The Best Fall Garden Vegetables to Grow (Our Favorite Varieties) ~ Homestead and Chill

Do you want to grow a fall garden, but aren’t sure what to plant? Come get inspired and discover the best vegetables to grow in fall (or even over winter in some places) including leafy greens, carrots, cabbage, broccoli, and more!

This guide includes a list of our top-choice varieties plus quick facts and growing tips for each crop. Cool season veggies are truly some of my favorites to eat and grow! They’re darn pretty too.

Late October in the fall garden. The tomatoes are still producing in the background, but the leafy greens, cabbage, cauliflower and broccoli are starting to take off!

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RELATED: Learn when to plant a fall garden here, including when to start seeds indoors or plant seedlings outside in every zone, how to protect fall plants from late summer heat or early frost, and tips to amend garden soil before planting.

What Vegetables to Plant in Fall

Fall is a marvelous time to grow cool season crops that thrive in colder weather, including leafy greens, brassicas, root vegetables, and more. Click on the names below for related grow guides, or see our favorite varieties of each in the detailed sections to follow.

Fall vegetable crops include:

Arugula
Beets
Bok choy, tatsoi and other Asian greens
Broccoli
Brussels Sprouts
Cabbage
Carrots
Cauliflower
Celery
Fava Beans
Garlic (ready to harvest the following spring/summer)
Kohlrabi
Kale
Lettuce
Mustard Greens
Onions and leeks
Other leafy greens
Peas (snap peas and snow peas)
Radishes (including daikons)
Romanesco
Spinach
Swiss Chard
Turnips

Need Fall Seeds?

As you go through our list of favorite fall vegetable varieties, you’ll quickly notice they’re almost all from High Mowing Seeds. That’s where we get 99% of our seeds these days! High Mowing is a fantastic small certified organic seed company that offers a wide variety of quality veggie, flower and herb seeds.

Choosing the best varieties for your garden

Before I share my list of our favorite fall vegetable varieties to grow below, keep in mind that the exact cultivars that do well in our area may not perform quite the same in yours. Choose things that sound like they’d be good to eat AND would be happy and productive in your zone and garden.

Read plant descriptions carefully, and be on the lookout for key words that match for your climate in fall, such as frost-hardy or heat-tolerant (slow to bolt), days to maturity, natural resistance to certain diseases, “excellent for cold northern climates” (or southern), plant size, soil temperature needs, and so on.

Compare between a few varieties since they’re all unique! For instance, two different varieties of broccoli varieties may have vastly different heat tolerance or days to maturity. You’ll learn what varieties are best suited for your garden with time and experimentation.

In our garden, we always lean towards varieties that have natural resistance to powdery mildew because it’s SO prevalent here. We also look for heat-tolerant or bolt-resistant cool season varieties since our fall weather is often hotter than summer! Gardeners in colder northern climates will want to select “early maturing” or extra cold-hardy fall cultivars.

A collection of seed packs and seed catalogs arranged on a table. The seed packs are organized in individual plastic 4x6 inch cases that were originally intended for photographs. There is a small paper binder with a pen sitting on top of it and the seed catalogs are arranged as one would hold a hand of cards. — I love going through our seed storage box collection and shopping for new seeds! High Mowing is our favorite place to buy organic seeds, but you can find a full list of our top-choice seed companies here.

Our Favorite Fall Vegetable Varieties

Without further ado, here is a full list of our tried-and-true favorite fall vegetable varieties to grow. While we’re always open to experiment with new cultivars (and often do!) these are the trusty ones we return to year-after-year.

Broccoli and Cauliflower

I’m lumping these two heading brassicas together since they grow fairly similarly. Both take about two to three months from seedling to harvest. Between the two, I’m especially fond of growing cauliflower. It comes in so many beautiful colors!

Skywalker Cauliflower – A classic white cauliflower described as “the best organic variety for fall”. It’s always grown beautifully for us!
Violetta Purple Cauliflower – This is one popular purple cauliflower variety. It has gorgeous large purple heads, and is moderately tolerant to frost and light freezing. Purple Moon is another purple cauliflower we’ve enjoyed growing.
Cheddar Cauliflower – Aptly named, cheddar cauliflower is a beautiful light orange color. We’ve also had great success with similar Flame Star.
Romanesco – With its trippy fractal design and chartreuse green color, romanesco is a true show-stopper. It is just as delicious as it is attractive! Romanesco tastes similar to cauliflower, but more nutty and mildly sweet.
Belstar Broccoli – We have tried various kinds of broccoli over the years, but keep coming back to Belstar. It produces fairly early medium-size tight heads. Once the main head is harvested, the plant continues to provide a ton of small side shoots – like mini heads or broccolini. It has great heat tolerance so it never bolts on us, and overwinters well in mild climates.
Covina – another reliable classic broccoli variety we like. It’s known to perform well in a wide range of conditions, even under stress!
De Cicco – It produces a small central head (but quickly!) and prolific side shoots thereafter, providing for a long harvest window. We treat this one more like broccolini or sprouting broccoli.

