Planning for the Cool Season Garden

Today I pulled my container of cool season vegetable seeds from the shelf in the garage. It’s time to think about the second season garden. In most of Southern California we can garden year round and certain crops are at their very best in the fall and winter months. Robert Smaus, formerly the garden editor at the Los Angeles Times says September Begins the Garden Year. I agree.

Late September is a good time to begin planting some of the cool season vegetables here at the coast. Direct seeding and transplanting usually continues through the end of October in my garden. Last year I planted my beets and carrots the last week of September and germination was excellent. The soil is warm, nights are cooler and after the fall equinox, the hours of sunlight decrease.

I’m planning to grow more of my brassicas, such as cauliflower, broccoli, romanesco from seed since I’ve had difficulty locating certain varieties when I wanted to plant them.

‘Graffiti’ cauliflower is generally hard to find in six packs and every year I vow to order the seeds to grow my own.

Same story for romanesco. With the increased pandemic-induced interest in gardening and growing food this spring, I found it difficult to obtain tomato varieties that do well here at the coast. Everything else in my summer garden, except peppers, I grow from seed which I had ordered pre-pandemic.

I anticipate that I could encounter similar problems this fall and since I have the time “in quarantine” I’ll be ordering the seeds for my cool season garden in the next week. Even today, as I began the hunt, I found “out of stock” on some of the varieties I hoped to purchase. I may be ordering seeds from a greater number of companies this year.

I’m reviewing my notes and garden record from last year and making my lists of seeds on hand and seeds to purchase. I’ll savor the corn for another week and the tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchini and peppers a little longer. I’ll be sowing seeds this month for transplant to the garden in October.

I’m ready for the second season garden.