Follow Austin Organic Gardeners as we plan, plant, tend, and harvest our fall gardens at Zilker Botanical Gardens. Austin Organic Gardeners are celebrating 75 years as the longest running organic garden club in the US. AOG Members Madelynn Arnold and Angel Schatz share videos, photos, and downloads via social media to help you get started with your fall garden. Download the Sustainable Food Center Student Guide to follow along! The lessons are great for beginners and experienced gardeners that want to dig into the details of Austin's botanical backyard and learn from the different styles of organic garden beds.

⬇ Download SFC Student Guide

Episode 1: Planning Your Fall Garden

August is the time to start planning your fall garden! Don’t worry, you can plan inside in the air conditioning. ❄️ This video provides some examples of how you can plan with just pencil and paper.

Episode 2: Garden Planning with Technology

For the tech savvy gardener, we recommend a few options for doing your Fall garden plan.​

Check out this short video to see examples of two options for designing your garden plan using apps.

Episode 3: Tim's Tomato Tip

Get out the ✂️, it's time for Tim's Tomato Tip!!! AOG member and dryland farmer Tim Miller of @millbergfarm has some literal and figurative tips for you to save WATER and TIME in planting your fall tomatoes.

​Episode 4: Fall Garden Planning Book and Website Recommendations

Here's a short video on a few other planning resources and books that we like. 

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...
https://www.centraltexasgardener.org/
​https://tngaustin.com/

​Episode 5: 8 Garden Tips for August

Be glad that you're not a soil microbe or worm during this  time of year in Texas. There's a lot that you can do to protect your soil during August so that come fall, the entire soil web is working for your plants. Watch this short video for eight garden tips for August.

​Episode 6: Build a Vertical Garden for under $40

We decided to add a simple vertical garden this summer to make room for nitrogen fixing pole beans and heat loving leafy greens. This video shows a simple design that costs less than $40.

​Episode 7: Gardening Tools

Having a set of garden tools is a goodinvestment into growing your own food. Here is a video of AOG members demonstrating some of our favorites that we use at the garden beds at Zilker Botanical Garden.​

Episode 8: The Four Elements: Sun, Soil, Water, Air

Gardening is about tuning your senses into the four elements. Watch this short video to learn about the essentials of gardening which will help improve your current garden or help you plan for a new one. 

Episode 9: How to Make a Lasagna Garden

The lasagna gardening technique, also called sheet composting and no-dig gardening, is a relatively easy method of preparing a garden bed for planting.  Watch this short video to learn about how we are using lasagna gardening to rebuild the soil on a compacted walkway.  ​

Episode 10: Using Fish Emulsion in the Garden

Fish makes a very good natural fertilizer for nitrogen and trace minerals. Native Americans taught colonizers how to bury fish at the base of each crop plant. This video show how to use fish emulsion as an organic fertilizer.

Episode 11: Mushroom Compost

The volunteer team from AOG met with Zilker Botanical's head gardener to get the details on one of his favorite amendments for any garden type. Watch then video to find out the what, why, when and how to add mushroom compost to your fall garden. ​

Episode 12: How to Build a Garden Bed in the Ground

Austin Organic Gardeners member David Kraemer shows us how to work with hard compacted soils to build a new garden in the ground. You will learn about different organic gardening techniques to build healthy topsoil to feed your plants. ​

Episode 13: It's September! Time to Start Planting

Watch this video for tips on planning and planting your garden in central Texas. ​

Episode 14: ​Digging in the Soil with Dr. Cynthia Klemmer

Soil scientist Dr. Cynthia Klemmer from Zilker Botanical Garden demonstrates why soil is the most important part of gardening. This video will help you understand all the components of soil and why it is important in building a healthy, thriving garden. ​

Episode 15: ​Start a Three Sisters Garden

We started a three sisters garden at Zilker Botanical Gardens right before the full corn moon! Watch this short video to learn how to start yours. ​

Episode 16: How to Start Vegetable Seeds

Austin Organic Garden member Erin Hollis is a seed starting pro. She invited us to her backyard to socially distance and break down step-by-step, the best ways to start seeds for fall. This video will explain the steps from germinating seeds to transplanting into your garden beds. It is a detailed video so be sure to check out the two bonus tips at the end! ​

Episode 17: How to Build a Wicking Bed

This video explains how to build a wicking or “self-watering” bed. It is a water-saving raised bed garden that takes a lot of work up front but it is a water saver and doesn't require a daily watering or irrigation. There are many types of ways to build wicking beds and this one explains the one that we have demonstrated at Zilker Botanical Garden in the Pioneer village. Zilker will be opening up again on Monday so you can come see it in person.

​Episode 18: Learn to Build a Self-Watering Container Garden with Urban American Farmer​

Trisha Sutton of @urbanamericanfarmer American Farm invited us to @highlandpark_urbanfarm to show us how to build a self-watering container garden. It is a water-saving bed that fits in small spaces to grow veggies or herbs. You can find out more about her at UrbanAmericanFarmer.com You can also watch her talk with AOG on our Facebook group.

