October 2023 Very Last Summer Harvests, Final SeedSaving, Fall Transplants!

See the Farmers’ Almanac Fall Forecast 2023: When Will Sweater Weather Arrive?

Congratulations on your Squash & Pumpkin harvests and Happy Halloween, Day of the Dead!

Brassicas are the SoCal winter veg garden winners!

LARGE BRASSICAS

Broccoli is the favorite Brassica and rightfully so per the nutrition it offers. Plants differ in size, head color and shapes, how heat tolerant they are, if you intend to let them over summer and make side shoot production, varies! To get value for the room Brocs take up, a lot of gardeners seek varieties that produce a lot of side shoots after the main head is taken. Some newer varieties produce side shoots before the main head is taken! These smaller heads are great steamed if large, or tossed with your salad if small. Do as you wish! Many of these newer varieties grow no more than 1 to 1 1/2′ tall, in other words, close to the ground rather than up on taller stalks. This means you can’t cut off the lower leaves to plant smaller plants underneath. So before you select varieties, take a look online at mature plant profile. You can still plant around them, just not under them. Keep that in mind when planning your layouts. Research has shown there are less aphids when you plant different varieties of brocs together! Probably true for other large Brassicas as well. Superb Broccoli!

Kale has become a have-to-have! Eat young leaves fresh in salads. Steam with other veggies over rice. High in Vitamin A and anti-cancer properties! Lovely varieties – green or purple, flat or curly leaves. They just keep growing. They are technically a biennial, 2 year plant. The first year is for production, the second they make seeds. But. In SoCal they can over winter several years. Or if we have exceptionally hot weather, they may bolt and make seeds the first year! You can end up with a pom pom style, a poof of small leaves on a tall bare stalk, especially the curly leaf or dinosaur kales. But they lose their verve, look tired, are tasteless, rather tortured. A fresh young kale in good soil will easily take up a 3′ footprint and produce thick tender vibrant leaves like crazy! What a difference. I hope you start fresh ones each year. They grow so quickly. You won’t lose any harvest time if you plant a baby at the base of the old one, then take the old one down when you are getting those sweet young leaves from the baby. I’ll bet you forgot how good they can really taste! Just be sure to work in some high quality compost so it can be strong and keep producing well. Beautiful Kale!

Cauliflower now comes in the standard white, also green, orange and purple! The disadvantage is there is only one head and that’s it, though as with any Brassica, the leaves are edible. Like Collard greens.

Cabbage is more dense for the dollar than Cauliflower though it too has only one head and takes a long time to grow – even the mini varieties! But what a feast! A cabbage head is amazing and you can fix it so many ways. Shred in salad, coleslaw, steamed, cabbage soup – Borscht, stir fried, cabbage rolls, cabbage kimchi, in tacos, as sauerkraut! Or try a traditional Irish dish, colcannon, a mixture of mashed potatoes, cabbage or kale, onions, and spices. YUM! There are many cabbage varieties as well – ‘white,’ red or green. Different sizes, and I do mean different. There are 4 to 6″ minis for container gardens, sooner eating or you just don’t need a huge cabbage. There are easily more than a foot in diameter monsters you can barely carry! First they grow loose, then they fill in and make hard dense heads. An amazing plant! While your cabbages are putting on size, plant lettuces among them and other Brassicas. Lettuce repels cabbage moths. Magnificent Cabbages!

Brussels Sprouts are charming mini cabbages on a stalk! They like a colder climate to make big sprouts. In Santa Barbara SoCal area you need to be prepared to harvest lots of small ones. But, I have to tell you, the last couple years we have been getting sprouts up to almost 2″ diameter in two of our community gardens, so it wasn’t good soil that made the difference. The sprouts liked the weather or new more heat tolerant varieties are on board!

All these big Brassicas need feeding from time to time because they are big, and most of them are continuously producing leaf crops! They are all susceptible to Mildew. Try for resistant varieties. Water in the morning when possible so they can dry by evening. A good reason not to over water or fertilize is aphids and whiteflies! They like softer plants. Use plenty of worm castings, as much as possible in their soil – as much as 25% if you can! Plant your Brassicas far enough apart, leaves not touching, for airflow when they are mature, so pests and diseases don’t easily spread plant to plant. Brassicas are generally frost tolerant, even a bit freeze tolerant, and it is said their flavor improves with a freeze!

Cilantro is their best companion! If you like the scent, winter, early spring are good times for cilantro. It doesn’t bolt so fast. Summer it bolts, winters it will freeze, so replants go with the territory. Cilantro makes brocs grow REALLY well, bigger, fuller, greener! Plant it just inside the mature drip line and let it grow up and through your Brassicas! The exception is cabbage since it can’t grow through cabbage. I grow cilantro even though I don’t eat it. I like how it looks and smells and it is a living mulch. When it seeds I scatter the seeds where I think I will be wanting some as companion plants and comes up where and when it wants if you keep the soil moist. Cilantro!

ENJOY LOTS OF SMALL BRASSICAS! 

For salads arugula, bok choy, kohlrabi, mizuna, mustard, tatsoi, peppery sweet alyssum! Alyssum is a terrific little companion plant and attracts special small pollinators. Root crops are winter Daikon and White Icicle, pretty China Rose and handsome Long Black Spanish radish, turnips, rutabagas! Grow horseradish for fermenting. No need to allot special space for these except for the horseradish. It has a good 3′ diameter footprint! Plant these tasty small Brassicas in rows, between, among, around, in patches on the sunny side of big brassicas! A few here, a few there! Be artful with your design – sizes and colors. Enjoy their many flavors at your winter table! Same with other little winter types like onions, beets.

Then, there are all the other plants not Brassicas!

Peas – Flat, Snap or Pod

Flat is the same as Chinese or snow peas. String ’em or buy the stringless variety, and eat ’em right then and there or toss a few with your salad, steam or stew in Asian dishes, add to your stir fry! Shelling or English peas are so delicious fresh out of the pod and mighty tasty steamed so fresh from the pod. SNAP peas are the sinful favorite of many. The pod is thick and tender, sweet and delicious! Few make it home from my garden. I just eat them. That’s why you get stringless varieties. Who wants to be picking their teeth at the garden, LOL?! Ok, if some of those snap peas do make it to the kitchen, add them to salads. If you must, lightly steam them, add them to stir fries. They are very tender. To keep their fresh green look, undercook….

Yellow, green or purple, you can get bush or pole peas! Bush peas come in sooner; pole peas grow tall, so come in later. Soon as your bush peas are done, the pole peas will come in shortly after, making for a steady supply. And the pole peas keep on coming. Compared to beans or tomatoes, peas have a shorter life span. And when they are done, they are done. Fertilizing, coaxing, additional water doesn’t help. Successive planting is the answer. Plant once a month or so if you love peas. You do have to keep them picked or, like beans, they stop producing. They have short roots and need to be kept moist. Onion family stunts peas! But carrots enhance peas! Plant carrots around the cage or along the trellis. If you plant carrots on one side of them, trench peas a tad lower. Water the pea side so the carrots don’t get too much water and split.

