip carrots and plant spinach there
07:20instead. Number ten is fava beans, and I am not going to lie to a prairie winter. On a mild,
07:26wet coast,
07:27fava is sown in October over winter as small plants and explode in spring. You get beans when prices are
07:32ugly. The roots fix nitrogen. They pull it out of the air with bacteria on the nodules. And when you
07:37chop the plants after they flower, that nitrogen dumps into the bed for whatever you plant next.
07:41So about two inches deep, four to eight inches apart. If January is minus 30 with a bare field,
07:47this is a gamble without a south wall and snow cover, and the tops will die. The secret is not
07:51that
07:52favas are magic everywhere. The secret is they want to be planted when everyone else is putting tools away.
07:57They pay you in soil even if the pod harvest is light. Number eleven is strawberries. Bare root
08:02or cheap September plants. A June clamshell is a tax. Fall planting lets roots run in warm soil while
08:08the top stays small. They sit. The following June, they fruit. Set the crown exactly at soil level.
08:13Bury it and it rots. Leave it high and it dries. About twelve inches apart. Mulch after the ground cools.
08:21If a warm September tries to throw flowers, pinch them. You want roots the fall you plant.
08:26Berries the June after. June bearers are the ones that make a freezer from a fall planting.
08:31Ever bearers dribble. Ten plants is a lot of fruit for the cost of one clamshell a week in season.
08:37First year patience is the whole game. Number twelve is horseradish, and frost makes it meaner.
08:42You plant a root cutting, often at a slant, and any scrap left in the soil is a new plant.
08:47That is the
08:47warning and the gift. September is a clean time to set a piece and forget it. After real cold, the
08:53roots' bite gets
08:53sharper. Same starch and cell story as the greens, but you taste it in the sinuses when you grate it.
08:59Harvest in late fall, after freeze, or the following spring before it leaves out hard.
09:03Put it in a bottom corner you can mow around because it does not stay in a polite row.
09:08One established clump and you stop buying a sad plastic stick that tastes like water.
09:12Number thirteen is sunchokes, Jerusalem artichokes. They are sunflowers that hide potatoes. Plant tubers in
09:18October, like you would potatoes, and they multiply on a ridiculous scale. Several times what you put in.
09:24After frost the flavor changes, and they store in the ground until you want them. The little-known trap,
09:30a piece the size of a peanut left behind, is next year's patch. That is how people end up with
09:34a
09:35sunchoke forest. Plant them in a dedicated bed, a raised box, or against a wall you do not mind owning.
09:41Harvest what you want. Leave a few on purpose if you want a perennial starch that comes back without a
09:46seed order. Ignore them, and they will still be there. That is the point.
09:51Number fourteen is rhubarb crowns. September is when you can split a crown or plant a new one so
09:57roots settle while the top dies back. Do not harvest the first spring. You are building a plant that can
10:04throw stalks for a decade if you let it. Crown at soil level, compost around it, mulch after the cold
10:10arrives. The leaves are not food. They go on the compost, stalks only. A grocery bundle of rhubarb
10:16in spring is a joke compared with one established crown. If a neighbor offers you a split in September,
10:22that is the best plant you will get all year, and it looks like a dead lump until May.
10:26Number fifteen is asparagus. The long game. You plant crowns in October, or whenever the plant is dormant.
10:32In a trench, roots spread like a spider, buds up, then you wait. No harvest the first spring worth
10:38mentioning. The ferns you let grow are solar panels feeding the crown. Cut them only after they brown.
10:44People salt the bed like a myth from a magazine. What asparagus actually wants is drainage. A few
10:50years of not being picked to death, in a row you will not rototill. After that, you pick for a
10:55decade
10:55and a half from a planting you did on a cold afternoon. A store bunch is expensive for something
11:00that is mostly water. A six-crown row is a spring habit. This is the one you plant in October
11:05while the
11:05neighbors are bagging leaves, and you do not brag about it until year three. Three rules. So the
11:11window does not eat you. Warm soil, cool air. If you wait until the ground is a brick, garlic and
11:17shallots still might go in on an October thaw, but spinach seeds sown in November will just sit.
11:23Match the crop to the month. September is greens, carrots, strawberries, horseradish,
11:27rhubarb. October is garlic, shallots, favas, sunchokes, asparagus. Mulch after the cold arrives if the soil is
11:35still summer warm. Heavy mulch on warm September dirt rots things. Let it chill, then put leaves on.
11:41An empty September bed is a bill. Packets are a few dollars. Crowns are a few more. January produce is
11:47the expensive version of the same plant. Shipped, not cloves and sets in October. Greens in the ground
11:52in September if the soil still works. Crowns and tubers as soon as you can get them in fall. Cold
11:58is
11:58not the enemy on these fifteen. Cold is the timer. If you still have an empty bed in September, share
12:04this
12:05with the neighbour who already put the tools away. See you in the next one.

Recommended