Best Fall Vegetables to Grow in Your Garden

Here is a little round-up of our top eight favorite fall vegetables to grow. They sprout quickly and easily in cooler temps, have relatively small numbers of days to maturity, and most can handle some (or a lot of) frost.

Most of these veggies have huge nutritional benefits and are all great additions to salads and soups. And remember – these plants are also a good choice for early spring planting!

Planting fall vegetables is always a good idea, even if you don’t have a huge harvest, what have you got to lose? I love that last little bit of green plus a little nutrient boost to get you into winter.

Check out our lists of Herbs to Grow and Flowers to Grow! You can also start many plants early by Winter Sowing.

Top 8 Favorite Fall Vegetables

Peas

Peas are my #1 favorite crop for a Fall garden! They sprout almost 100% of the time I plant them (except when squirrels dig them up). Peas love the cooler weather and have the prettiest little flowers. They only take 60-70 days to harvest. They can handle a light frost, but usually not a hard one.

I love to pop a couple of peas in my mouth as I harvest my other fall garden vegetables. A little treat for all my hard work in the garden if you will. I like to grow this purple one or this green one. Check out some of the health benefits of eating peas.

Carrots

I feel like carrots are a no-brainer when it comes to a fall vegetable garden. Try my easy carrot-sowing method and you’ll be on your way to enjoying these colorful treats in no time.

Carrots are so tasty coming straight from the garden and many only take around 70 days to harvest, or you can even leave them in the ground to overwinter. It is pretty fun being able to harvest carrots in March! Take a look at the seed packet info to make sure they’ll work for you. The Danvers variety are always a win for me.

Check out how carrots are good for more than just eye health.

Lettuce

With so many varieties available, lettuce should be on the top of your list. Whether you’re a purple lettuce person, or a buttercrunch one, you’ll be able to enjoy the last little bit of summer while you eat your fall salads. Lettuce has a super short days to harvest at anywhere between 30-70 days, depending on variety.

I love most lettuce varieties, you can’t really go wrong. Lettuce makes meal time easy and provides several nutrients. My easy sowing method also works great for lettuce seeds.

My go-to is romaine lettuce.

Kale

I am not a huge kale fan, but my husband loves it, so I usually grow it every Spring and Fall. Love your people. And honestly, he likes the dollar store kale best (gasp).

Kale has a lot of nutritional benefits and it’s great for throwing into soups or sautéing with other fall vegetables. Kale is actually not a lettuce but a cruciferous vegetable (related to cabbage and broccoli) and may mature in as short as 50 days. It can also be very cold hearty – I’ve had some kale plants survive the winter!

You can extend your harvest by just plucking the outside leaves each time and letting the interior ones continue to grow.

Cilantro

This guy right here has a lot of controversy – you either love it or hate it. Our family LOVES it, luckily we don’t have the gene that makes cilantro taste like soap.

This little plant is super beneficial to our health. You can sometimes start harvesting cilantro leaves 30 days after planting! It will often reseed itself too.

Bonus – if you save your cilantro seeds, you can grind them into coriander powder and use it as a seasoning for both savory and sweet foods!

Bok Choy

I didn’t know about this tasty fall brassica vegetable until a couple of years ago. Bok Choy is quick to grow and harvest, and great for stir-frys or sautéing. It is used a lot in asian cuisine and boasts some quality benefits.

You can harvest the baby heads after as little as 35 days and it’s pretty frost tolerant. A little but mighty plant! You can pluck individual leaves too if you just need a few for a meal.

Radish

If you like a little spicy kick in your snacks, the radish is for you. Part of the mustard family, radishes grow very fast and produce a cute little, often pink, rootball.

You can also eat the young seed pods for a lighter radish taste, but you may only get it to go to seed in the Spring.

Radishes also pack a nutritional punch. There are a ton of radish varieties, just pay attention as some can be very spicy. There are some fun radish colors to choose from too which may pique your kiddo’s interest.

Beets

Beets are my number #2 Fall vegetable. Did you know there are more than just red beets? There are orange, white, purple, yellow, and even striped! They grow pretty quickly and are ready in about 45-70 days. You can even enjoy the greens for salads and sauteing.

We love to make and eat pickled beets all year to get a little probiotic in, so they are a staple in my garden. This earthy vegetable packs a lot of vitamins into a small root.

Pick your favorite color beet and go for it!