Peas are the winter legume as beans are the summer legume of your garden! They are the trellis plants of our winter gardens. Put in your trellis first, then plant pole seeds, plus transplants of bush and pole all at the same time for them to come in one after the other. Your bush peas in cages will produce first, then your pole peas, and likely your seeded pole peas will follow in short order. Soon as your peas are done, clip off the plant, leaving the roots with their Nitrogen nodules in the ground to feed your soil. The Nitrogen is only released from the nodules after the plant has died. Plant more!

Presprouting your pea seeds makes sense! Presprouting assures no spots will be empty where a seed didn’t come up and you lose production! Presprouting peas is super simple. Paper towel on plate, lay out peas an inch apart, fold the paper towel over them, spritz with clean water, keep them moist. By +/- 5 days they will have sprouted, some more than others! Carefully put the ones that sprouted in the ground so you don’t break the little roots. If you have hungry birds, cover the sprouted peas with aviary wire soon as you put them in the ground. A smart trick is to plant them in a slight low sloped mini trench. Moisture goes to the bottom of the trench, drying wind goes over the top of the trench. When you are planting while it is still warm in late fall, if you are planting from sprouts, very carefully cover the soil with a very fine mulch to keep the soil moist. Planting from seed do the same cover the soil lightly. The sprouts will emerge and grow through the mulch. You can cover the trench with a board on top of the aviary wire. It’s high enough so the sprouts can get some size. Be sure there is a tad of airflow so the sprouts under the board are not baked! Delicious Peas! As with any seeds or transplants, a couple days before planting put down organic slug/snail bait and remove any overnight marauders that would feast on your tiny new plants.

You can have a terrific time with beets! They thrive in cooler weather. Many colors! Grow the elongated winter biggies, Cylindra! Plant them at the same time you plant smaller varieties so you have the littles first, while you are waiting for the biggies! Early Wonder Tall Tops and Dutch Baby Ball are a tasty choices, or red cold hardy Flat of Egypt! Try a yellow like Touchstone Gold! All About Beets, So Sweet!

Chard is an elegant super productive winter favorite! Handsome, colorful, really, they are the ‘flowers’ of the winter garden! Superlative nutrition, low calorie, easy to grow! If you want quantity, plant Fordhook Giants! They are wondrous – easily 3′ tall, foot wide leaves when conditions are right for them! Chard can’t be beat for production per square foot. Elegant Nutritious Chard!

Lettuces thrive in cooler weather too, but do cover them at threatened heavy pelting rain storms and freezes. Lay down tomato cages, cover, and secure the cover so it doesn’t blow away. Remove when the day warms up. Lettuces come in all kinds of shapes and delicious colors. They do best in rich soil, regular moisture. Winter is the cooler time when tender butter leafs and heading varieties do well.

Try super dense Salanova! Johnny’s Seeds says: Harvested as fully mature heads, the flavor and texture have more time to develop than traditional baby-leaf lettuces. The unique structure of the core produces a multitude of uniformly sized leaves, harvestable with one simple cut. Salanova is more than 40% higher yielding, has better flavor and texture, and double the shelf life of traditional baby-leaf lettuce, making it an excellent, more economical option. What do you think about that?!  Beautiful Lettuce!

Perfect timing for tasty root crops – beets, turnips, rutabagas, daikon radish. Beets are a double winner because the roots and the leaves are edible! Pick leaves from time to time. When your beets are the size you want, pull them and eat all the leaves and the beets as well!

Winter is growing time for long Daikon Radish. And Carrots. Carrots are a dense root, so they take a while. Plant short varieties like Thumbelina and Little Fingers for sooner eating. Kids love them! At the same time plant longer varieties to eat when the Little Fingers are done. Or plant successively, every 2 weeks, once a month per your needs. The longer the carrot, the longer it takes to grow. Look at the seed pack to see how many days it takes to maturity. Of course, you can pull them sooner and smaller, like for you and your pup! 🙂 Avoid manuring where you know you will be planting carrots – makes them hairy. Steady water supply and not too much or they split or fork. You might enjoy some of the mixed color packs – Circus Circus, Sunshine, or Cosmic Purple! Tasty Nutritious Carrots!

Parsnips, celery and parsley are all in the carrot family and enjoy cool SoCal weather. Celery is another in-the-garden edible let alone low calorie! Leeks and bunch onions, but, remember, NO onion family near peas.

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 If you haven’t planted already…some of you carry your layout plan in your head, others draw and redraw, moving things around until it settles and feels right. Do add a couple new things just for fun! Try another direction. Add some herbs, flowers for pollinators, or different edible flowers. Leave a little open space for surprises! Stand back, take a deep breath and ask yourself why you plant what you plant and why you plant the way you do. Anything been tickling the back of your mind you are curious about? More about Designing Your SoCal Winter Veggie Garden!

Once you have decided what to plant, when is the big question! Day length and temps are important. Temp sequences make a difference! Some plants bolt easily – Cilantro, Brassicas, Beets and Chard. Bolting is when your plant sends up a flowering stalk to seed. Check out Bolting aka Running to Seed! Causes and Prevention!  Day Neutral/Photoperiodism

Where you plant, sun/shade is important. Plant longer maturing larger and taller varieties to the back, shorter early day varieties in front where they will get sun. Put littles on the sunny side of these. Plant your tall plants first, let them get up a bit. Then clip off the lower leaves on the sunny side and plant your littles. Or plant quick rounds of littles between, among the tall plants. They will be ready to harvest when the big plants would start shading them. A classic combo is lettuces among starting cabbages that take quite a while to make their big footprints!

Mixes rule! Plant several varieties for maturity at different times and to confuse pests. Pests are attracted at certain stages of maturity. They may bother one plant but leave others entirely alone depending on temps and the pest’s life cycle! There are less aphids on broccoli when you plant different varieties together. See Super Fall Veggies Varieties, Smart Companion Plantings! for excellent biodiverse choices.

Peas and green manure mixes – legumes and oats, feed and replenish your soil because they take N (Nitrogen) out of the air and deposit it in little nodules on their roots! If an area in your garden needs a pep up, plant it to green manure. Broadcast a seed mix of legumes and oats and let them grow. Bell beans, Austrian peas, vetch and oats from Island Seed & Feed Goleta is an excellent choice. Be sure to get the legume inoculant they recommend to use with it. The first three deposit N; the oats have deep roots that bring nutrients up and create soil channels for oxygen, water, soil organisms and roots! Plant it where next summer’s heavy feeders, like tomatoes, will be grown!

If you are planning for mid January bareroot strawberry planting, be preparing your strawberry patch now if you are planting green manure! The green manure mix I use takes 2+ months to grow. I chop it down when the bell beans start to flower. Chop it into bits, let it lay on the surface 2 weeks. Keep it moist. For strawberries and many other plants, add acidic (azalea/camellia) compost, worm castings and turn it all under at the same time. It takes two to three weeks to decompose, let the soil organisms restabilize, and be ready to plant. That puts us right at mid January when the bareroots arrive! More details on Living Mulch!

