(It’s 2021! See my gardening calendar for this year HERE.)
You may recall my mentioning the calendars that I make in order to help me remember what to plant in the vegetable garden each month, how to care for my fruit trees, and how to water it all. I’ve found that these calendars save me a lot of time and money over the course of each year.
This year, I made one for you.
I sent my file to a printer located in Minnesota and ordered a box of them. Give me the word, and $20 (plus your local sales tax), and I’ll mail one to your front door. Shipping is included in the price.
This is exciting. I think you’ll find the calendar highly useful. The information is tested and proven, at my gardens and others’ gardens near the beach as well as inland. And it’s 100% Southern California specific.
Here are some situations in which I’ve found the calendar helpful:
—Which vegetables should I buy from the nursery today? I no longer need to explore my memory or consult my notes, a book, or the Internet. The calendar tells me.
—I want a blueberry bush. When should I plant one? Calendar says January is best.
—It’s March. Oh yeah, better get on it! Calendar says this is the best month for grafting avocados.
—How often might my orange tree need water here in November? Calendar says that the average evapotranspiration rate is half as much as in September, so I should be able to water it about half as often as I did then.
For each month, behind the gardening information, I’ve included a photo that I took in my yard. There’s a handful of carrots that I harvested in May for May. There’s a bunch of grapes for July.
December shows a few chard leaves that my son picked in that month:
With the photos, my idea is to show what really happens in a regular home garden in each month in Southern California, or what can happen anyway.
I’m a home gardener just like you. I have no hired help. I pull every weed and sow every seed myself. Moreover, I don’t grow food for a living, such that I have an extraordinary amount of time to dedicate to it.
My hope is that this calendar can help you grow more fruits, berries, and veggies successfully in your yard with less time and effort, as it has done for me in the past.
If you think this calendar would benefit your 2020 food garden, click here to see some details about ordering.
If the calendar doesn’t sound like something you need, do remember that I’ve written posts about tasks that are timely during each month in a Southern California food garden. See those monthly posts here.
Avocado calendar
Just a note on the near future: For the avocado nuts among us, I am also working on a calendar devoted to growing that aristocrat of fruits. I’m hoping to have the avocado calendar ready to go by Thanksgiving.
I’ll take one.
Greg, I have benefited so much from your posts! My avocado trees are thriving(even the Reed after a fish emulsion treatment), planted a 4 X 5 bee garden for my Kona Sharwil, I have ordered a raspberry plant because you said it is such a great idea. Ordered a banana tree after “getting an okay” from your banana article. Still trying to figure out about mangos despite your post on mangos. Did I tell you that I planted store bought potatoes last September? They are doing great. Yah, you can say I am a copycat but I wont be offended. Thank you for all your articles! Ordered my calendar already!!
I just ordered a calendar, too.
As for mangos, I’ve got one in front of my place on the south side of the house with concrete close by. I’m guessing that helps with keeping heat in. It’s an ataulfo variety (small yellow one) so it ripens before it gets too cold. I haven’t done anything special other than smothering it with mulch and giving it a shot of fertilizer every now and then. I haven’t pruned it either but probably should so it starts to look more like a tree than the bush it currently is. My theory is that if I leave it as a bush for some time all the growth will help protect it from the cold and I’ll just have some die back and not a dead tree. It’s produced for two years now, however, last year was just a couple of little ones that the rats got. This year we actually had good ones and there are still 5 on the tree that’ll be plenty ripe after the heat this weekend.
Awesome, Wai Ling. You copy anything from me that makes sense, I copy from you, we all copy from all of the gardeners who came before us!
I’d love one but can you tell me what zone its geared for. I’m in 10a
10a is right in the sweet spot for the calendar.
Hi Yvonne,
That’s a good question. It should be accurate for you in USDA zone 10a if you’re in Southern California between the mountains and the ocean. If you know your Sunset zone, the calendar is accurate for zones 18 through 24.
The way I’ve created this calendar is through keeping track of years of planting dates (and other garden activities) and their results in one of my gardens in the frostless and mild zone 24 (near Balboa Park in San Diego) and another in the sometimes frosty and sometimes scorching-hot zone 20 (my current garden in Ramona). Then I also constantly visit the gardens of family, friends, and others throughout the year from Santa Barbara southward and inland to the mountains, and I note what I see and how it’s faring.
All of this I compare to information in resources like the Sunset Western Garden Book, the California Master Gardener Handbook, and the advice of various Cooperative Extension advisors, and so on.
So what I believe I’ve written in this calendar is planting dates and other timely tips that will work for everyone in the above-mentioned areas.
However, as I wrote on the calendar’s back cover, I’ve put into the calendar the “best” times to do most things, not the only times. For example, I say to plant potatoes within the first half of September. That is great advice for everyone, but if you live close to the beach or if we all have a mild winter such that no one gets frost, then you can plant potatoes later than that. Still, for everyone, planting on September 1 is always better than on October 1 because quickly in the fall the days get short and plant growth slows and your harvest will be later and possibly smaller because of the delayed planting.
Obviously, I don’t have the space on the calendar to go into such details. So I just wrote that potatoes are best planted by the first half of September. But I do have a full post on growing potatoes so my hope is that users of the calendars will refer to such posts for the details.
I also hope that if it’s possible to make this calendar better — and I’m sure it is — you awesome Yard Posts readers will show me where it can be adjusted and improved.
(What a windy reply to your simple and straightforward question, Yvonne. Sorry!)
Thank-you Greg! I can’t wait to get one! Great Idea!
Hi Greg,
Please do let us know when your Avocado Calendar is available.
You can sign me up now if you have a waiting list…?
Hi Gabe,
In case you didn’t get the message in the subscriber email, I regret to say that I can’t get the avocado calendar ready for 2020. I’m still working on it though, and I plan to have one ready for 2021. Thanks for the interest; hope it perseveres!
Hi Greg!
I just ordered one for me and a few more as gifts! This is perfect. Thanks so much for making my holiday shopping much easier this year! Can’t wait to use it next year.
Take care
Lisa
Greg, I would love a calendar.
My calendar just arrived. I would say the most fascinating thing in it is the water needs per month. I suspect I may have lost a tree or two due to insufficient water in the summer months. Thank you for the great resource.
Thanks for the feedback, Bob. I look forward to making this calendar even more useful next time if it turns out to be a good resource for folks here in 2020.
Greg,
I am a new reader to your blogs and your youTube postings. I love your breadth of knowledge, your children in the photos, you seem like such a NEAT, relaxed person, not afraid to show us your mistakes!
Believe it or not, I am STILL interested in purchasing a 2020 calendar, and of course a 2021 calendar. Are you selling both of these products now? Let me know the DETAILS of how I can purchase both calendars.
Best Regards,
Maria in Placentia CA — a new gardener, very novice.
Hi Maria,
Thanks! I’ll keep trying to be that person I appear to be, Ha!
I’m still selling the 2020 calendars here in October since the information is perennial, and I am hoping to have a 2021 calendar with new photos available in early November.