I hate to see folks letting their vegetable gardens go dormant in the winter. The eggplants and tomatillos and cucumbers decline in the fall, and they don’t replace them with cool-season crops. They just wait to get started again in the spring, as if they live in Ohio.
This is Southern California! Do you see snow on the ground? Planting vegetables in fall and growing through winter is what we do here. It’s spring and summer for some crops; it’s fall and winter for others. We eat fresh from the yard all year. Get your head in the game!
Take a look at my vegetable garden here at the beginning of January, as I note four good reasons to keep your beds full and productive during the winter season:
Again, the reasons are:
1. Rain. We get it almost exclusively in winter, and it is free, it saves time from not having to irrigate, and rainwater quality is superior for our soil and plants compared to the imported district water that comes through the pipes.
2. Pest and disease reduction. Root-knot nematodes go dormant in the cool winter soil, and powdery mildew usually disappears in winter.
3. Crop preferences. Certain plants are harder or impossible to grow well at warmer times of year, or don’t taste as good, including broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, brussels sprouts, lettuce, greens, peas, onion, garlic, carrots, parsley, cilantro, celery, and spinach.
4. Wonderful working environment. Most of the daylight hours during winter in Southern California have temperatures in the 60s, which is perfect for being active in the yard. Less sweating, less sunburn, more energy.
It’s not too late. If your vegetable garden is empty you can still plant in order to take advantage of the rest of the winter’s rains and cool temps, and you’ll have harvests coming soon.
What vegetables to plant now? See this post with some charts or this post about January or get my calendar.
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Unfortunately we have 2 story condos sw of our yard, plus our neighbors to the s/sw of us put up an 8 foot fence last year, so we barely get any sun in our yard, since the sun is so low in the sky this time of year. I still have carrots and radish growing and our cherry tomatoes are barely hanging in there, but none are thriving. I planted potatoes in August – they are peaking out of the ground, but not growing. The garden is pretty depressing this time of year. I would like to have things growing year round Any suggestions?
Hi Stacey,
This is rough! My previous garden had parts like this. My best advice would be to remember that the sun has already started rising in the sky, and it is surprisingly high by the end of winter in March. Note the shadow line now and predict where will be sunny in just a few weeks or a month, then plan accordingly. Any spot that will be sunny within a few weeks could be sown now. Soon after the seeds germinated they would be in sun.
I’m one of those winter garden vacationers, but this year I did manage to get some beets and broccoli in the ground. There’s some volunteer parsley and celery coming up as well that I’m going to encourage. Winter for me is mostly doing stone fruit and grape pruning and letting the chickens run wild in the garden but I suppose I should do more this time of year. You’re right, we’re not snowed.