It’s the middle of July and it’s smoldering hot outside. Your garden is producing mounds of fresh summer produce and your keyboard is still sticky from the fresh blackberry cobbler you spilled on it (ok, so maybe we’re projecting with the cobbler thing).

We’re sorry to interrupt the tomato-flavored bliss of summer, but we have to warn you: fall is coming.

In fact, Tuesday, September 23rd is the first day of fall. That’s 76 days from today. Yes, we know the idea that cool weather is approaching seems appalling, shocking, frightening. Don’t blame us, we have no control over the earth’s tilt. However, we can help you take control of your seasonal garden and garden planning.

Cool and Cold Weather Gardens

In many areas of the country (like where we live in Agriculture Zone 7b) gardening can be a year round activity. There isn’t a single day of the year that we can’t go out and pick fresh produce from our yard. Granted our December garden looks different than our July garden and has different varieties of produce.

Like our summer garden, our fall/winter garden is also planted so as to be a beautiful edible landscape, with a wide array of textures, colors and sizes intermixed throughout the landscape. We might have to put on a heavy jacket and a wool cap, but we still get to go outside at the end of the day and pick a basket filled with spinach, chard, cress, cabbage, rutabagas, carrots, parsnips and a wide variety of other cool/cold weather garden delights.

One of the other nice aspects of cool/cold weather gardening is that there are almost no pest insects out! For that reason alone, many gardeners actually prefer cool/cold weather gardening to warm/hot weather gardening.

Even if you live in an Ag Zone where snow and ice cover the ground for several months of the year, you can still grow a ton of food from late summer through the first freeze, then start up again as soon as the ground thaws in early spring. If you have “quick hoops” (like we do) or a greenhouse (like we wish we did), you can grow well beyond your first freeze dates.

How Do We Help With Your Fall Garden?

Each month, we send out five new varieties of heirloom, organic seeds to our members.

Since we’re inching towards fall, our July package includes five seed varieties from around the world that will grow well in cool weather. Some are prized as much for their medicinal benefits as they are for their culinary attributes. If you join GrowJourney by Friday, July 25, you’ll get a July seed package plus all the cool stuff that comes with it including:

• QuickGuides – the basic info you need to easily get each seed variety growing.
• GrowGuides – if you want to dig deeper and learn more about the history of each seed variety, how to grow like a pro and save seeds for the future.
• GrowPlans – expert gardening plans that incorporate each month’s seeds into visual garden plans. Our July GrowPlans include a 4×10 bed design and patio gardening plans (for those growing in planters or pots).

Basically, you get amazing seeds for the season and everything you could possibly need to learn how to grow them organically. Plus, our expert team of experienced organic gardeners is also available on social media (facebook, twitter, instagram) or via the contact form on our website any time you have a gardening question or problem.

GrowJourney makes it simple and easy for you to grow a beautiful garden that produces abundantly in both warm and cold weather.

So enjoy the rest of your summer growing season, but start planning for your fall garden now!

Fall Gardening Tip: Since the days are getting shorter and colder instead of longer and hotter, plants in your fall garden will take about 10 days longer to mature than the same plants would take to mature in your spring garden.