Here’s the schedule:

1. Oct 1 plant your living mulch – put this on your garden calendar! If Bell beans are in your seed mix, or are your choice, they take a couple months to start to flower.
2. About Dec 1 chop down/mow, chop up your living mulch and let it lay on the surface two weeks. This is necessary to let the dead plants release the Nitrogen from their roots. If Bell beans are in the mix, chop when they flower or before the stalks will get too tough to easily chop into small pieces. Keep your chopped mulch moist, not wet, until it is tilled in. Being moist aids decomposition.
3. Mid Dec till in your living mulch for mid January bareroot planting. The little white balls on the roots are like a beautiful little string of pearls. Those are the Nitrogen nodules legume plants make that we are growing them for! At this time add any other amendments you want. Strawberries and many veggies like slightly acidic soil, so I add store bought Azalea/Camellia acid compost. It has little bark bits that add water holding capacity.

OR. Strawberry runner daughters can be clipped Oct 10 to 15, stored in the fridge for planting Nov 5ish in Santa Barbara. Remove any diseased soil where your beds will be; prep your beds with acidic compost like an Azalea mix. Commercial growers replace their plants every year. Some gardeners let them have two years but production of some varieties tapers off a lot the second year. Seascape, bred at UCSB, has excellent second year production! If you let them have two years, generously replenish the soil between the berries with acidic compost. I lay down boards between the rows where my berries will be planted. The boards keep the soil moist underneath. I planted the berries just far enough apart that they self mulched (shaded the soil) when they grew up a bit. Worked beautifully. I got the idea for the boards from a pallet gardener. If you use boards, just lift them, scoop out a little soil, add the new acidic compost.

Plant in super soil to get a good start! Clean up old piles of stuff, remove old mulches that can harbor overwintering pest eggs and diseases. Note whether your plant needs slightly acidic soil and add the right compost for that. Add the best-you-can-get composts, manures, worm castings. Worms casting are especially good in seed beds. They increase and speed germination and boost immunity. In planting holes, toss in a handful of nonfat powdered milk for immediate uptake as a natural germicide and to boost your plant’s immune system. Throw in a handful of bone meal that will decompose for uptake at bloom time, and some bird guano high in P in the NPK ratio, to extend bloom time after that. If you have other treats you like to favor your plants with, give them some of that too! If your soil has Verticillium or Fusarium Wilts, go lightly on incorporating coffee grounds either in your compost or soil. In studies, what was found to work well was coffee grounds at only 0.5 percent of the compost mix. Yes, that’s only 1/2 a percent! See more details about soil building! If you have containers, dump that old spent stuff and put in some tasty new mix!

Winter Feeding Lettuces like a light feed of chicken manure cultivated in the top 1/4 inch. All the winter plants are heavy producers – lots of leaves, some of those leaves are monsters! Cabbages are packed tight, leaf after leaf! They may need a light feed. Remember, it’s cooler now, so their uptake is slower, so give them liquid feeds of things easy for them to uptake. Fish emulsion (if you don’t have predators like raccoons or skunks) or a tasty tea mix – compost, worm castings, manure (no manure tea for lettuces). Slow release like alfalfa pellets.

Weather! Rain may be coming. Give your berms a check. Restore or add, shift their location if needed. Before wind or rain, double check cages and trellises, top heavy plants. Stake them, tie peas to the trellis or cage. More Rainy Weather Tips  Start gathering sheets, light blankets for possible cold weather to come. Keep tomato cages handy. Protect Your Veggies from Freezing! Cover and tuck ’em in!

You don’t have to garden this winter!

1. You can cover it deeply with all the mulch materials you can lay your hands on up to 18′ deep. Believe me, it will settle quickly. Let the herds of soil organisms do their work over winter. That’s called sheet composting or composting in place, lasagna gardening – no turning or having to move it when it’s finished. If you are vermicomposting, have worms, add a few handfuls to speed up and enrich the process. Next spring you will have rich nutritious living layers of whole soil for no work at all!
2. If you have access to materials, another wise option is to do some form of long term sustainable Hugelkultur! There are many variations, quite adaptable to your situation. It can be done in a container, a tub, on a hillside, a field, in your own little garden plot!
3. A third thing is to plant legumes and oats for superb soil restoration that takes some labor, but a lot less than tending your garden on a daily basis! You can plant it with green manure. Laying on lots of mulch is a ton of work when you do it, just gathering the materials can be a challenge. Green manure takes some work too, but it has awesome results as well. You broadcast a seed mix of legumes and oats, cover ever so lightly with soil, let them grow. Bell beans, Austrian peas, vetch and oats from Island Seed & Feed in Goleta is an excellent choice. Legumes gather Nitrogen from the air and store it in nodules on their roots! N is the main ingredient your plants need for their growth! The oat roots break up the soil. They dig deep and open channels for water and air flow, soil organisms, roots.

“Our most important job as vegetable gardeners is to feed and sustain soil life, often called the soil food web, beginning with the microbes. If we do this, our plants will thrive, we’ll grow nutritious, healthy food, and our soil conditions will get better each year. This is what is meant by the adage ‘Feed the soil not the plants.‘ – Jane Shellenberger, Organic Gardener’s Companion: Growing Vegetables in the West (Colorado)

Winter watering in drought areas is the same as for summer. Before 10:30 AM, after 4 PM. Watch which way water flows along the leaves. Some plants it flows to the central stem. Some drip water off the leaf tips in a circle around your plant, the dripline. Some go both ways. Make berms just beyond where the mature plant’s water flows. If at the dripline, that’s where the tiny feeder roots take up moisture and nutrients. That’s why they call them feeder roots! If your garden has a low spot, plant your water loving plants – chard, lettuces, spinach, mizuna, mints – there or near a spigot.

Fall Pests & Diseases

• Prevention Drench young plants, ones you just transplanted, with Aspirin solution to get them off to a great start! Drench your seedlings when they get up a few inches. One regular Aspirin, 1/4 C nonfat powdered milk, 1/2 teaspoon liquid dish soap (surfactant), per gallon of water. Aspirin triggers a defense response and stimulates growth! Powdered milk is a natural germicide and boosts the immune system. Be sure to get under the leaves too!
• Brassicas, Peas! Lots of ants and on Brassicas, lengthwise curling leaves are the giveaways for aphids, then whiteflies. Aphids carry viruses. Aphids come in fat gray or small black. Avoid over watering and feeding that makes for soft plants, tender leaves that aphids thrive on, and ant habitat. Spray aphids and whiteflies away, make the ants leave. Get up under those leaves, and fervently but carefully do the tender center growth tips. Do it consistently until they don’t come back. Cinnamon is amazing. Ants don’t like it at all, and when you are starting seedlings it prevents molds and damping off. Sprinkle it on the soil in your six pack. Get it in big containers at Smart and Final or bulk food stores. Reapply as needed. ASAP remove yellowing leaves that attract whiteflies.
• Chard, Lettuces, Spinach – Slugs and snails are the bane of so many crops, but these especially. Lay down something like Sluggo immediately. Then do it again in a week or so. Kill the parents, kill the children. After about 3 times you rarely need it again anytime soon.
• Biodiversity In general, avoid row planting where disease and pests wipe the plants out from one to the next to the next. Instead or rows, plant in several different spots. If you can’t help yourself, because your family always planted in rows or that’s the way farm pictures show plantings, remember, this is YOUR garden! Also, leave room so mature plants’ leaves don’t touch. Give them room to breathe, get good big leaves that get plenty of sun and produce lots more big leaves and many big fruits! Stunted crowded rootbound plants just don’t perform as well and are more disease and pest susceptible. Leaving that breathing room between plants pay off when you plant little plants along, under bigger plants. It’s like having two crops in the same space. No need to make separate space for smaller plants. There is no law that says you must plant in a straight line or a separate space! Forget the stakes and twine; plant where you want to! Use companion plants where they will do the most good!

