Organic Vegetable Gardening for Fall in North Texas
- Marshall Grain Co.
- Sep 17
- 12 min read
North Texas gardeners are fortunate that we can grow vegetables in both the spring and in the fall. In fact, there are many advantages to planting a fall vegetable garden.
In this article and accompanying video, Marshall Grain associate and Texas Master Gardener, Trisha is also a former farmer who, with her husband, fed her family of 5 from her own fields. Here she shares her many years of expertise in growing edibles using sustainable, organic methods.
You'll learn how to grow your favorite vegetables without resorting to toxic chemicals so that you and your family can enjoy healthy, all-natural produce.
This article is adapted from her talk.
Organic Vegetable Gardening for Fall in North Texas
The good thing about spring and fall is that the temperatures and daytime lighting are basically the same. So pretty much anything that you planted in spring can be planted again in the fall in North Texas with the exception of tomatoes.
Fall season tomatoes must be started in late summer (July through August) and harvested prior to our first frost while many other vegetables can be grown through late fall and winter. (See more about tomatoes below.)
We're going to talk today about your soil, what to plant, when to plant, fertilization, and watering requirements.
One of the best benefits about growing in the fall is you don't have a lot of pests and diseases. So if you are a beginner, planting vegetables in the fall won't be as much of a challenge for you.
One of the first investments that you'll want to make is a frost blanket. You never know in North Texas when the temperature is going to drop down or get really hot again. So it's important that you have a shade cloth and a frost blanket. This should be your very first purchase before you buy your plants.
Which Vegetables to Plant in Fall
The best cool temperature vegetables are spinaches, lettuce, and onions. You want to start these from transplants, not as seeds. Vegetables that should be grown from seeds include carrots (little orange, treasures under the ground!), beets, and peas.
Spinach
For spinach, plant transplants starting in early September and continue planting them through early November to carry you through the winter months. They will harvest in about 40 to 50 days. Plant them in a well-drained soil, organic soil, with either a manure or a mushroom compost, or you can also use the Zoo Poo. I like the Zoo Poo.
Above: Types of compost you might use in your vegetable garden. Composted Cattle Manure, Mushroom Compost, and Zoo Poo are all good choices for organic vegetable gardens.
You'll want to plant them about a half inch deep and about two inches apart. So that's spinach.
Lettuce & Root Vegetables
Lettuce does very well in cold weather. It likes the cold. You do not want to plant lettuce until the temperatures are consistently below 80º F. If it gets too hot, it will bolt and become super bitter. Always pick the leaves from the bottom when you harvest them to allow the growth to come up from the middle.
Lettuce grows best in loose, fertile, well-drained soil. The same applies to radishes, carrots, and beets.
Preparing for Frosts & Freezes
Consecutively plant your vegetables about every two weeks, so that you have a continuous growth all the way through the winter months. With your frost blanket, you can carry a lot of these herbs and vegetables into January and February.
Attendee: Tell me about the frost blanket because I've never done a fall garden before.
You just put it over your plants. What happens when you get a frost is, the frost gets on the leaves of the plants. If the foliage gets wet, the plants can become susceptible to diseases.
The frost blanket is going to prevent the frost from getting on the leaves and burning them.
For the same reason, you should always try to water on the soil, and avoid getting the tops wet.
The frost cloth just lays on top. You can put spikes in to hold it in place. Some people have raised beds where they can just drape it over the raised bed.
Attendee: At what temperature do you put the frost blanket on?
Anytime it's predicted for a frost. So about 35º F. Because 32º F is typically your freeze point. I might even go to 40º F, really, just to be on the safe side.
For North Texas, the average date for us to have our first frost is November 14. If you're not ready by then, you're in trouble. So make sure you have your frost cloth early.
Attendee: Sometimes it's cold in the morning and then it's nice in the afternoon. Should you take that frost blanket off?
Yes, during the day you can remove it. And then if it gets really, really hot, then you revert to your shade cloth because you don't want them to get burned up. Lettuce does not want to be warm at all. You want to keep your lettuce as cool as possible.
Attendee: What's a shade blanket?
Shade cloth is more like a net. We don't have shade cloth for sale right now, although, we have had it in the past. But it's not something you'd want to drape over your plants, because it's a lot heavier than the frost blanket.
When I bought mine, it came with little bendable hoops so that you can make a hoop house.
The covering on top of the Marshall Grain greenhouse is an industrial grade shade cloth. There are different types of shade cloth for different levels of shade.
Attendee: If I may go back to spinach, how well will they do in a container? Or is it recommended not to grow them in containers? Beets and spinach as well.