RELATED: How to Grow Cauliflower from Seed to Harvest. Most of the tips in this guide apply to broccoli and romanesco too!

A large head of broccoli still growing is featured, a hand is touching the bottom of the head to illustrate the size of the vegetable. The broccoli plant greens are growing upwards around the head. — Belstar broccoli

A close up image of a head of growing Romanesco cauliflower. The head is light green in color and is made up of hundreds of conical buds that make up the edible portion of the vegetable. They start out large at the bottom and continue to get smaller and more compact until a main point is created at the top-middle portion of the head. — Veronica romanesco

A Purple of Sicily cauliflower is featured. Its magenta purple head is quite the contrast to its mass of surrounding green leaves. — Purple cauliflower

Aaron is holding a large head of Goodman cauliflower. It has a tight head with a few green leaves poking out that are still attached to the stem.

Cabbage and Brussels Sprouts

Did you know that Brussels sprouts are essentially baby heads of cabbage growing along a stalk? They’re also one of our favorite winter veggies to eat (garlic and herb balsamic-glazed roasted Brussels, anyone?) Note that cabbage and Brussels sprouts both need a long growing season to mature (up to 3 months), but will also both tolerate frost and light freezes once they’re established.

Expect Cabbage – My current favorite green cabbage variety with dense, uniformly round 5 to 9 pound green heads and notable heat tolerance.
Megaton – Grow this for a ton of fun, and cabbage! This green variety bears massive heads up to 17 pounds, yet remain tender and sweet.
Caraflex – a fun petite variety that produces small conical (pointed!) green heads on compact plants. Early producer!
Integro – Our trusty go-to red cabbage variety, with beautiful medium size heads. They store well, are tasty, and great raw as slaw, cooked, or fermented into homemade sauerkraut. We can store red cabbage in the fridge for months after harvest without it going bad!
Red Acre – Another popular and early producer of tight medium size red heads.
Brunswick – This heirloom variety of green cabbage is one of our go-tos, but it does take longer to mature than some. However, it is extra cold-hardy! It produces large drumhead type (slightly flattened) heads that store well, and is awesome for all types of cabbage creations and recipes.
Emiko Napa Cabbage – our favorite compact, bolt-tolerant Napa variety.
Brussels Sprouts: We grew Dagan Brussels sprouts in fall 2020 and totally loved them! Despite being in less-than-ideal conditions (a partially shaded bed in the corner of our old garden) it produced very well for us. Nautic Brussels are a great option too. The sprouts are spaced further apart on the stalk, and the plants are tall and less dense in general, leading to less disease and an easier harvest of individual sprouts.

RELATED: Visit our cabbage grow guide here. Since brassicas are especially prone to aphids, so be sure to check out our organic aphid control tips! Also learn how to control cabbage worms here.

DeannaCat is holding a very large Brunswick green cabbage. She is wearing a white and black flannel shirt with dark blue jeans. She is smiling as she looks down on the enormous head of cabbage. — Me and my 7-pound Brunswick cabbage baby

A red cabbage has been cut in half to show the inside of the vegetable. — Integro cabbage

A two part image of Brussels sprouts growing in a fall garden. The first image shows a handful of harvest Brussels sprouts with the plants growing in a raised bed in the background. The second image shows a stalk of the plants with small Brussels sprouts growing along the main stem. — Dagan Brussels sprouts

Lettuce and Leafy Greens

We’re allll about the leafy greens here. They’re delicious, nutritious, easy to grow, and start producing quickly – making greens an excellent choice when you have a limited timeframe for a fall garden. And if your climate allows, they can last for a really long time too! Especially if you use the cut and come again harvest method to perpetually harvest from the same plants for many, many months like we do.