Keep up with your maintenance. Weed so seedlings aren’t shaded out or their nutrients used up.

If you have lots of seeds, over planting is an age old practice. Plant too, too many, then thin them with tiny pointy scissors, aka harvest the young, and eat ’em! Young radish sprouts, teeny carrots – for you and your pup, beets, cilantro, arugula, onions, little Brassicas of all kinds are wonderful in a salad! If they get a little big, steam them or add to stir fries and stews. Another way to do it is plant flats of lettuces, Mesclun mixes, and mow them! Tender baby greens! They will grow back 3, 4 times.

Have it in the back of your mind what summer plants you will be wanting, where you will plant them. For example, plant more permanent plants like a broccoli you will keep over summer for side shoots (like All Season F1 Hybrid), or a kale that will keep on going, where they will not be shaded out by taller indeterminate summer tomatoes.

October is the last of Seed Saving time for most of us. Make notes on how your plants did, which varieties were the most successful. These seeds are adapted to you and your locality. Each year keep your best! Start sorting and labeling seed baggies on coming cooler indoor evenings. Store your keepers in a cool dry place for next year’s plantings. Generously gather seeds for upcoming January Seed Swaps!

Santa Barbara’s 16th Annual Seed Swap is January 26 2024 The last Saturday of January every year is National Seed Swap Day! Look in your area for an event, and if you don’t find one, collaborate with your neighbors, local garden clubs or permaculture group to get one going!

Plant gift plants or bowls or baskets for the holidays now! Make Lavender sachets! Put ribbons on some of your seed jars gifts. See Wonderful Gardener-Style Holiday Gifts!

Take a deep breath of this fine fall weather! Happy Gardening!

Updated annually

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Love your Mother! Plant bird & bee food! Think grey water! Grow organic! Bless you for being such a wonderful Earth Steward!

The Green Bean Connection started as correspondence for the Santa Barbara CA USA Pilgrim Terrace Community Garden. Both remaining Santa Barbara City’s community gardens are very coastal. Climate is changing, but it has been that during late spring/summer we are in a fog belt/marine layer area most years, locally referred to as the May grays, June glooms and August fogusts. Keep that in mind compared to the microclimate niche where your veggie garden is.

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September – Last Summer Harvests, SeedSaving, Fall Transplants!

This veg garden is at Gaia Retreat, in Bundjalung Country, Brooklet, Australia. They are approaching vernal equinox now, while we in SoCal are soon upon autumnal equinox. Their cool plants are finishing while we are starting ours! This spot offers a fine shed, a native bee home low on the pole and a three floor bird apt at the top!

This month I thought you might enjoy some images of garden tools in situ from over the years at Pilgrim Terrace and Rancheria Community Gardens! Some are quite unique, get you thinking! Work easy, get the right tool for the right job! Improvise, have fun! We are Sowing the Future!

Share your gardening stories! Community of Gardens, a digital archive hosted by Smithsonian Gardens, is gathering gardening stories from gardeners and community gardening enthusiasts. Your participation can help others to better understand the meaning and value of gardens to American life – today and in the future. Submit your images, videos, and stories to their archive by emailing communityofgardens@si.edu or sharing your stories through their website.

If you or a friend would enjoy gardening at a community garden, please join one! September is a classic time to start fall plantings! Install gopher wire protection first! The gardeners will be delighted to meet you, share friendship, the great outdoors, and garden craft!

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It’s definitely fall now. In coastal Santa Barbara we have had mixed cool and hot weather and 2 helpful rains due to unusual Southern storms. If you love your summer plants a lot more than winter plants, you can take a chance if it looks like some steady hot fall weather. Plant that last batch of bush beans, even pole beans, and early cold tolerant determinate bush tomatoes. More likely it will be better to get those winter plants going a few days after the heat, like mid to late September, otherwise there may be early bolting. That will give you time for second plantings November/December. If late August was hot where you garden, and so is September, it will be a tad challenging getting winter seeds and starts going. Extra watering will be critical; shade may be needed for seedlings. 

Many of you that had HOT August weather haven’t gotten transplant starts going, but have started seedlings at home. Often, rather than planting out your seeds garden wide, it would be easier to plant them in a shaded patch for transplant later. Caring for them will be all in one place, easier to cover if needed to protect them from the heat. See the details: Veggie Garden Nursery Patch Many veg gardeners are still waiting until the bolting time passes in your area.

SoCal areas that had flooding will need soil remediation. Here are some tips for remediation and recovery if you are in extreme conditions. Call in Permaculture teams to make the best new beginnings. Even many of them have never been so challenged and are learning as they go. Take time to work with the team as much as you can. Get connected with experience leaders. Collaborating is productive.  

Last Harvests are being collected and stored, seeds saved! See more about SeedSaving!  How to Save Tomato Seeds! 

Many have been prepping their soil as various summer plants are finishing and space becomes available! When you do, make your fall planting beds extra yummy! Add 5-10% compost, and, if you have them, add 25% worm castings – seeds germinate better and plants do especially better with worm castings! Manure amounts depend on the type of manure and which plants. Rabbit poop manure can be used immediately with no composting – get some at the shelters! We want rich soil for big winter plants so they can make lots of those marvelous leaves for greens too. Winter plants like brocs, collards, cauliflower, cabbage and chard, are heavy producers, need plenty of food, but remember, winter is cooler and slower. Reduce you feeds potency by about 50%. Know that Carrots need little if any manure. With too much food/water they grow hairy, split /fork. Peas are legumes and usually feed themselves! Smart Manure Choices  More winter Soil tips!

It’s BRASSICA time! They are the mainstay of winter gardens! Their nutrition can’t be beat! Kale’s the Queen! Broccoli, Brussels sprouts, Cabbages, Cauliflower and Collard greens! Then there are all the mini Brassicas, the fillers and littles – arugula, bok choy, mizuna, kohlrabi, mustards, radish, turnips. Rather than plant just six packs of transplants, put in seed at the same time when possible and stagger your plantings of the large Brassicas. Rather than all six cauliflower coming in at once, plant two now, two later and so on. Adjust that, of course, if you have a large area available to plant and a lot of people to feed! Another way to do it is to get varieties with early, middle and late maturity dates and plant them all at once! Plant both mini and monster cabbages at the same time! Minis come in sooner, while waiting for the monsters! Successive plantings mean a steady table supply.

There’s kale and there’s kale! This truly tasty purple curly leaf kale image is by Steve!

