Take it easy if you want. No pressure. But also be aware of seasonal opportunities that only occur once a year. Here are some things you can do in the food garden in the winter — that is January, February, and March.
VEGETABLES
Sow and plant beets, brassicas (earlier the better), carrots, cilantro, greens, lettuce, parsley, peas, potatoes, radish, and spinach. Now is the easiest time to sow carrots in the ground because it’s easy to keep the seeds moist until germination.
If you need to buy seeds or plants for the year and your local nursery doesn’t have what you want, try Johnny’s or Territorial.
Sow tomatoes indoors from January to be planted from March. (More about when to plant tomatoes.)
Sow peppers, squash, cucumber, and melons indoors more like February and March so you can plant them from April.
Add compost to your beds. Winter rains will wet it thoroughly for free. (My post on using compost on vegetable beds.)
FRUITS
Prune deciduous trees because you can see the branches. (My post on where to make the cuts.)
Prune avocados around March because the threat of damaging cold is finished and new leaves will quickly grow to protect exposed branches from sunburn. (My post on pruning avocados.)
Plant bare-root fruit trees, vines, and berry plants. (Why bare-roots are the best.)
Graft deciduous fruit trees and avocados. Be sure to collect wood for grafting before trees start growing again. February is usually a great month to graft deciduous fruit trees. March is usually the magic month to graft avocados in Southern California. (My post on grafting deciduous fruit trees.) (The best resource on grafting avocados.)
Add mulch under trees. Winter rains will thoroughly wet the mulch for free. (Why mulch under fruit trees?)
Transplant small fruit trees. If you want to move a small fruit tree to another spot, now is the optimum time.
Protect from cold any small trees of tender species, like avocados or mangos. Damaging cold can still occur through the end of February. Don’t be fooled into complacency by this spell in the 80s in the middle of January. (My post on protecting avocados from cold.)
Happy winter gardening!
A list of all my Yard Posts is HERE
Hey Greg, Winter cold weather? City of San Diego was 82 yesterday, forecast for 85 & 87 & 80 for next 3 days. I wonder how confused my deciduous fruit trees get this year! ?
Hi Robert,
It’s a weird winter, eh? This warm spell, and now finally the forecast is for a pattern change and some chill and rain. Better late than never, but sure is confusing, yes!
I too have earley peaches flowering.My question is it to late to graft plum on pluot that are not flowering yet? Thanks Westminster
Hi Jerry,
It’s not too late at all. This should be a very good time for that grafting.
thanks for the little push! I actually quite appreciated that you said “no pressure”… you’ve offered encouragement in a nice way. In Pacific Beach, San Diego, our nectarine is in flower. Have I missed the window for dormant spray against leaf curl? Eek, all of our fruit trees really get it. Thanks!
Gene, what dormant spray do you use for leaf curl? I thought they outlawed the copper based liquid with no really descent replacement.
Gene and Joe,
That’s my understanding, too, although I’m not the best person to ask since I have no firsthand experience here.
Here is most of my knowledge on the subject: https://gregalder.com/yardposts/dormant-spray-deciduous-fruit-trees/
And here is what I do in my own yard about peach leaf curl, along with the results: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOGHtTh3kjM&t=111s
Greetings Greg!
We came across your website recently, it was exactly what we were looking for! We love avocados and recently purchased a home in SoCal. We’re near the intersection of Wildcat Cyn Rd and San Vicente Rd in Ramona. I’m really hopeful we’ll be able to plant several avocados here, along with a variety of other fruit trees. We have about about 1 acre of usable sloping hillside to work with.
My concerns are threefold:
1. The water here has very high iron content and the TDS is around 1,000. Are those issues of any concern?
2. We have WAY TOO MANY California Pepper trees on the land. Since they are allelopathic the ground beneath them is clear of any growth. Once I have removed the Pepper Trees what (if anything) do I need to do to prepare the soil for the avocados or other fruit trees?
3. When I gaze around our neighborhood, I see lots of healthy stone fruits, citrus, cacti, Eucalyptus and of course Oak, but I haven’t seen a single avocado tree. Do you think there is something about this locale that will contradict avocados growing here?
Thanks for your response and thanks for putting together such a useful website!
Hi Marti,
Your water is very salty. You’ll probably have to water a lot to leach. They did a trial using reclaimed water in Escondido with similarly salty water and got reduced yields. If I were you, I would buy a tree on a salt-tolerant rootstock from Subtropica Nursery: https://www.subtropicanurseries.com/
I wouldn’t worry about the pepper trees and allelopathy; I would just worry about the shade they might cast on new trees and the competition that their roots will make for water with your new trees. For those reasons, I’d plant as far from them as possible or remove some.
In your neighborhood, planting in the spot that is warmest on winter nights is best. We haven’t had any cold nights yet this winter (I’m in Ramona too), but when they come they do damage to young avocado trees. Therefore, also important is planting in about March so that the tree can grow as much as possible before facing its first winter. Oh, and water a lot through the summer!
Hi Greg, I am in the Irvine area and I was wondering when you direct sow the greens you recommend now, does it take them a really long time to get going? My lettuce and bok choy are taking forever to get true leaves and they just kinda hang out and do very little. Should I start them inside? Thanks! Your posts are amazing and I really enjoy them!
Hi Victoria,
Your comments are in so many minds right now, including my own. It’s just that time of year.
The days are short, the air and soil are chilly, and everything grows so slowly. Everything I’ve recently sown also feels like it’s taking forever.
If you sow in trays inside, they will germinate faster if your house is kept warm. Otherwise, there’s not much advantage. Once the seeds have germinated they still ought to be outside in the sun all day. (Though I usually bring my seedlings into my garage at night.)
But watch, in a month or so, these plants will start taking off. As the days lengthen and warm, they will begin growing incredibly fast.
I planted broccoli in November (seedlings) and they bolted in January…. not sure what went wrong. If I sow seeds now they will be okay?
Hi Dena,
Bummer about your broccoli. I planted some broccoli on November 1 that I’d sown on September 17, and we’ve been harvesting heads from that row since last week. The plants grew well but not quite as well as broccoli plants I’d put in the ground in August/September. The struggle of your plants might have been related to lack of water considering the warm and dry weather we had frequently through November and December. Just a possibility. When young, broccoli plants can’t go thirsty or else they stop growing leaves and try to rapidly make a small head that then rapidly shoots into flowers.
If you sow broccoli now you may or may not get good results. It depends on the spring weather and on your location. I sowed a final crop of broccoli a couple weeks ago knowing that sometimes the spring weather is very warm and the plants don’t get big enough before they insist on making heads, and then the heads aren’t very big. However, if you live within a mile or two of the beach you’re likely to have more marine layer through spring and possibly get a better, late crop.
Try it! Just make sure to keep the young plants well watered. The worst that will happen is that you will get heads that are smaller than you hope for. Then put broccoli in at the end of summer this year in order to get the big heads.