Kale: Kale is ideal to grow in the fall and winter; it actually gets sweeter after a light frost! Many varieties can even survive snow. Our favorite varieties are Dazzling Blue, Lacinato, Red Russian, and Scarlet kale, though curly varieties like Dwarf Green Curled kale and Meadowlark kale are even more cold tolerant. You can learn more about growing kale here.
Bok Choy: Joi Choi is my favorite leafy green to grow, ever. We also enjoy Prize Choy. Both have large thick stems and an open plant structure, perfect for prolonged cut-and-come-again harvesting. I only suggest tighter baby bok boy for folks with a shorter growing season, as the whole head needs to be harvested at once.
Swiss chard: My favorites include the beautiful Peppermint chard, Pink passion chard, and gorgeous yellow-stemmed Sunset Chard. While it is less showy, white-stemmed Fordhook swiss chard is great too. It is slower to bolt, has huge leaves, and continues to provide over a long growing season.
Mustard Greens: Yum! If you like zesty, spicy, absolutely gorgeous mustard greens, Japanese Red Giant are a must-grow. Green Wave mustards (prolific and cold tolerant) and Red Splendor (spunky mustard flavor, frilly, slow-to-bolt) are other varieties we really enjoy.
Lettuce: We love to grow Jericho romaine, Nevada, Freckles, Magenta, Red Mist, and Muir. They’re all heat tolerant (slow-bolting) which is great for our warm fall days, and have an open head structure, perfect for prolonged cut-and-come again harvests.
Spinach: Space spinach and Renegade spinach are two bolt-resistant spinach varieties we enjoy to grow. Cold-climate growers should take a look at exceptionally cold-hardy Giant Winter spinach too. Flamingo spinach is another that has performed very well for us, growing on taller plants with continued production.
Arugula: I love arugula! Especially Esmee arugula (more nutty than spicy, exceptionally cold tolerant) or Astro arugula (moderately spicy, excellent heat and cold tolerance, and good for cut-and-come-again harvest).
Other Asian Greens: We also always grow Yukina Savoy (similar to tatsoi but much larger leaves and more heat tolerant) Vitamin Green (similar to Yukina but less frilly), and Komatsuna greens (heat tolerant).

A raised garden bed full of tatsoi, Yukina savoy, and red mustard greens, growing upwards amongst metal hoops that are arched over the raised bed. A raised garden bed sits beyond it with similar hoops arched over the bed. Bok choy, asian greens, cabbage, and kale are billowing out of the raised bed. — Beds full of cut-and-come again greens. In the front bed: Yukina Savoy and Red Splendor mustard greens. In the back: Joi Choi bok choy, Prize Choy, Vitamin Green Asian greens, and Madeley kale.

A four way image collage, the first image shows the center growth tips from a kale plant, the second image shows the understory of a canopy of bok choy growing, the third image shows the understory of a chard plant growing, and the fourth image shows the view of a few rows of a variety of lettuce growing in a raised bed. — Dazzling blue kale, Joi Choi bok choy, Peppermint Swiss chard and a variety of lettuces.

A flat lay of a fresh harvest of winter vegetables is shown. They are arranged in various wicker baskets which are only visible on a few of their edges and one has a handle. There is an array of bok choy, red mustard greens, rainbow chard, tatsoi, and asian greens. All of the vegetables are vivid in color ranging from white, green red, yellow, purple, and shades in between. — A harvest of bok choy, swiss chard, mustard greens, kale, and more.

Root Vegetables: Carrots, Beets, Radishes and more

It is best to sow root vegetable seeds directly outside, as opposed to starting them in containers and transplanting them. They don’t like their roots disturbed and get shocked and stunted easily. Peas and beans also prefer to be directly sown. The one exception is beets. If you start beet seeds in a large enough container (such as small 4” pots), thin them early (trim out the unwanted sprouts), and transplant them before they get too large or root bound in the slightest, they usually grow just fine. See more tips on growing beets here.

Radishes: Give me all the radishes! A few of our favorite varieties include Pink Beauty, Easter Egg, White Icicle , Sora red round, Alpine, Bravo daikons, and long white daikon .
Carrots: We are always experimenting with new varieties of carrots, and love to plant a wide range of colors. Some favorites include Dolciva, Cosmic Purple, Naval, Scarlet Nantes, and more.
Beets: Boro beets are my favorite classic red variety. They’re beautiful, uniform, nearly blemish-free, and stayed tender despite getting very large (perfect for extended harvests at varying sizes over several months). I also really enjoy cylindrical Formanova and gorgeous bullseye Chioggia.
Turnips: Classic Purple Top White Globe turnips are awesome. While turnips aren’t necessarily my favorite root veggie, I really enjoy grating them with potatoes (half and half) to make low-carb hash browns! I also like Tokyo market turnips – small round tender white salad turnips.