Finicky, or bored, eaters may enjoy a selection! Fall veggies come in lots of shapes and colors! Kales are renowned for their beauty and varieties – classic curly leaf, plain and simple flat leaf has less aphids that are easy to hose away), Red Russian, Elephant, Red Bor that is really purple are just a few! Cauliflower comes in traditional shape and spiral, classic white plus yellow and purple and green! Get seed packs of them all and mix them together! Carrots already come in color mix seed packets! Circus Circus is a fun choice, especially when your kids are planting! Thumbelinas are faster producers for excited kids. Beets are terrific fun! Yellows, reds, pinks, whites and Chioggias (concentric circles of colors)! You can get them in rainbow mixes just like getting rainbow chard mixes! Rather than have your finicky, or bored, eater say no, open up that catalog or take them shopping at the nursery and let them pick what they would like to try!

More ‘littles,’ understory veggies that love cooler weather are beets, carrots, celery, chard, cilantro, leeks, spinach and especially lettuce – now is the time for tender butter leafs and heading lettuce! If you anticipate a hot Sep, plant more heat tolerant lettuces.

The SoCal winter legume is PEAS! Peas are like beans, our summer legume; they come in bush and pole types. And those come in three main types – English shelling, eat-’em-whole snap peas and flat China/snow peas! They are super easy to sprout! Definitely plant some every month or so. They don’t live all season long. When they are done, they’re done. It is true that picking peas, just like picking beans, is labor intensive. I eat a lot of mine before they get home, so I don’t mind. Bush peas come in first and pretty much all at once; pole come on later and continue to produce. On the first round it makes sense to plant both at once! If you don’t have time to do seeds, and aren’t wanting varieties nurseries don’t carry, just wait and when they arrive, get six packs! Transplants are always stronger than tiny seedlings. But do cover your plants if they show signs of being pecked by birds! That’s little V shaped nibbles on the leaves. Aviary wire is your best cover choice because it allows pollinators access and it is durable. You can clothespin or use clips to close/open for harvest and plant care access.

CARROTS! Compost, yes! They want easy-to-push-through soil. Manure, no! Makes them hairy and they fork. And over watering, irregular watering, can make them split or misshapen. Build your beds up so they drain well, are above the coldest air that settles low down. PEAS! The same. Compost to keep the soil loose and have water holding capacity for these short rooted green People. This winter legume makes their own Nitrogen, so feed only lightly if at all. Decide where both of these will be planted and amend accordingly. Conveniently, Peas are enhanced by Carrots!  Peas are done well in a shallow trench about 4-6″ away from and below your carrot row. the pea trench water can also water the carrots! One way to do it is install your pea trellis, plant peas close to it and carrots just a bit away from it on the other side of the trellis.Start your carrots as much as 3 weeks to a month before you start your peas so the Carrots will be up and helping.

If your ground hasn’t been planted to peas before, or if you don’t know if it has, it’s more than wise to use peas specific inoculant at planting time. Seeds may be unable to start, if there isn’t ample Rhizobium leguminosarum, a nitrogen fixing bacteria, available to them. The bacteria ‘infect’ your plants and cause them to make the Nitrogen nodules they need to supply their Nitrogen for quality survival. Without those nodules, they are feeble, struggle and produce little. Very sad. See more and how to use the inoculant at Peas!

Presprouting your Peas is easy and it’s fun to watch them come to life! Fold a paper towel in half on a plate. Open and spritz half the towel with water. Lay on your seeds about an inch apart. Cover and spritz the paper towel cover until good and wet. Put them in a warm place ie top of fridge, out of sunlight. Check them about every 6 hours; keep them moist. Water well at bedtime so they make it those 8 hours. Take them to work with you if it’s only you doing the parenting. While you are waiting, put up their trellis if they are pole peas.

When the little sprout is 1/4 to 1/2″ long, depending on temps it takes 2 -5 days, gently dip them in your inoculant slurry, put them in the ground sprout (root) down, right at the foot of that trellis. Gardeners vary greatly on how they space those pealets. 1″, 2″, 6″. There is good reason to leave a little more space. More air circulation makes for less mildew later that Peas are quite susceptible to. You can put the pea practically at the surface! But do cover it a bit so it doesn’t dry out. Next thing you know, you will have little plant sprouts coming up! The nice thing about presprouting is you know if you’ve got one! If a seed doesn’t sprout, you won’t be wondering like as you would had you planted it in the ground. That’s why some gardeners always presprout their Peas. If you plant early fall there may still be some warm days. Be prepared to give them some shade if they need it. They are short rooted and, and in those conditions, may need water daily or even twice daily.

If seeds aren’t your thing, transplants will soon be along at your nursery…

See more on how to pick the best varieties for you! For strong mildew resistance, more, take a look at Cornell’s super plant by plant Veggies Disease Resistant List!

Onions For the biggest, sweetest harvests, late summer and early fall are the prime times to sow seeds of short- or intermediate-day onions. Fall-sown short- and intermediate-day onions tend to yield more and are larger and sweeter than those seeded or transplanted in early spring.

Varieties that do better in winter are long beets like Cylindras – at left, long radishes like Daikons, pretty China Rose and handsome Long Black Spanish! Plant small beets like Dutch Baby Ball for quick beets while your Cylindras are growing twice to three times bigger! All about Beets, So Sweet!

 Companion planting combos make a difference! Carrots enhance peas, onions stunt peas. Late summer plant the carrots on the sunny side at the feet of finishing pole beans. The Carrots will be up for when the beans are replaced by winter peas! Combos can use space wisely! Carrots grow down, peas grow up, perfect! Cabbage babies need to be planted 12 to 28″ apart! A healthy plant will take up much closer to that 28″. They take a long while to grow, head, head tight! While waiting, plant lettuces that repel cabbage moths, or other small fillers, that mature sooner, in the space between the Cabbages. You can do this at home amongst your ornamentals, and/or in containers too! Fillers can be onion/chive types, beets. Short quickest growing winter radishes can be among the long slower growing carrots among the slowest growing, your cabbages. Cilantro makes brocs grow REALLY well, bigger, fuller, greener! Research has shown there are less aphids when you intermingle different varieties of brocs! See more!

No need to plant blocks or rows of smaller plants, unless you want to for the look. Biodiversity works better and uses space more wisely! Scatter them about on the sunny side between larger plants as an understory – living mulch! If it happens to be flowers, they bring pollinators right to your plant! Plant different varieties to keep your table exciting. Don’t plant them all at once, but rather every week or two for steady table supply. If you would enjoy a quick payback for your table, select the earliest maturing varieties.

If you have lots of seeds, over planting is an age old practice. Plant too, too many, then thin them with tiny pointy scissors, aka harvest the young, and eat ’em! Young radish sprouts, teensy carrots, little Brassicas of all kinds are wonderful in a salad! If they get a little big, steam them or add to stir fries and stews. Another way to do it is plant flats of lettuces, toss an entire packet of seeds in a small spot, Mesclun mixes, micro greens and mow or thin them! Tender baby greens! If mowed, they will grow back 3, 4 times.

When planting in hot fall weather, plant your outdoor seeds a tad deeper than you would in spring; soil is moister and cooler an extra inch or two down. It’s the law to keep them moist. If you plant successively for steady fresh table supply, plant a batch in September, again in October. Days will shorten and start cooling, but early fall you are taking advantage of a faster start because your plants will grow quickly in the warmer weather now than later on. September plant from seeds & transplants if you can get them, October from transplants. Be careful which plants to plant ~ see bolting! Also see Short Day, Long Day, Day Neutral Plants – Photoperiodism! Or ask a knowledgeable nursery person who has a working knowledge of these two items.

