What I'm Planting in the Garden This Fall

There's something so hopeful about planting in the fall. The garden looks tired, the tomatoes are done showing off, and yet, this is when next year's magic begins.

Honestly, the only thing I'm planting in the fall?

GARLIC!!!!!

We use A LOT of garlic. Sauces, soups, stir-fries, mashed potatoes, dressings, marinades... there are very few recipes that don't call for garlic in our house.

What I love most about growing garlic is that it's relatively maintenance free! I plant my cloves around Halloween, when the soil is still warm enough to give them time to establish roots before the ground freezes. Then I tuck them in under a thick blanket of natural pine mulch and basically ignore them until spring.

If you've never grown garlic, start here. By July, you'll feel like a gardening genius.

You can find garlic seed bulbs at garden centers or online retailers. Last year was my first time giving garlic a try. I picked up some hardneck garlic from our local grocery store and decided to experiment. I only planted nine cloves as a test, and it was surprisingly successful!

This year, I went back to the store and bought more. Twenty-four cloves went into the ground!

Ideally, your summer harvest will give you enough garlic to enjoy throughout the year and save some cloves for planting the following fall. But I'll be honest... mine was so good that I used every last clove, especially in my canning!

Come back in July and see how my harvest goes!