RELATED: Get tips on how to successfully grow carrots in our carrot grow guide, or information about gr owing radishes here.

A four way image collage of a fall garden harvest. The first image shows a handful of three beets with their tops being held towards the sky. The second image shows a beet that has been cut in half to reveal its pink and white stripes within. The third image shows a bunch of pink radishes that have been harvested sitting inside a wicker basket. The fourth image shows a handful of carrots being held by their greens after being washed after the harvest.

A wicker basket of freshly harvest yellow, orange, and purple carrots along with a wicker basket of chioggia beets, a few of the beets have been cut in half to show their peppermint striped insides.

Alliums

Garlic – Garlic is a very cold-hardy crop, traditionally planted in the fall in most places. It overwinters well even in freezing conditions (especially hardneck garlic varieties), and is ready to harvest the following late spring to early summer. Inchelium red is one we always grow, though we often experiment with other varieties too! Learn more about choosing the right garlic varieties for your climate here, including important differences between softneck and hardneck garlic. Also visit our garlic grow guide for tips on planting, ongoing care, how to harvest and cure garlic, and more.
Onions – Spring is the best time to plant onions in most places. However, gardeners with mild winters like ours can also plant them in late summer for winter or spring harvest. We love to grow Walla Walla, Rossa Di Milano red onions, and Calibra. Short day, intermediate day, or day-neutral onion varieties usually do best over winter, given the reduced daylight hours. Get tips on growing onions from seeds, sets or seedlings here!
Leeks – Like onions, leeks are usually a spring crop in most places, but can be planted in fall and grown over winter in places with temperate winter weather (little to no frost). We grow them year round here! A few of our favorite leek varieties include Runner, Surfer, and Tadorna. Leeks are usually categorized as “long season” or “short season” varieties. Please visit our leek grow guide to learn more, including how to choose the best varieties for your climate.

A slotted wooden table has many freshly harvested onions and garlic, both with their greens still attached, drying on the table from a fall garden harvest.

Miscellaneous

Peas. Sugar snap peas are a spring and fall staple! We also grow snow peas on occasion, but definitely favor snap peas – for both raw eating or cooking.
Fava Beans. Favas are fantastic multi-purpose plants. Because of their ability to fix nitrogen and enrich soil, fava beans are often grown as cover crops. Yet they’re really delicious too – beans and leaves included! Bees also love their unique black and white flowers. Classic Windsor fava beans are our go-to variety. Read more about growing and using fava beans here.
Kohlrabi. I love this alien-like veggie! Kohlrabi is a member of the cabbage or brassica family, and tastes like a super sweet, crisp, juicy inner portion of a fat broccoli stem. Kordial, Kolibri, and Kossak kohlrabi are a few varieties we often grow.

Two hands holding a large handful of freshly harvest fava beans, she is holding them as one would spread out a deck of cards. Some of the beans are at least eight inches long, there are fava bean plants growing in the background with hundreds of white flowers set against their dense green foliage. — Windsor fava beans

A close up image showing a purple kohlrabi growing amongst a row of the same vegetable. The featured root protrudes from the soil by its taproot which sticks out of the ground by a half inch or so before the edible portion of the root begins. It grows leaves throughout various parts of its root, not just from the top like many other roots. The greens are leafy with purple veins. — Purple kohlrabi

Fall Flowers

There are a number of beautiful flowers you can include in your fall garden too, and some that are even frost-tolerant. Marigolds, mums, pansies, violas, calendula, snapdragons, strawflower, aster, and rudbeckia are a few great examples. Keep the color poppin’ and pollinators happy in your garden with these 18 flowers that bloom during fall.

Like fall veggie crops, it’s best to start fall flowers in the summertime and plant them by late summer to early autumn – since seedlings will be more sensitive to cold snaps. Once established, we’re able to grow chamomile, marigolds, calendula, snapdragons, lavender, and more right through winter here in zone 9! (Though they definitely grow and bloom more slowly during winter.)

And that concludes this list of awesome fall crops!

I hope this exploration of our favorite cool season vegetables got you excited for the fall season – and perhaps ready to try something new! Please feel free to ask any questions you may have or simply say hello in the comments below. Thank you for tuning in today!

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