Spring gets all the gardening glory, but fall has a sneaky advantage: it can cost less to get growing. The season favors vegetables that handle cooler weather, many of which grow beautifully from inexpensive packets of seed rather than trays of pricey transplants, heat-loving plants, and all the gear that comes with them. That difference can make a second garden feel less like another expense and more like getting extra mileage from the garden already in place.
There is another money-saving trick hiding in plain sight: the soil already has a season of work behind it. Beds sit where they sat in spring, irrigation may already exist, tools are already in the shed, and garden amendments may already have made their way into the soil. With a little planning, fall becomes less about starting from scratch and more about putting existing, proven resources back to work.
