When to Start Fall Vegetable Seeds

It’s August and still HOT here in my garden in zone 8A in Georgia, but I can’t let that fool me - it’s time to start many of my fall seeds! 

To be honest I haven’t always been the best at starting seeds when I should. Okay, I’ve stunk at it! I would totally forget about certain vegetables that I wanted to grow, until I saw all these gorgeous pictures coming across my social media feeds. So I’d run out (or pull up my favorite seed store online), order the seeds or bulbs, and then try my best to grow them. Onion is a big example that comes to mind! I’d see these AH-mazing pictures of home-grown onions, freshly pulled or preparing to go into a dish, and I’d just HAVE to try to grow onions! As you can probably guess, it never worked out. The timing wasn’t right! (To learn more about growing onions the RIGHT way check out this post)

Starting your vegetables from seed is all about the timing - and that’s especially important in the fall when you have to face upcoming frosts that will affect the growth of your plants. Plan ahead to start your seeds at the right time, to maximize the health of your plants, and the future harvest for you!

The first thing you’ll want to know for planning your fall crops is your first frost date. You can find this from several different online sources, including Old Farmer’s Almanac , The National Gardening Association , and many others. These will give you a general estimate of when to expect frost, but I also make sure to record my first and last frost dates each year, saving them in my calendar on my phone - this makes it easy to find with a keyword search when I’m planning for the next year’s plantings. In my garden last year my first frost date was November 12th - we’ll use this date as an example for planning today.

In addition to knowing your first frost date, you’ll also want to know if you plan to direct-seed your crops in the garden, or if you’ll start from transplants (check out this blog post to help decide which method is best). As a general hint most root crop vegetables, such as carrots, radishes, etc, prefer to be direct-seeded to avoid having their roots damaged during transplanting. For fall direct-seeded crops you’ll count back from your frost date to the seed date. So for example, for carrots in my zone 8A garden I’ll start them by direct-seeding beginning about 5 weeks before my first frost, around the week of October 5th - that way they’ll have plenty of time to start growing before the garden begins to have any serious frost that will prevent them from establishing.

Knowing a few dates and growing information is key to starting your seeds for fall crops at the right time.

For transplants that you’re starting yourself from seed you’ll need to do a bit more math. Not only do you need to know the date for when to plant them in the garden, but because you’re also growing them from seed to the transplant stage you’ll need to count back to allow enough weeks for them to grow. Onions are a great example of this if you grow from seed. I know they need to be transplanted in my garden about 2-6 weeks before frost - so using my 2019 first frost date of November 12th, that means I need to have my transplants in the ground between October 1st and 29th. But because I’m starting from seed this year and they need to be started about 12 weeks before frost then I actually need to start them around August 20th. 

With just a little pre-planning you’ll start your vegetables at the right time, with the best health for your plants, and the best harvest for you! It can be a lot to learn the best time to start each vegetable, and if it should be direct-seeded or transplanted, so I created our Garden Reference Cards to make it easier for you. Each card includes a guide for when to start your plants from seed, transplant out, an estimate of the time to harvest, as well as tons more information to help you have a successful crop from sowing to harvest. Check out a preview of the cards HERE, and be sure to subscribe for emails so you don’t miss the availability announcement!

Happy growing!