5 Crops Everyone Can Plant in September You'll Hate Skipping!

But before we know it, we'll be complaining about the cold. Our summer gardens may be winding down for the year, but our fall gardens have only just begun. Fall is not the end, it is another rebirth. And on today's video, I'm going to share with you the five most important crops we must start from seed in September. What we do now determines if we're going to get out and enjoy the best weather of the year or fall victim to seasonal affective disorder. So let's roll up what's left of our sleeves and get planting. And stay tuned until the end of the video, where I will give you a complete list of my favorite seed varieties that I'm starting in September. And I'll also place direct links down in the video description to my favorite seed starting supplies, so you can help maximize your germination rates for a beautiful fall and winter garden. As a point of reference, I live on the southeastern coast of North Carolina, just outside of the Wilmington area. But the truth is, it doesn't really matter where I live, because all of the crops that I'm featuring in this video are tolerant of frost and freeze. So even if you get frost and freeze well before I do, it doesn't really matter because the first few frost and freezes are not a threat to any of these crops. Instead, the real problem that these crops run into is the shrinking UV index and the shrinking day length that happens in the middle of fall. So that's why we want to hurry up and get these crops out in our gardens as soon as possible, because even if it's still a little bit warm right now, it ultimately does not matter because we're working against the clock. Crop number one that we must start in September are our brassica transplants. And that includes crops like bok choy, broccoli, brussel sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, collards, kale, kohlrabi, mustard greens, mizuna, and romanesco. Unless you live in a place that doesn't see frost well until December, this is your last chance to start these crops. I know what you're thinking. It's still hot outside, but that mindset is a mistake because if you don't start these seeds now, you'll run out of sun intensity and day length. Today's weather outside doesn't matter anyway because we start these seeds indoors right now and we transplant them out into our garden in four to six weeks. Otherwise, these crops will likely stall on you and never reach maturity. Starting our brassicas from seed is easy. Fill seed trays with a basic potting mix labeled indoor mix or seed starting mix. Then take a chopstick and make quarter inch divots. Then sow two to three seeds per cell. This process is called overseeding because seeds don't have 100% germination rates. If more than one seed germinates in a single cell, you can thin them later or separate the seedlings for an extra free plant. Lightly compact the soil with your finger and gently water them in, allowing enough time for the water to absorb into the potting mix. You may want to do this in two to three passes so as not to dislodge the seeds. I started my brassica seedlings several weeks ago indoors and they are nearly ready for transplanting out into my garden. If it's still a little hot where you live when your seedlings are ready for transplanting, simply transplant them under shade cloth or black insect netting with a shade rating. You can always remove it later when temperatures moderate. Then if you're threatened with an early frost or a freeze before your plants are ready for harvest, cover them with an agricultural fabric. Cold hardy plants like these are more freeze hardy than they are frost hardy and keeping that hard frost formation off of the leaves give them considerable protection. Consider building a little PVC hoop house over your beds to make this process easy and switch out your covers. I'll link to a video both above and down in the video description that will show you how to build a hoop house in about 30 minutes. Crop number two that we must start from seed in September are carrots. Carrots are a non-negotiable crop to grow in the fall and winter because not only are they one of the easiest crops you will ever grow, but they are also one of the most cold hardy and can easily tolerate temperatures down to 10 degrees Fahrenheit uncovered and below zero covered and protected. Carrots are a root crop and should only be direct sown, never transplanted. All we need to do is dig a narrow trench about a quarter of an inch deep. I like dragging a piece of rebar across the soil to make an indentation. Then generously overseed the trench because carrots have notoriously low germination rates. If too many germinate, no problem, we can either thin the plants later or we can let them naturally push themselves apart as they grow. Then lightly cover the trench with soil, water it in, and leave the area moist until they germinate. You'll probably have to water it every single day. You'll start seeing germination in seven to ten days with full germination in about two to three weeks. There are so many reasons to grow carrots. They're easy to grow, they're virtually pest and disease free, they are super cold hardy, and of course they taste great. But what really makes them special to grow in fall is that carrots have a very interesting property where they produce sugars inversely proportional to temperature. So if you've only ever planted carrots in the spring and harvested them in the summer, you are missing out because carrots that mature when they're very warm out have a lower proportion of sugar to starch. Summer matured carrots are fairly starchy, but if you plant them in late summer and then you let them grow throughout the fall and they mature in late fall or early winter when the nights are very, very cold, well, they have very, very high sugar content. So while my leftover carrots from last spring that I'm still harvesting are really nice and they taste pretty decent, they are nothing at all like a carrot that you pick in late fall, early winter, which are just incredible. So most of you should be growing carrots 365 days a year, but I'm telling you right now, if you have never had a fall grown carrot, it is a wholly other experience. By the way, if you're enjoying this video, would you please consider subscribing to the channel, hitting the like button and leaving a comment. YouTube has been promoting shorts content a lot more heavily this year and with all of the AI garbage hitting the platform, it has been really difficult for long format creators such as myself to find new audiences and interacting with the video and leaving a comment and things like that goes miles to help spread it around the platform. So if you could do those things for me to help support the channel, I would really appreciate it. Thank you so much. Crop number three that we must start from seed in September is romaine lettuce. Just like our brassicas, if you have not started your romaine lettuce transplants yet, you are running out of time because romaine lettuce actually prefers mild temperatures. It is not a very cold hardy lettuce compared to other varieties. So for that reason, we need to get romaine lettuce out in our garden when it is still nice and warm out because we want it to mature and harvest that romaine before it gets truly cold. To sow romaine lettuce, just like with our brassicas, take a chopstick and make a quarter inch divot in the potting mix in each cell. Then sow three to four seeds per cell to account for spotty germination. Lightly compact the soil with your fingers and gently water them in in multiple passes, allowing time for the water to absorb into the potting mix so you don't dislodge the seeds. Germination begins in five to seven days with full germination in about two weeks. Now, just like my brassicas, I already started my romaine seedlings indoors. But unlike my brassicas, I did this in two different ways. I have some larger romaine lettuce that I started about four weeks ago and then some smaller romaine transplants that I began about two weeks ago. And that's because I love planting a ton of romaine, but I can't harvest it all at once. So I want to stagger the harvest and I want to have some plants that are behind the others. That way I can stretch that harvest as long as possible. Now, the real key to having an incredible romaine harvest is to start them in your garden early when it's still pretty warm out and transplant them underneath shade cloth if it's still a little bit too hot for them. You can remove the shade cloth when it starts cooling down and days don't get out of the 70s anymore and your nights are comfortably in the 50s and 60s. Now, from there you're going to need the heads to mature and if you are going to get a situation where you will get a frost or a freeze, you want to protect them because even a light frost forming on your romaine lettuce can damage them and cause some burning around the ridges of the leaves and a hard frost could actually kill or severely damage the heads. However, underneath an agricultural fabric, if you keep that frost from forming on the leaves of the plants, they're actually quite cold hardy. So with that row cover on top, I've had success keeping them alive down to about 20 to 25 degrees Fahrenheit. So if you get an early frost or freeze, don't fret, put that agricultural fabric above them and keep the frost off the leaves and they should do very well. Crop number four that we must start from seed in September are beets. Now, just like carrots, beets that mature in the cold weather have a much higher sugar content than beets that mature when it's very warm out. So if you've only had beets grown in the spring and harvested in the summer, you are missing out. Beets planted in late summer and harvested in the fall and winter are so much better tasting. However, unlike carrots, beets are not quite as cold hardy. A beet will tolerate temperatures to about 25 degrees Fahrenheit unprotected before it starts taking damage. But once again, if you cover them with an agricultural fabric and you keep the hard frost and freezes from forming on the beets, I've had them survive down to 10 degrees Fahrenheit. They're really cold hardy if you prevent that hard frost formation directly on the leaves. Beets are a root crop that should be direct sown, never transplanted. Take your finger and press a hole half an inch deep for the seed. I like using a piece of rebar or a piece of wood as a guide so I make sure that my rows are straight. Space each hole three to four inches apart to give the beets room to grow and develop nice big bulbs. Drop one to two seeds per hole. A beet seed is actually a multi-germ cluster of two to five true seeds. So multiple beets tend to germinate in a single planting hole and will require thinning later. Once sown, lightly cover with soil, water in and keep the area moist until they germinate. You'll start seeing germination in about seven days with full germination in about two weeks. And the fifth crop that you should start from seed in September is a twofer. The cold hardy herbs parsley and dill. Sometimes we get so distracted by the amount of different vegetables that we can grow in our garden that we forget some of our favorite annual herbs and in many ways, some of these annual herbs are even easier to grow. Now parsley, I have been growing for years, 365 days a year. It's both heat tolerant and cold tolerant. Parsley, when it's mature, can tolerate temperatures all the way down to 10 degrees Fahrenheit unprotected. You'll probably get a few plants that die or take cold damage, but it can survive those temperatures. If you cover them with an agricultural fabric row cover, they can take even colder temperatures than that because keeping that frost formation off goes miles to