The REAL Reason Your Fall Garden Is Struggling [And How To Fix It!]

What's growing on, gardeners? On today's Two Minute Garden Tip, I'm going to show you the real reason why your fall garden is struggling and what you can do about it. Most gardeners think that temperature is the most important variable for plant growth, and they try to plant out their fall gardens based on temperature forecasts. And while temperature is important, since a plant's metabolic rate increases with warmer temperatures, it is only the secondary driver of plant growth. The primary driver of a plant's growth is solar energy. Photosynthesis is how a plant makes food, and that is actually what drives the plant's metabolism. Metabolism is downstream of photosynthesis. Therefore, gardeners actually need to plant their gardens based on available solar energy, not necessarily temperature. Available solar energy has two primary variables, day length and UV index. When you combine the two, that gives you the available amount of solar energy that your plants have to convert into plant food. I try and tell gardeners every year that if you waited for temperatures to cool down before you planted your fall garden, you are already four to six weeks too late, and your garden will struggle. Even if you still get warm temperatures late into the fall, the solar energy just isn't there anymore, and your plants will struggle to grow. For example, today is October 31st, and the town I grew up in in New Jersey was over 80 degrees today, nearly a record. But the UV index is down to three, and the day length is less than 10 and a half hours. That means the duration the sun spends high in the sky is barely giving your plants six to seven hours of very weak sun. So, even if it's nice and warm, the plants will hardly grow at all because they will struggle to photosynthesize. So, how do we fix this? Well, there are three ways. Number one, plant your crops earlier than you think. Start everything you possibly can as transplants indoors to get a big jump start, and then if temps are still too warm when you plant them out, just put shade cloth above them for a few weeks until it cools down. Number two, select varieties with lower days to maturity. They require less solar energy to grow. And number three, in case you think it's too late for you this season, just build hoops over your garden and place either greenhouse film or agricultural fabric with high light transmissivity over your crops. Since you can't drive any more light to your plants, you'll have to make up the difference by artificially increasing temperature. I will place a link above and down in the video description that will show you how to build a simple PVC hoop structure in less than 30 minutes, and I'll also place some links down in the video description for the high light transmissivity covers. And please, make sure to plant all of your plants in full sun. They need every drop of sunshine they can get this time of year. So, remember, always consider day length and solar intensity when planting out your garden. They are the primary driver of plant growth. Unlike the spring, where the days are getting longer and solar intensity is increasing, in the fall and winter, the solar energy decreases as the year progresses. So, you often need to plant things a lot earlier than you otherwise may think. And that's today's two-minute garden tip. If you're new to the channel, please consider subscribing and hitting the bell to receive new video notifications. And check out our Amazon storefront and spread shop in the video description for a list of the gardening products I use and awesome custom-designed apparel and other gear. Your support is greatly appreciated.