Yes, you can grow them in a pot. A good size pot. Broccoli, I would recommend doing that in the ground. But definitely spinach and beets. Carrots, radishes, and lettuce can also be grown in a pot. Celery also. Cauliflower, broccoli, and Brussels sprouts grow in pots also, but they need more room. You can also grow any of those in a raised bed.
Attendee: Can I use burlap as a frost cloth?
We actually do sell burlap as a frost cloth. You can use it for that. The difference between frost cloth and burlap, depending on the frost cloth, is that burlap will maintain the temperature at about 8º F above whatever the outside air is. So if it's 32º F, then under the burlap, it's going to be like 6º F to 8º F warmer. With frost cloth you usually get a little bit better protection. It's also better at letting light through. The most you can really expect to get out of a frost cloth is about 10º F warmer, which usually is more than enough for us — unless we have super cold weather, like when we had "snowmageddon" in 2020. There is no frost cloth that's going to help you through that.
Companion Plants
Basil and cilantro are two excellent companion plants that you can mix in with your vegetables.
When you harvest the cilantro, you only want to harvest about one third of the plant at a time, and let some of the cilantro go to seed, because then you have an additional herb of coriander. You can also let them flower, because the flowers attract beneficial insects, which is healthy for your garden to help prevent pests.
You also want to plant these consecutively so that you have a continuous growth.
Peas are also beneficial to your garden. You want to put these on a trellis. They're attractive in your garden and they actually restore nitrogen into your soil.
Other vegetables use up the nitrogen, whereas, peas will put the nitrogen back into your soil. So that's a great benefit of growing peas — even if you don't like peas.
Swiss Chard
I do want to talk about Swiss chard. You can plant Swiss chard this time of the year all the way to spring. Plant consecutively, like you do some of the other plants, about every two weeks. That way, you'll have Swiss chard all the way through the winter months into spring. It's a really good, hearty plant for North Texas.
Onions
Marshall Grain usually does not begin selling onions until January, however, you can grow a fall crop of them. They are usually sold as "sets" of green onion "slips", with about 60 slips in a set.
As with your other vegetables, plant them in well-drained soil with manure, compost, or mushroom compost. Any one of those three will work well.
When the onion starts to grow up and the leaves start to turn yellow and bend down, that's when you want to harvest your onions. If you've planted a fall crop, they should be ready to harvest by the end of December or the first part of January. (Otherwise, they may start to rot.) You can then plant spring onions in January through February for harvest in May through June.
One nice thing about planting onion slips is that they can be harvested any time during the growing season as "green onions", rather than waiting for them to finish forming a bulb.
Attendee: I have a question. I have a dog who finds it amusing to trample on all my onions. And so now I have no onion tops left. Are they still growing underneath the ground? And I could turn them up or they would.
My only advice would be to go out there and dig one up and see where you're at. If you plant garlic with your onions, it's supposed to keep animals away because they don't like the smell of garlic.
Tomatoes
Tomatoes cannot tolerate temperatures below approximately 50º F, therefore, it's not recommended to plant them in the fall unless you grow them in a pot that can be brought indoors .
Cruciferous Vegetables
Cruciferous vegetables include broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, and brussels sprouts. Like your other vegetables, they should be planted in rich, well-drained soil. Try to prevent their heads from becoming wet because this will create diseases.
When you harvest broccoli and cauliflower, pull the heads out and leave the rest of the plant in the ground because they'll have sprouts that come out and you'll have a few smaller heads going forward.
Brussels sprouts grow on the sides of a thick, tall stalk. You want to cut the individual sprouts from the stalk and leave the rest of the plant in the ground to continue to produce.
Growing from Seed
If you plan to start your veggies from seed, we recommend that you soak them first in a solution of Liquid Seaweed. Mix 1 tablespoon in a cup of water and soak them for 24 hours.
After soaking them, you can sow them in the ground or in pots. After they sprout, continue to fertilize them every other week with Liquid Seaweed by mixing 1 ounce per gallon of water and watering them thoroughly with this solution.
You would do this with any bulbs you plant, as well.
Attendee: I have a question about chilies. I found some chilies — Hatch chilies (a variety of chile). I grew them and hey came out great. Now I've saved the seeds and I'm letting them sit on paper towels and then putting them into ziploc bags so I can replant them next year. Is there anything else I should do to preserve them?
I would keep them in a cool, dark place. You want to make sure that they dry out, so I would not store them in plastic bags. That might create too much moisture on them. I would leave them wrapped in newspaper or store them in an envelope.
Attendee: I planted potatoes in the spring, and they came out great, so I saved almost a dozen of them, thinking I would plant them in the fall. So I put them in paper sacks and left them to sprout. And when I checked them last month, I was astonished that there were no sprouts on them yet. Did I preserve them too well?
