10/14/2026
It’s orchard planting season!
Fall is actually the best time of year to plant most perennial plants, including trees, shrubs, vines, and perennial flowers and herbs. Planting in fall allows for two seasons of cooler weather for plants to get established before the heat of summer. Our preferred planting time is early October through mid November. Fall plantings should be watered twice a week until they go fully dormant.
The only orchard plants we generally prefer spring for planting are tender ones that don’t like the cold (like figs, pomegranates, rosemary, etc) and evergreen ones (stone pines, grape hollies, etc), which can dry out in winter conditions.
October is also time for garlic planting! Garlic is a great intercrop for orchards, as it gets started after leaves have dropped in fall and in the spring before trees have leafed out. We get good production in conditions too shady for other annuals. Forr this reason it’s the only annual crop we’re still planting in our maturing food forest at the POP Learning Orchard at the Woodlands.
Volunteers planting garlic this week as an alley crop in the POP Learning Orchard!