increasing their cold tolerance. It often comes as a surprise when I tell gardeners that dill is actually very cold hardy. Half the time it doesn't even say it's frost tolerant on the seed packages, but it actually is. Now dill unprotected will usually take cold damage somewhere around the 25 to 28 degree Fahrenheit range. So if you leave it unprotected, it may not survive past the first few frosts and freezes. But if you grow it underneath an agricultural fabric row cover, it can survive temperatures into the teens. I have had many instances where dill has survived all winter long here in zone eight. Despite the fact we get down into the teens every single year, it's all about keeping that hard frost formation off and planting multiple plants. So if you lose half of them throughout the winter, you still have half of them that produce for you. But either way, both parsley and dill love the fall weather and can grow into the winter in virtually every climate. The only thing you'll need to know is that young dill, if you choose to direct sow it, can be a little bit vulnerable to pests. For example, here is some dill that I direct sowed in my garden and it's doing very well, but right next to it, I direct sowed another plant. This used to be a dill plant, but something ate it. So if you have lots of issues with pests nibbling your dill, well, it may be better to start it indoors and transplant it out later. Or alternatively, you can just sow a whole bunch of dill so when it comes up, there's so much of it, something can't eat all of the plants. And that right there are my five most important crops that you should start from seed in September. Now, I know a lot of you right now are pretty burnt out from gardening and unfortunately, we go through the same cycles every single year. By the time the end of summer rolls around, we're so tired of the heat, the humidity, the thunderstorms, the mosquitoes, and all of the diseases and insect pests in our garden that we're just ready to take a break. We say, I've had enough. It's been a great season. It was nice while it lasted. But then what happens? The fall weather rolls around. It starts getting really, really nice and crisp out. We want to be outside again and we have no garden to look forward to. Then the UV intensity of the sun starts dropping to next to nothing. It gets cloudier. It gets drizzlier. The days shrink. And before we know it, the sun sets at 5.30 PM and we just wish that we had a reason to be outside working in our garden and seeing something in our yard that is nice and green and alive. And when we don't start that fall garden, we deeply regret it later. I know this pattern well. It used to happen to me every single year. But since I started planting a garden and gardening 365 days a year, I'm telling you right now, it has changed my life. I get sun exposure all throughout the year. I get fresh air all throughout the year and I'm such a happier person because of it. And if you're one of those gardeners that has a really early end to the mild fall temperatures and winter sets in early, I'm telling you right now, build yourself some of these PVC hoop houses. You don't have to be a slave to the weather. Having an agricultural fabric above in the wintertime will extend your harvest by a month. It may even carry you longer in the winter or completely through the winter. And you can repurpose these hoops all throughout the year. You can use insect netting in spring and fall when it's buggy. You can use shade cloth in summer and you can extend the harvests of your spring crops and prevent them from bolting. And you can also get your fall crops in the ground earlier. I use these hoops all throughout the year. They are a game changer and they have unlocked year-round harvest for me in a very difficult climate where it gets very cold in the winter and unbearably hot in the summer. And as promised, here is a list of some of my favorite seed varieties for the crops I featured in this video. I placed direct links to all of the different seeds down in the video description for your convenience if you would like to get these seeds for yourself. Don't let the weather get you down. Don't let seasonal depression win. You can do this. We can do this together. So everybody, I sure hope you enjoyed this video and found it helpful. If you did, please make sure to hit the like button, subscribe to the channel, and please ring the notification bell so you're notified when I release more videos like these. Again, I placed direct links down in the video description to all of the seed varieties that I featured as well as all of the things that I use in real life to actually start my seeds and get my fall garden going. For everything else I use in real life in my yard and garden, that's linked in my Amazon storefront in the video description. And while you're down there, check out my website, themillennialgardener.com for all things gardening and custom home design merch if you want to support my channel. Thank you all so much for watching and I hope to see all of you again on the next video. We completely forgot when we took Dale to Florida last winter and we took him to the amazing dog toy store there, they had these... Willys? Yeah, Willys. They had this microwavable pupcake and we had it and this is a microwavable dog treat. It's got icing and everything. Ooh, doesn't that look good? And somebody's liquor is going non-stop. All right, buddy. You have to let us... Oh, you know what? Dale, can you go back? Oh, excellent. Oh, so good. Oh, what a well-behaved pup. What kind of weird plasticine coating was that? That just came right off. I don't know if I like that. Well, Dale, that was interesting. Oh, it might be a little hot. We checked. Is it still too hot? It's pretty hot on the bottom. Oh, no, sir. Hold on, Daly. Maybe we need to let this cool off a little bit. Okay, we don't want to burn that precious tongue.