Episode 19: Save Water by Irrigating with Ollas

Ceramic pots (ollas) are permeable clay pots that slowly release water underground, reducing evaporation. They are a useful way to irrigate established plants, but they should not be relied upon to water seeds. Watch this short video about the olla’s we use in our demonstration beds at ZIlker Botanical Garden.

Episode 20: Grow a Mushroom Garden

🍄🌧️🍂It's fall and with all the rain, it's a perfect time to start a mushroom garden. In this video we show you how to grow culinary mushrooms in your garden using mushroom grow blocks from Hi Fi Myco. It's a great way to build your soil by adding organic matter. We are joined by Carter Humphrey from Central Texas Mycological Society and the Myco Research Station.

Episode 21: Square Foot Gardening

Austin Organic Garden member Erin Hollis invited us to her backyard to socially distance and show us how she does square foot gardening. ​

Episode 22: Composting: Nature’s Recycling

Austin Organic Garden member Darlene Watson invited us to her backyard to socially distance and show us how she does composting. Learn everything from the reasons why you want to compost down to the nuts and bolts of building a simple 2-bin compost system for only $65.

Episode 23: Gardening by the Moon

Happy Harvest Moon! Austin Organic Garden member Tim Miller invited us to his organic certified, dryland farm in Kyle, Texas to socially distance and show us how he farms by the moon. We use his moon planting calendar at our teaching beds at Zilker Botanical Gardens. You can also download it on our website. ​

Episode 24: Teaching Garden Update

Austin Organic Gardeners member volunteer day at Zilker Botanical Gardens is on Saturday mornings at 9:00 a.m! This past Saturday we were seeing the fall garden plan start to take off. This video shows the side-by-side Victory Garden with designs from 1945, the year AOG formed, next to a modern 2020 Victory Garden. See the progress and be sure to subscribe and follow us to get latest online lessons and updates.

Episode 25: October To Do List

There’s a lot of things to do in the garden in October. This video shows just four things we did in the teaching beds at Zilker Botanical Garden this past week. Be sure to check The Natural Gardeners list  and Central Texas Gardeners list for more to dos on getting your fall garden going.

Episode 26: Fall Blooming Plants for Beneficial Insect

Matt Morris from Zilker Botanical Garden took us for a tour in the butterfly garden to talk about the importance of fall blooming plants that attract beneficial insects such as pollinators and predators. He gives 5 tips on increasing diversity in your garden as well as 13 varieties of multi-use plants that attract insects and are also edible. ​

Episode 27: Use An Old Prom Dress As a Pest Control

Austin Organic Garden member Erin Hollis invited us to her backyard to socially distance and break down how she keeps the insects like cabbage loopers out of her garden beds. This video show how you can use tulle (‘80s prom dress material) to protect your plants. ​

Episode 28: Fall Garden Tips from Este Garden

Anamaria Gutierrez invited us to Este Garden in East Austin, formerly the East Side Cafe. It is now a community based project from the folks behind Suerte on East Sixth Street. Anamaria gives 5 tips including tricks to handle fall pests, recipes to salvage your plants that may seem lost to pests, and ways to fertilize and enrich the soil to reduce pests. ​

Episode 29: Harvesting and Curing Sweet Potatoes

Austin Organic Gardeners member David Kraemer invited us to his neighborhood traffic circle where he grew sweet potatoes. He showed us how to know when to harvest, how to cure for long storage and he even gives some of his favorite resources for growing veggies in Central Texas. ​

Episode 30: Grow Mushrooms On Logs

In this video we show you how to inoculate logs with medicinal reishi mushrooms in your garden. It's a great way to decompose logs and add organic material to your ecosystem as well as grow medicinal mushrooms that have been used in Traditional Chinese Medicine for 4,000+ years. We are joined by Carter Humphrey from Central Texas Mycological Society and the Myco Research Station. ​

Episode 31: Growing And Storing Garlic

🧄🕧 Now is the time to plant garlic in Central Texas. In this video AOG member Kurtis Colonna shares his knowledge of growing garlic in Central Texas. He discusses varieties, storage, where to buy, and how to intercrop garlic to repel pests. ​

Episode 32: What to Plant In November

November in Central Texas is a beautiful time to garden for many reasons. The temperatures are getting cooler, it’s time to harvest corn, okra, peppers, sweet potatoes, before the first frost that usually comes in mid-November. The monarch butterflies are also making their way through Texas. The many butterflies visited our gardens at Zilker Botanical Garden on this episode where we cover what to plant in November. There’s a lot to plant this time of year so be sure to add your favorites varieties in the comment section and feel free to ask us questions you might have. ​

Episode 33: Three Sisters Garden Update

In late summer we planted three sisters or milpa at Zilker Botanical Garden. This video gives an update as the bed is ready for harvest. Learn how to start a three sisters garden here.

Episode 34: Saving Squash Seeds

In our October Zoom meeting with James Brown of Barton Springs Mills, Austin Organic Gardener member Ila Favley showed-off a huge, warty, violin-shaped, Italian variety of butternut squash she grew called the Rugosa. We had to know more and she kindly invited us to social distance at Sunshine Garden, where she has been a community gardener for 25 years. In this video you will learn how to save squash seeds. I was lucky enough to get to try this squash and it is by far the most buttery of squashes I have ever had. You can get seeds online at Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds.