How to prepare my garden plot for spring

[BeckyW]

Southern California? Why, don't quit now! Winter gardens are great fun to grow! What Sunset garden zone are you? (Or USDA zone) Depending on where you are, you can very easily garden year round in SoCal. Plant carrots, spinach, beets, lettuce, peas, broccoli. If you're in the mountains not too high up (unless you're in ski country), you'll want to put some grow tunnels over the crops for night and pull back during the day.

On the coast, San Diego, Orange, LA, Ventura, Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo counties, you can garden year-round. You can garden year round in Kern county although the winter garden in mt communities should have been planted in Sept to take all the frosts Nov & Dec bring on the crops. Carrots can be harvested in the snow as can brussels sprouts and spinach survives well in grow tunnels. San Bernadino, Riverside are year-round and out toward Palm Springs & Cochilla Valley the best growing season of the year is just coming on. Ah the joys of zones 8-10!

But if you insist on resting your garden then you can cover crop however I wouldn't put in annual rye like northern climates do unless you get hard frosts at some point. I used to cover crop with peas on the coast - got a crop then tilled all under with plants still green. In Kern county, cotton fields are cover cropped with alfalfa in the off-season.

You can cover with steer manure - just make sure that garden gets plenty of water through the winter. Soils in California can easily build up salts in the arid climate without enough water to wash those salts deeper into the soil. It's better to cover with compost. Use the steer manure for Japanese-style tomato planting and dressing your onions at the appropriate time.

BW

[mtnmanlou]

Originally Posted by BeckyW

Southern California? Why, don't quit now! Winter gardens are great fun to grow! What Sunset garden zone are you? (Or USDA zone) Depending on where you are, you can very easily garden year round in SoCal. Plant carrots, spinach, beets, lettuce, peas, broccoli. ... San Bernadino, Riverside are year-round and out toward Palm Springs & Cochilla Valley the best growing season of the year is just coming on. Ah the joys of zones 8-10!
BW

BW,

Thanks for the great advice. I believe I am in zone 9 right on the border of LA and San Bernardino county. A year-round garden location, that's great. Would you add any compost or organic material to the garden if I wanted to put in a fall crop now? I imagine that this should be done before each growing season, isn't this the organic substitute for commercial fertizers? Do I have that right?

In any case, is it too late to be planting a fall crop in November given my location and zone?

I would love to enjoy peas, carrots and broccoli through the winter months.

Let me know

Lou

[moopups]

The purchased manure is how old? If it is too fresh it will burn the plants, it needs time to compost before use. If it adequate aged just put it in the soil. A lot of cold weather crops will grow in your location, mainly things in the cole family, cabbage, collards, ect. Check out 'square foot gardening' also, lots of info on the web.

[rocket]

I can definitely vouch for you being able to garden year round, since I do it further north in central CA. I planted my seeds out about a month ago and they're really coming on strong now. My fall garden:

Broccoli
Cauliflower
Cabbage
Chard
Brussel Sprouts
Collards
Carrots
Radish
Turnips
Lettuce
Peas
Spinach
Kohlrabi

I also thought about growing beets and rutabegas, but I ran out of room.

This thread brings up a good issue, though. Is bagged manure (like from a home-improvement store) usually aged enough to use immediately? I always assumed it was. If not, does anyone have a way that they use to tell whether or not it is aged enough?

[mtnmanlou]

Thanks for the advice gang. Now, just to clarify, what do you add to the soil to improve/enhance soil and as a substitute for non-organic fertilizer? Commercial steer manure? Compost? Other? Historically, I have added compost to the soil just prior to planting and then not added any additional soil additive throughout the growing season. Then prior to planting the next spring I would just do the same. Is that the right process?

[rocket]

I don't think there's any one right process. Compost and manures are great. I generally add them before planting. There's also more organic fertilizers (fish emulsion, seaweed emulsion, blood meal, bone meal, greensand, cottonseed meal, compost tea...). I tend to use some of these about once a month during the growing season. I would decide what to use based on what was readily available to me and what I could buy most cost-effectively.

[BeckyW]

If you are going to plant peas, don't add any steer manure. Generally, the steer manure is best used with the spring/summer crops. The winter crops usually don't do as well with the aged screened steer manure. I'd work just a bit of compost into the soil. Plant your peas and cool crop green beans where you planted heavy feeders this summer. Next year think about planting the cool crop tomatoes (like early girls) or even cherry tomatoes (if you dare - cherry tom's grow like weeds in southern California and tend to spread all over the garden with volunteers) for your winter tomatoes. We usually harvested Early Girls even on Christmas Eve on the coast.

Here's another thought for you: Consider raised beds if you don't garden that way already - especially for your winter garden. It keeps the plants from sitting in water during heavy rains. Joy of Gardening has excellent info on raised beds. (Of course, southern California has to do the invert of that for summertime - melons are in wells, not hills. Corn is planted that way in the Cochilla Valley - in the ditch of the row, then soil added during the season. It's all about water conservation.)

Gosh I miss winter gardening. Check with your local county agricultural extension office. They usually have a list of what crops should be planted in what months - it's a 12-month calendar. (I usually ordered some of my winter seeds from Johnny's Seeds in Albion, Maine. Good selection of short season crops that germinated well even in cool weather. Perfect for SoCal winter gardens).

Another thought especially for next year, you might consider planting your own starts instead of seeds. On the coast we got 4-5 plantings per year by using our own starts (just watch out for Santana winds - they'll kill off trays of seedlings that you're hardening off in a matter of hours - roasted to death!) We'd watch the commercial fields NEVER seed plant and decided to try the same pattern. It cut 2-4 weeks of in-ground growing off of every crop. With year round gardening, that makes for an extra "garden" per year in that 2-3 months of "saved" time. (My system was very high tech - plastic trays to styrofoam cups to ground!

Enjoy the fun!
BW

[porboy298]

OK BeckyW,
Explain please what you mean, if you would by using manure in Japanese-style tomato gardening. I am not sure what Japanese-style tomato gardening
is and hate to miss something I should be doing.
Thanks
Bill