What I’m growing this fall in Maryland Zone 7A!
Hello hello! Welcome to the first-ever tour of my fall garden! It isn’t my first fall garden…just the first time I’ve documented it. Because you don’t have to stop growing just because it’s fall 🙂
As I write this post on November 5th, we still have a ton of things growing in our garden. Some are coming to an end soon, and some are just starting. And some things I haven’t even put in the ground yet, like garlic! So I’ll walk you through what we’re growing in our fall garden to hopefully give you some ideas for your garden.
Arch trellis beds
The first area I’ll cover is the two Vego beds we have closest to the house. These also have a cattle panel arch trellis connecting them, which was super handy for growing malabar spinach and green beans all summer.
Now we’ve got a bunch of sugar snap peas growing up the trellis on each side—a cooler weather favorite in our house. The bed closest to the house has three Brussels sprout plants that are struggling along.
Someone was coming into the bed and eating these down to the quick when I first planted them! But they have rebounded nicely, especially the one closest to the patio. I’m hoping they have enough time to give us some sprouts this year!
In the bed closest to the house, we also have radishes and fava beans. You’ll hear me talking a lot about fava beans in my fall garden. Fava beans are an excellent cooler season crop that taste great and are exceptional nitrogen fixers for your soil (source). So I’ve got them popped in all around my garden, whereever there was extra space.
In the second bed, I have a large parsley plant and two spring onions I planted last March. We just kept cutting on them all spring and summer, and they are back with a vengeance for the fall! Between the onions I’ve got assorted types of lettuce.
Wider rectangular beds
Now onto the new beds we put in last spring. We have two deep, large rectanugular beds that I’ve used for cucumbers, green beans, potatoes, sugar snap peas, herbs, and more throughout the growing season. Now I have one of the beds filled with lettuce, beets, Swiss chard, and French sorrel (love the bitter taste chopped up in salads!).
In the other bed next to it, I have two rows of leeks, some sugar snap peas that are struggling along, and more greens. I planted the greens in this bed much more recently, so the bed still looks pretty bare.
End-cap square beds & the kids bed
And the last three beds—the one closest to the greenhouse is the one I planted first, so it’s the most mature. Out of all the sugar snap peas in the garden, these look the best by far! This bed also has radishes and—you guessed it—fava beans. These fava beans are the most mature out of the whole garden, so I’ve added a few stakes and some strings to give them support.
The bed in the middle, which is actually the Vego kids bed we got for our daughter and has tomatoes in all summer, has beets and fava beans in it. And the square bed on the other size has spinach, beets, kohlrabi, and turnips. I’ve never grown kohlrabi, but my cousin gave me some seeds. Always love trying something new!
In-ground beds
And over in the in-ground beds, we don’t have a ton going on. We put these beds in last spring specifically to plant two rows of asparagus. I haven’t cut down the ferns for the season yet, but I have been harvest some asparagus seeds from one of my female plants! I’ll have a post on that soon.
We had sweet potatoes in the third row that I just dug up a few weeks ago. In a few days, I’ll be planting all of my seed garlic here. My plan is to do sweet potatoes again here next year and harvest all of the garlic right around when the sweet potato plants are starting to take over. So glad we converted the grass to this growing space—it has been GREAT!
Other miscellaneous things…
And finally I’ve been working on harvesting seeds from my zinnias and milkweed plants, as well as splitting and transplanting perennials. The garden always looks a bit rough this time of year because I’m digging so much up to move them around. And I love planting clearance rack perennials that I grab at the end of the season!
My aster is in full bloom, though. And the rosemary, lavender, and sage that I have all around the yard still looks absolutely lovely. The ornamental grasses we have around the patio have also pushed out their fronds, which are great in fall arranges. And that’s where we’re at—growing what we can for as long as we can and already planning ahead for next spring!
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Brittany is a seasoned DIY home and garden expert, running a creative brand since 2014 that inspires others with approachable plant care guides, woodworking tutorials, and decor projects. She is a certified project manager and has completed extensive coursework in the art and science of growing your own plants. Her work has been recognized by major publications, and she routinely collaborates with fellow DIY industry leaders—but her favorite thing to do is inspire you! Learn more about her here.
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