No, I think you did great. They have eyes, obviously, right? But they haven't sprouted yet. The time to plant potatoes in North Texas is in January through about mid-March. You may need to wait until then. When you are ready to plant them, after you've cut them into pieces, dust them with sulfur to keep them from getting fungus.
About Fertilizers
If you are an organic gardener, you want to have as much biodiversity in your soil as possible, and chemical fertilizers and things like that will actually destroy the micro-life in your soil. One product you can use to help improve your soil is Espoma Bio-tone Starter. This would be a complement to Maxicrop Liquid Seaweed to help stimulate the growth of your new plants. You would use it at planting time. Sprinkle it on the soil or in the planting hole at the time you're starting your plants, and it's going to provide a lot of beneficial microorganisms.
Fertilizers generally contain some ratio of Nitrogen, Phosphate, and Potassium, which are essential macronutrients. Products like Bio-tone Starter give you micro-nutrients like fungi and beneficial bacteria in the soil that help your plants take up the macronutrients.
We also carry a line of products from Micro-Life, which is a local brand. Espoma is a national brand, but Micro-Life makes several products that would be comparable to Bio-tone.
I use the whole Espoma line for everything. I use the lime, I use the sulfur, and I use Garden-tone. There's Tomato-tone for tomatoes, and blood meal is one of my favorites. It's really good for your mums and for your pansies.
There are directions on the back that tell you how much to use, but I am kind of a person that just goes out there and sprinkles it until I think it looks right.
Attendee: What do you recommend for fertilizing potatoes?
Just your regular, all-purpose fertilizer. The Espoma Garden-tone. I would pick one with a higher middle number, but other than that, really just a general-purpose fertilizer is all you need.
Attendee: Before I plant anything, is there anything that I should add to the soil to replenish it? What would you recommend?
My recommendation would be to get some of the Mayer Rejuvenate compost. Mix that in with your existing soil and then plant. You could also use a little bit of cattle manure or the organic compost, or the mushroom compost — any of those. But you want to rejuvenate your soil first.
Attendee: I have raised beds, and I've tried different kinds of the bagged soil but I do not have a lot of luck with my garden, so I think it's not solid enough. I think it's almost too lightweight, I think. Is that possible? And if so, what do I add?
If you're trying to change the structure of the soil — if it is too loose and you want to bulk it up, I would recommend using the Nature's Creation Organic Garden Soil. It is probably the heaviest soil we carry.
Fight Garden Pests with Beneficial Insect Releases
Attendee: I'm worried about is those wonderful green and red tomato hornworms.
The best thing to naturally take care of them, those caterpillars, because they are kind of like a butterfly. They need a specific host plant. If you just pick them and take them out, they'll die.
Attendee: I purchased one of those bags of ladybugs and put them all over the garden, and they were all gone the next day. Why didn't they stay?
Two things about ladybugs: First, you want to release them at night because they can't fly at night. So they'll, they're stuck in your yard overnight. You should also water lightly when you put them out so they'll have water droplets around that they can drink from.
Second, ladybugs really prefer aphids. That is their number one food source. So for example, it you have white flies and your neighbor has aphids, they're going to go visit your neighbor first. They will eat the white flies, but only if they can't get aphids. And so they tend to just fly away. Also if you just don't have enough food for them, they will go somewhere else. Hopefully, because you've kept them overnight, they will have mated and laid some eggs before they took off.
You can also release praying mantises, which we sell. They're not picky eaters. They'll eat whatever they can. They'll even eat each other if they can't find something else. So those are a really good one to release.
If you're going to release both ladybugs and praying mantises, don't release them in the same area because the praying mantis will eat the ladybug.
Lacewings are another one that we sell that are really good. The nice thing about lacewings is that, even though they have wings, they don't fly very well. They mostly crawl around so they tend to stay in one area better than a ladybug would.
Above: Ladybugs feasting on aphids, a praying mantis waiting for prey, and a green lacewing searching for a meal.
Attendee: How many should I get for my garden?
With praying mantises, you get two egg cases in a package and each egg case is going to have dozens of praying mantises in it. However, you want to release them in succession. As soon as they hatch, they start looking for food. So put them in an area where you know you've got something for them to eat. And then about every two weeks release some more to maintain a higher population.
Lear More About Organic Gardening for North Texas
For more information on organic gardening for North Texas, check out the Marshall Grain blog and subscribe to our YouTube channel: @marshallgrainco.
And be sure to visit us:
5311 Colleyville Blvd., Colleyville, TX 76034. Phone: 817-416-6600