Winter Feeding Lettuces like a light feed of chicken manure cultivated in. All the big winter plants are heavy producers – lots of leaves, some of those leaves, ie Baker Creek’s 1000 Head Kale, are monsters! Cabbages are packed tight, leaf after leaf! They may need a light feed. Remember, it’s cooler now, so their uptake is slower, so give them liquid feeds, teas, half strength, and things easy for them to uptake.

Keep letting your strawberry runners grow for Oct harvest. Store them in the coldest part of your fridge for them to get chilled. Plant in January. OR. Let the babies grow through winter and get the earliest spring berries! Very carefully remove old parent plants. If the roots are entangled, cut the parent plant off just below the crown. If you replace your strawberries annually, as commercial growers do, in Santa Barbara area try Seascape, bred locally at UCSB. Seascapes are big fill-your-palm plentiful berries, firm, tasty, store well, are strawberry spot resistant! They have strong roots that gather plenty of nutrition. Plan ahead! Call your nursery ahead, earliest January, to get the date bareroots arrive – they go fast! Seascapes and other varieties are available as transplants later if you miss the January window. If you will be planting bareroot berries in January for April eating, remove old plants.

Some gardeners like precise and efficient organization. Others like every square inch planted like Food Forests. Some of you carry your layout plan in your head, others draw and redraw, moving things around until it settles and feels right. Others let it happen as it happens… Do add a couple new things just for fun! Try a different direction. Add some herbs or different edible pollinator flowers. Leave a little open space for surprises! Leave some space for succession planting. Stand back, take a deep breath and ask yourself why you plant what you plant and why you plant the way you do. Anything been tickling the back of your mind you are curious about? More about Designing Your SoCal Winter Veggie Garden!  Consider a Food Forest Guild!

Soil is always first in garden care! An old adage is ‘Feed the soil, not the plants.’

Winter plants need different care than greedy summer production plants, growing fast heavy feeders. Special soil tips for your winter plants! Almost all soil can do with some compost. Some say the most important soil tip of all is Gopher wire prevention, LOL, and I can tell you the misery it is to lose a prime plant in full production that took months of growing and TLC to get there. Grrr! See Gopher prevention

The right soil! Many veggies like slightly or more acidic soil! Use that azalea/camellia compost! Acid tolerant veggies: beans, broccoli, cabbage, turnips, carrots, cauliflower, lettuce, celery, cucumbers, garlic, onions, corn, sweet peppers, pumpkins, winter and summer squash and fruits tomatoes, strawberries, raspberries, blueberries and many herbs. Acid loving veggies are radish, sweet potato, parsley, peppers, eggplant, potato, rhubarb. Note that there are varying opinions on these choices. Some say some of the acid tolerant veggies prefer acidic soil! Please see Sasha Brown’s post for more details, pH and tips!

Per GardenGuides.com there’s no reliable way to guess about or estimate soil pH, so having the soil tested is the best approach to ensuring that your vegetables have the proper acidity levels. The Cooperative Extension System offices in your state can help with this. My note: If you have a small plot like our community garden 10X20s, it may not help to soil test because there is so much variance within even a couple feet, but you can do it and see! You can get a pH meter if you want only pH readings. Or you can get a soil test kit that tests for soil deficiencies and pH! Look up Best Soil Kits Compared for the year. This 2022 KTLA link gives you some quick ideas about how to select a soil test kit.

Here are lists of veggies and fruits pH tolerance. 7 is the neutral point. I was surprised at the acidic tolerance of the majority of plants! See Acu>Rite’s site for shrub and tree pHs. These pHs are not to be confused with the alkalinity/acidic qualities of the veggies and fruits when we eat them! See chart!

You can add tasty items to the planting holes too! Some plants might like a bit more manure. Add a handful of bonemeal for blooms at 2 to 3 months, and also add bat/seabird guano for continued later blooming at 4 months! It takes that long for it to become available to your plants. A handful of powdered milk is for disease prevention. Worm Castings are super valuable, give immunity and increased water holding capacity! You may have some specials of your own depending on the soil in your area and which plant you are planting there. Some gardeners spritz the roots and planting hole with Hydrogen Peroxide to add oxygen, help plant roots absorb nutrients from the soil and more!

If you need to skip a beat, take some time off from the garden, let it rest, but be smart and let nature rebuild your soil while you are resting!

1. You can cover it deeply with all the mulch materials you can lay your hands on up to 18′ deep. Believe me, it will settle quickly to less than half that height in a few days to a week depending on temps! Let the herds of soil organisms do their work over winter. That’s called sheet composting or composting in place, lasagna gardening – no turning or having to move it when it’s finished. All you have to do is keep it moist. If you live in a windy area you might cover it. If you are vermicomposting, have worms, add a few handfuls to speed up and enrich the process. Next spring you will have rich nutritious living layers of whole soil ready for planting for no work at all! Yarrow and Comfrey leaves also speed composting. Lay them in and on.
2. You can plant an area with green manure. Laying on lots of mulch is a ton of work when you do it, just gathering the materials can be a challenge. Green manure takes some work too, but it has awesome results as well. You broadcast a seed mix of legumes and oats and let them grow. Bell beans, Austrian peas, vetch and oats from Island Seed & Feed in Goleta is an excellent choice. Legumes gather Nitrogen from the air and store it in nodules on their roots! N is the main ingredient your plants need for their growth! The oat roots break up the soil. They dig deep and open channels for water and air flow, soil organisms. Cover Crops  For more details see Living Mulch

Here’s the schedule:

1. Oct 1 plant your living mulch/cover crop – put this on your garden calendar! Bell beans take this long if they are in the mix or are your choice. Use the specific FRESH inoculant to produce the Nitrogen nodules on the legume plants.
2. About Dec 1, chop down/mow, chop up your living mulch and let it lay on the surface. Studies show there is more nutrition if it is let to lay before turning under. Keep your chopped mulch moist, not wet, until it is tilled in. Being moist aids decomposition. If Bell beans are in the mix, chop when it first flowers or the stalks get too tough to easily chop into small pieces.
3. Mid Dec till in your living mulch for mid January bareroot planting. The little white balls on the roots are like a beautiful little string of pearls. Those are the Nitrogen nodules legume plants make! They don’t release their Nitrogen until the plant dies. That’s why you don’t till the mulch in until 2 weeks go by. If there are no nodules, you either forgot to use the inoculant or not enough. The whole purpose for growing the legumes is for these Nitrogen rich nodules that restore your soil, so it is critical to use that inoculant! When you turn the chopped bits under, also turn in the right compost at the same time! If your soil needs more water holding capacity, choose compost with slightly chunkier bits. Add worm castings for more water holding capacity if you have enough. Otherwise, save the castings for the planting holes.

If you aren’t planting bareroot berries in January, you can plant your soil feeding cover crop in September, just be sure you have enough time for when you plan to plant in spring. However, if you wait until November the soil is colder and the process takes longer.

Pest and Disease Prevention Drench young plants, ones you just transplanted, with Aspirin solution to get them off to a great start! Drench your seedlings when they get up a few inches. One regular Aspirin crushed, 1/4 C nonfat powdered milk, heaping tablespoon Baking Soda, 1/2 teaspoon liquid dish soap (surfactant), per gallon of water. Aspirin triggers a defense response and stimulates growth! Powdered milk is a natural germicide and boosts the immune system. Be sure to get the under sides of the leaves too!

• Brassica pests! Lots of ants and lengthwise curling leaves are the giveaways for aphids. Aphids carry viruses. Aphids come in green, black, red, yellow, brown or gray. Avoid over watering that makes for soft plants, tender leaves that aphids thrive on, and ant habitat. Spray the aphids away, make the ants leave. Get up under those leaves, and fervently but carefully do the tender center growth tips. Do it consistently until they don’t come back. Cinnamon works sometimes and other times not at all. Boo. But when you are starting seedlings it prevents molds and damping off. Sprinkle it on the soil in your six pack. Doesn’t hurt to get it on the leaves. Get it in big containers at Smart and Final/bulk stores. Reapply as needed. There are other spray mixes that get rid of those aphids. Water and Vinegar, or hydrogen peroxide, alcohol, a few drops of simple dish soap. If you want to spend more money, use Neem Oil. Soaps, neem oil, and horticultural oil kill only aphids present on the day they are sprayed, so applications may need to be repeated. Plant garlic and chives among your Brassicas! Their strong scent repels aphids. IPM re Aphids
  
  Most of all, generously plant CILANTRO among your Brassicas! It repels aphids as well as attracting bees and beneficial insects!
• Later on, the most prevalent disease problem is mildew. Give your plants some room for air circulation, feed and water less so they don’t get so soft. It is much harder to deal with mildew once it has started. Better to do preventative treatments of the Aspirin Solution.

September is still Seed Saving time for some areas and some plants. Make notes on how your plants did, which varieties were the most successful. These seeds are adapted to you and your locality. Each year keep your best! Store your keepers in a cool dry place for next year’s plantings. Generously gather seeds for upcoming January Seed Swaps! If your area doesn’t have a seed swap, start organizing one!

Don’t forget winter food for our pollinators! Borage is a beautiful cool season herb with edible flowers, blue for bees! It has a large 3 to 4′ footprint, so allow for that or plan to keep clipping it back. It is a helper companion plant, so when possible, plant it right in the middle of your other plants! See more about Borage!  What flower colours do birds and bees prefer?

Plant Sweet Peas for Christmas bloom! Plant gift plants or bowls or baskets for the holidays! 

Have you put up your Greenhouse yet?! Get going! DIY Hoop houses are quickly built, inexpensive and do the job admirably! See also Greenhouses in Climate Emergencies. You can start more seedlings, overwinter sensitive plants – eat tomatoes in December! A greenhouse may be perfect for you – the right size, easy to maintain!

Have fun! September gardens are a magical time of creativity and transition!

Updated annually

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Check out the entire September 2023 Newsletter!

SoCal Fall/Winter Veggie Soil Tips for Delicious Returns!
Super Fall, Winter Veggie Varieties, Smart Companion Planting!
Bolting aka Running to Seed! Causes and Prevention!
Love Kale! Beauty, Super Nutrition, Easy to Grow!
Taming Your Butternut, Waltham, Winter Squash!

Upcoming Gardener Events! Get your lodgings for the 10th Annual National Heirloom Expo, Ventura CA Sep 12-14! Don’t miss this superlative event! 44th American Community Gardening Assn Annual Conference Sep 27-30! Santa Cruz Permaculture is in full swing – get your Certificate and MORE! Lane Farms Pumpkin Patch opens Sep 30!  Jan 26, 2024 FREE 16th Santa Barbara Community Seed Swap!

SUBSCRIBE to the entire newsletter!    Friend or Follow on Facebook! 

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Love your Mother! Plant bird & bee food! Think grey water! Grow organic! Bless you for being such a wonderful Earth Steward!

The Green Bean Connection started as correspondence for the Santa Barbara CA USA Pilgrim Terrace Community Garden. Both Santa Barbara City’s remaining community gardens are very coastal. During late spring/summer we are often in a fog belt/marine layer most years, locally referred to as the May grays, June glooms and August fogusts. Keep that in mind compared to the microclimate niche where your veggie garden is. Bless you for being such a wonderful Earth Steward!

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Winged Beans! Marvelous and Uncommonly Nutritious!

This great image from Baker Creek Rare Seeds gives you a quick idea about the day neutral Urizun Japanese Winged Beans, a popular summer veggie on the island of Okinawa. It is native to Asia, has a unique configuration yielding little star like crosscuts, the flowers are blue and purple, the little pods are tender fresh crunchy eating from the vine. The large pods are for harvesting green edible seeds. When the pods dry and turn dark, the seeds are saved to cook and/or grow more plants! Baker Creek always has free shipping and gives you a free seed packet with every order!!! You can donate if you care to.

April 2021 My first Urizun Japanese Winged Bean was given to me by an adventurous fellow gardener! This little tyke was 2 days old. Long story. For several months it went back and forth between living and dying, growing slower and slowly, finally making about 6″ tall. My friend gave up way sooner, composted hers, disappointed. Mine grew to about a foot tall and made a few small pods. I had planted it in a shady area. Well. We found out it is a tropical full sun humid heat lover. It was a heroic little plant trying to do what I asked it to. However. I have found that ‘Because the early growth of winged bean is slow, it is important to maintain weeds.’ Well Hallelujah! I am slightly vindicated after all! Apparently, they, and some other legumes, are naturally slow in the beginning! 

2022  But I was hooked. Me, curious and determined, got some seeds from Baker Creek and tried again. I didn’t know it at the time, but much to their favor, the Urizuns are a Day Neutral variety. More below. I planted in April again, but in a sunny spot sheltered between Long Red Beans tall on the side the cooling wind comes from and Cucumbers low to the ground on the sunrise side. I hoped to keep them warmer and for a little humidity. I gave them a 6′ tall cage and told them my expectations.

Planting! I gave them (four!) super soil – they like well draining rich sandy loam. Their required soil pH ranges from 4.3 to 7.5. Since a tropical water lover, I built a big basin. They need to have a good amount of moisture in the soil to produce pods. Baker Creek says Sow 1-2 inches deep, in full sun, directly in garden well after last frost. Sow 6-12 inches apart in beds. Pre-soaking for 1-2 or 24-48 hours speeds germination – some say overnight. Pick out the ones that swell. Some will double in size! They germinate best between 77 and 85°, soil temp 65°. If you are starting them indoors, a heating pad helps. The plant likes 64-86° F. Lower than that they stop producing. They are not drought or frost tolerant.

They must have appreciated my efforts, because they thrived, slowly at first, but in no time, compared to 2021, they were quite taller and super healthy! Huge difference! Pods arrived in August.

