From the Cottage: Garden Fall Prep

Summer's out, pumpkins are in. 🍂 Time to swap wilted greens for fall’s cozy bounty! Whether you're elbow-deep in compost or just here for the vibes, transitioning your garden has never looked cuter. 🧺✨ Read the full blog at www.therusticcowcrafts.com for tips, laughs, and cozy homestead inspo.

From Sunburns to Sweater Weather: How to Transition Your Garden from Summer to Fall 🍂🌽

Let’s be real: summer gardens are a whole mood. Tomatoes are popping off like fireworks, zucchinis are multiplying like rabbits, and you’re 90% compost tea and regret by the time August rolls around. But once the sun starts setting before 8pm and the pumpkins start eyeing your porch, it’s time to shift gears.

Yes, friend — we’re talking about the garden glow-down. The great fall transition. The time when your sun-drenched homestead starts trading basil bouquets for butternut squash.

Here’s how to move your garden from summer drama to autumn cozy, without losing your mind (or your marigolds).

🧹 Step 1: Embrace the Chaos (Then Clean It Up)

You know that one tomato plant that’s turned into a sentient jungle gym? Yeah, it’s time. Thank your overachieving veggies for their service, snap a photo for Instagram, and start clearing out anything that’s done producing or starting to look like a crypt keeper.

Pro tip: compost the healthy stuff, but toss anything diseased or pest-infested unless you want to host Bugapalooza 2026 in your soil.

🌱 Step 2: Sow Now, Cozy Later

Fall crops are the chill friends of the garden world. No drama, just vibes. Once the summer crowd clears out, make room for cool-season rockstars like:

• Kale (the cardigan of the garden)

• Carrots (plant now, stew later)

• Radishes (impatient and spicy, we love to see it)

• Spinach, beets, turnips, and lettuce, too!

Depending on your zone, you can direct sow these bad boys or start them indoors if your frost date is creeping closer than you’d like.

🌾 Step 3: Mulch Like You Mean It

Your soil worked hard all summer — treat it to a little spa day. Mulch keeps fall crops warm, blocks out weeds, and makes everything look like you totally have your life together. (We know you were out there gardening in Crocs and a 3-day-old hoodie, it’s fine.)

Use straw, shredded leaves, or compost. Just… maybe not the glitter-covered pine bedding from the holiday aisle at Dollar Tree.

🐝 Step 4: Feed the Pollinators (They’re Still Here!)

Bees, butterflies, and other garden MVPs are still buzzing around and looking for a snack. Let a few herbs or flowers bolt and go to seed (hi, dill and basil!), or plant late bloomers like calendula and nasturtium to give them a little boost.

Bonus: you’ll feel like a magical forest witch scattering flower seeds and saving the ecosystem. Win-win.

🧄 Step 5: Garlic = Future Bragging Rights

If you're not planting garlic in the fall, are you even a homesteader?

Stick some cloves in the ground before the first frost, mulch it like it’s going into hibernation (because it is), and come spring? You’ll feel like an absolute legend when it sprouts.

Garlic = power move. Do it.

🛠️ Step 6: Fix Your Stuff Now, Not in April

That sad little trellis being held together by hope and zip ties? The compost bin that looks like a raccoon jungle gym? Yeah, let’s tackle that now while the weather’s decent and you're not crying into your seed catalog next spring.

Future You will say thank you. Probably in the form of fewer splinters.

🐓 Bonus Round: Let the Chickens In

If you’ve got chickens (or ducks, or rogue guinea pigs), now’s a great time to let them do their thing in the cleaned-out beds. They’ll scratch, snack on bugs, and fertilize like tiny feathered landscapers. Just don’t expect them to follow a plan. Or boundaries.

Final Thoughts: You’ve Got This, Dirt Witch 🌻

Transitioning your garden from summer to fall isn’t just about prep work — it’s about embracing the season shift. Pour yourself some apple cider, throw on that flannel you’ve been side-eyeing since July, and enjoy the slower pace.

Fall gardening is less go-go-go and more grow-grow-grow (but make it chill). So light that cinnamon candle, pull your boots on, and get out there. Your autumn homestead kingdom awaits.

Now go forth and mulch something. 🍁And if you need a cozy fall candle or some cute rustic signs to match your mood? You know where to find us: www.therusticcowcrafts.com 🐄✨