THESE are the Cold Season Crops You Need This Fall!

Welcome back to Bountiful Gardens! As you can see, our enormous selection of pumpkins, squash and winter gourds are here to adorn your porches and shine at the dinner table!

You know, as we head into Fall, it can be easy to start feeling those end-of-Summer blues. But if vegetable gardening is your passion, you’ll be excited to know that this is the best time of year to get a second round of veggies in the ground! 

In this video, we’ll be going over some of the best cold season crops you can plant today and harvest all the way through our first frosts. Let’s get to gardening! 

Since the weather is cooling down a little bit, it’s time to plant your Lettuce, and we have SO many varieties to choose from! 

Onions serve many purposes in the cold season garden. You can grow them for the onions themselves, and you can also use the fresh greens in salads, soups and as a tasty garnish. They also repel deer since they’re in the Allium family. 

Brussels Sprouts are one of our favorite cold season vegetables. They produce mini cabbage-like heads along their stem that are incredibly tasty. 

Parsley is another great herb to add to the cold season vegetable garden, as temperatures are cooler so it grows more densely. It’s also a great food source for the Black Swallowtail butterfly, giving them the energy they need to make their Winter chrysalises. 

If you’re looking for variety in your salad, we have mixed greens available that will introduce brand new flavors to your leafy greens! These mixes include crops like Arugula, Mustard, Lettuce and more! 

Sage is a fantastic herb to add to your cold season vegetable garden. Not only is it perennial in New Jersey, it’s also very cold hardy and gets more and more silvery as the temperatures drop. 

Radishes are a great cold season vegetable! They boast a spicy and nutty flavor and they’re incredibly crisp, making them great for your salads. 

Kale is an extremely nutrient dense green that is great cooked or raw. 

Just like Parsley, Cilantro is great to plant this time of year because with the cooler temperatures, it grows more densely and is less prone to bolting. 

Pak Choi (Boy Choy) is a great cold season cooking green. Our favorite way to cook it is with a little bit of oil, some garlic and some salt and pepper to really appreciate the flavor of the leaves. 

If you want to add an extra food source for Black Swallowtail butterflies in your cold season garden, you can plant some Fennel. It’s actually perennial here in New Jersey, so you and the butterflies can enjoy it for years to come. 

Broccoli needs no introduction. It’s a great cold season vegetable that we all know and love! 

Cauliflower is a great cold season crop. They produce a crown that is much more dense and differently colored than their counterpart, broccoli. 

 Planting big leafy greens like Swiss Chard is a great way to add variety and color to your cold season garden, plus you can harvest it right before winter and freeze it to use for soups and stocks.  

Cabbage is a vegetable that loves the cold. In fact, if you grow it in colder conditions, when you harvest it, it’ll be sweeter! 

Arugula is a great cold season cutting green, and with a spicy flavor, it’s sure to keep you warm this Fall. 

Peppermint is another great herb to add to your cold season garden, as it helps to repel deer and pests from the rest of your veggies. Plus, you harvest right before winter and cozy up with a nice cup of peppermint tea. 

For a medicinal herb that you might not think is perennial, you can plant Eucalyptus. It’s actually very cold hardy here in New Jersey—you just cut it back at the end of the season and it comes back year after year. You can use the stems for aromatherapy in the shower, or in arrangements! 

Many people think Kohlrabi is a root vegetable, but its bulb is actually a modified stem! It has the flavor of cabbage and a broccoli stem, which makes it great for roasting as it will absorb the flavors of anything around it. 

So don’t let your mood drop with the temperature–come pick up some of these fantastic cold-hardy crops and enjoy bountiful harvests through the holidays! 

And while you're here, be sure to check out our huge selection of Fall annuals, perennials, pumpkins, gourds, decor and more. If it has to do with Fall, rest assured we’ve got it all.