Crop guide · Seasons
Fall container gardening: what to plant in September, October and November
Kale, lettuce, garlic, pansies. What to do with the summer pots — rotate, mulch, overwinter or compost without guilt.
- Sow from
- Late August
- Six weeks before your first frost date
- Container
- Any size
- Garlic needs 12 inches of depth
- Cold
- Down to 20°F
- Kale sweetens after a frost. Really
Autumn is the easiest season on a balcony and almost nobody uses it. The pots are already full of mix, the light is gentler, and the crops that suit it — kale, chard, lettuce, spinach, radish, pak choi — are the forgiving ones. Sow about six weeks before your first frost date and you'll be picking into November.
Garlic is the one thing worth planting now that you won't eat for ten months. Cloves go in a 12-inch-deep pot in October, sit through winter doing nothing visible, and are ready the following July. It is the highest-patience, lowest-effort crop on this site.
Full write-up coming: a month-by-month calendar, what to do with spent summer pots, and which containers survive a freeze without cracking.
Read next
About the author
Carsten
I grow food on a 4×6 balcony and write down what works. Not a master gardener, not sponsored. When a guide is wrong I fix it and note the date at the top. Questions, corrections and photos of your pots are welcome. say hello.