Mix & Match Your Favorite Veggies in Your Fall Garden

You may be wondering how you can put plants together in your vegetable garden to make the most of your growing space, maximize productivity, keep your garden healthy, and still look beautiful all season long.

That might sound like a tall order, but it's actually quite simple if you follow these six steps to pick the right plants for the right spot in your garden. We're going to pack those plants in there and make the most of every square inch!

One thing to note is that the plants I mention are all cool season plants. These plants grow best when temps range from 35 to 65°F, and they can handle varying degrees of frost.

All right, let's create some fall plant combos!

Pick a Fruiting Plant for the Center of Your Raised Beds

Fruiting plants need the most amount of sun. I recommend growing them right down the center of your raised beds if they're accessible from all sides. That way, these large plants can actually create some shade for smaller plants that don't want harsh afternoon light, like root crops and leafy greens. (Otherwise, grow them in the back of the garden.)

Make sure you've got a sturdy trellis for these vines to climb. I love growing cool season fruiting plants on obelisk trellises, but a panel or arch would do great, too. Your fruiting plants will take up vertical space on the trellis and still leave tons of growing space in your raised beds.

We don't have a lot of fruit options in the cool season, but what we do have are good ones: snow peas, sugar snap peas, or fava beans.

Pick a Large Leafy Green

In the fall, I recommend dedicating the majority of your growing space to leafy greens—this is when they really thrive. Plant large leafy greens in long rows down the middle of your raised beds. They'll look so beautiful and produce a ton of leaves.

Large leafy green options include kale, Swiss chard, cabbage, collard greens, and mustard greens. You could also do broccoli or cauliflower, which aren't technically leafy greens (they do produce edible leaves though!). My fall must-haves are dinosaur kale, blue curled scotch kale, and Napa cabbage.

These plants take a while to mature, but once they're up and growing, they'll give you so many leaf harvests (you can take the outer leaves from your cabbage plants even while you're waiting on the head to form).

Pick a Root Crop for Your Fall Garden

The cool days of fall are the perfect time to grow root crops. Your options include radishes, beets, and carrots. You really can't go wrong which one you choose, but if you're looking for something fast, I recommend French breakfast radishes.

Root crops make great companion plants to grow with all your fall leafy greens because they take up way more space underground than they do aboveground. Just make sure you're planting your roots somewhere they won't get too much shade. I like to plant my roots in the space around my large leafy greens or right up along the edge of my raised bed so they can get as much sunlight as they need.

Here you can see some radish greens popping up behind the flower border.

Choose Some Herbs

Parsley, cilantro, and dill love growing in the cool season. Perennial herbs like chives and oregano can also stick around well past your first frost.

They may not be herbs, but garlic and onions can also be planted in the fall, and along with chives, will help protect your leafy greens from pests before frost hits. Plus, you'll have some fantastic bulbs growing underground while your leafy greens grow big aboveground.

Pick Some Small Leafy Greens

Now it's time to add in some smaller leafy greens so that you have something to harvest while you're waiting on the peas and larger leafy greens to produce. These small leafy greens can fill in any empty spaces in your raised beds and can be continuously planted throughout the season. You can even plant small greens right next to your root crops since the leaves won't grow tall enough to shade the root plants.

Some of the many options you have for small leafy greens include green lettuce, red lettuce, spinach, arugula, buttercrunch, spring mix, romaine, and mizuna.

Add Some Flowers

The last step is to select some flowers to go around the border of your raised beds and add lots of color to your garden beds.

Frost-tolerant fall flower options include snapdragons, dianthus, and pansies, plus the flowering herbs chamomile and calendula. Both chamomile and calendula can help distract pests that might be hunting for your leafy greens. You can also harvest the flowers to make cozy teas for winter.

That's How You Create Your Own Fall Garden Planting Plan

Those are the steps to creating a mix of plants that combine perfectly. And by that, I mean they'll look stunning and work together throughout the season to keep your garden full, healthy, and productive.

By following these steps, you can create your own planting plan for a garden of any size, from a little 4x4 raised bed to a huge kitchen garden.

To learn more about when to plant all these things in your fall garden, download our free Garden Calendar. All you have to do is give us your frost dates, and we'll tell you when you can plant these leaves, roots, and fruit.

Thanks for being here and making gardening ordinary again!