Winged Beans have many names and are grown in many places. The winged bean (Psophocarpus tetragonolobus), also known as the Goa bean, asparagus pea, four-angled bean, four-cornered bean, Manila bean, Mauritius bean, winged pea, cigarillas, princess bean, in Vietnam dragon bean, is a tropical legume plant native to southern Asia—Papua New Guinea, Mauritius, Madagascar, and India. It grows abundantly in hot, humid equatorial countries, from the  Philippines and Indonesia to India, Burma, Thailand and Sri Lanka. They are now grown in the US – mainly in Florida, Africa, Australia and Hawaii! Success in more locations is coming due to the further development of Day Neutral varieties.

It’s a Super plant for three reasons!

1. Wiki says: Winged bean is nutrient-rich and all parts of the plant are edible. The leaves can be eaten like spinach, flowers can be used in salads, tubers can be eaten raw or cooked, and seeds can be used in similar ways as the soybean. The winged bean is an underutilized species but has the potential to become a major multi-use food crop in the tropics of Asia, Africa, and Latin America. The winged beans are high in Protein 12%, Potassium 16% and Iron 11%. Compared with a variety of legumes, these beans contain the highest proportion of calcium which make bones strong and prevents breakage. Fresh beans contain 31% of daily vitamin-C. 100 g of fresh leaves provide 45 mg of vitamin-C (75% of recommended daily value) and 8090 IU of vitamin-A (270 % of RDA)! The bean seeds are similar to soybeans in both use and nutritional content (being 29.8% to 39% protein). For some fascinating detailed research based info see ScienceDirect.
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   Per Elen Khachatrain raw winged beans: have a high level of Vitamin B1, which allows the body to use carbohydrates for energy. Winged beans have incredibly high amounts of potassium and copper. These beans contain more potassium than 90% of foods. The glycemic index of winged beans is low. The pH value of winged beans, in general, has been calculated to be equal to -6, which makes these beans an alkaline food. They are very high in net carbs, so check your diet to see if they are allowed. Thanks to Elen for her super post!
2. Winged beans are a perennial, but can be, and usually are, grown as an annual! In areas and times of extended drought, perennials use less water in general and don’t have to be replanted each year, using more water to establish them. But winged bean are not considered drought tolerant! Perennials can produce 10 months of the year, a much longer production period than most veggies, produce more veggies, and you don’t have to wait for another crop to grow. They produce right up to first frosts! If you have space and decide to let them die back in fall/winter, they will come back in spring!
3. The plants are legumes! That means two good things! Like other legumes they can feed themselves by fixing their own Nitrogen from the air and depositing it in nodules on their roots. 1) When the plant dies it releases the Nitrogen into the soil. 2) They use less fertilizer while they are alive. The only necessity is to be sure to use an inoculant when you plant your seeds, the right inoculant, a Rhizobium. If you don’t use it, no nodules are formed. You can get it at any nursery.
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   This also makes Winged Beans an effective soil restorative cover crop – and you get beans! Plants for a Future states: A very good green manure with exceptional nitrogen-fixing properties, producing a greater weight of nodules per plant than any other member of the Leguminosae! William Woys Weaver says their nitrogen-fixing ability helped secure their role as a cover crop on banana plantations, both to enrich the soil and to provide an alternative source of income when bananas are not producing!

The large flower is white, pink, or light blue. My beautiful Urizuns are lavender with a touch of yellow!

Varieties depending on genotype!

My experience is as the images, with green rectangular Winged Beans, but they can also appear flat. Per World Wide Vegetables: Pod color can vary from shades of cream, green, pink, red or purple! Stem color is commonly green, but can vary from shades of green to shades of purple. Leaves vary a lot in shape and are different shades of green. The surface of the pod can be smooth or rough. When the pod is fully ripe, it turns an ash-brown color and splits open to release the seeds. Seed shape is often round, but oval and rectangular seeds are also found. Seed color changes based on environmental factors and storage conditions. Seeds may appear white, cream, brown or dark tan in appearance.

William Woys Weaver tells us: Due to the Bean’s adaptability, today there are hundreds of varieties, many developed in China. Of the varieties developed by Chinese gardeners, the ‘Hunan’ winged bean is credited for making cultivation possible in North America. Most winged beans grown in the United States are raised in south Florida and planted for winter cropping, because the plants do not flower unless the day length is short. ‘Hunan,’ however, can be grown anywhere with at least two months of warm nighttime temperatures (70 degrees or more). It will begin to flower in the latter part of the summer and then crop heavily in September until frost.

Evergreen Seeds says ‘Gardeners in most parts of the United States may see lots of vegetative growth throughout the summer, but no seed pods until late summer or fall.’

Per Echonet: Most varieties of this jungle plant from Borneo only bloom and set fruit when the days become very short, so they are planted in early fall. The variety ‘chimbu’ produces longer pods than most and is a striking deep red color. For pods in a summer garden in Florida or “up north,” be sure to purchase a “day neutral” or “long day” variety. See more about Day Length/Photoperiodism

Companions  They don’t mind growing near corn or tomatoes. Perhaps like Peas, another legume, the Onion family stunt the bean’s growth. Carrots are a great plant that enhance peas! Maybe try them at the base of the Winged Beans… But the plants often grow so full, there would be no space to stand to harvest them along a row. Some plant WBs on both sides of heavy gauge cattle panels! The beans do well inter-cropped with banana, sugar cane, taro, coconut, banana, oil palm, rubber, and cacao.

Planting  Winged Beans are a tropical plant, will only flower when the day length is less than 12 hours, though there are varieties, like Hunan and Urizun, that are day-length neutral. If your area has day lengths over 12 hours, do your planting timing accordingly. REPEAT: The only necessity is to be sure to use an INOCULANT when you plant your seeds, the right inoculant, Rhizobium leguminosarum. Unless your soil already has the Rhizobium, if you don’t use it, no Nitrogen nodules, that feed your plant, are formed on the roots. They suffer.

Actually, the bacteria ‘infect’ your plants and cause them to make the nodules. If there is none in the soil, seeds may even be unable to germinate. Even if you presprout to start your seedlings, they will live, but not have the ability to fix the N they need, are feeble, struggle and produce little. Even if you fertilize it is not the same.

Inoculant, living Rhizobium leguminosera, has a short life. Last year’s left over is likely not viable. Get fresh, LOL! You can get it at any nursery. It’s inexpensive. It’s important to know that in addition to the Rhizobium, available nutrients and soil pH matter as well.

Give them a place to live, plenty of space! All varieties of winged bean are vines and need support. Without it they grow into heaps of tangled intertwined stems that produce few pods or seeds. That, however, is good if you are growing for tubers! Trellised plants produce twice the seed of unstaked plants. 10-13′ Vines will grow right over a shed if you let them! Growing vertically saves space to grow other plants.

My four beans preferred the morning side of the cage and by August they were near the top! They did make it to the top! Due to a coolish summer, they didn’t make that 10′. At the upper right you can glimpse that the four Long Red Beans also made it to the top and did their job sheltering the Winged Beans from cooling winds.

Maintenance  Weed carefully while they are young.

Super tip from William Woys Weaver! Several growers have told me they prune the vines after about the 12th leaf appears. This causes the vines to send out as many as six side shoots, much like a grapevine, so you get a huge increase in pod production. A large pod harvest is most important for those of us who do not live in tropical climates, because frost is likely to ruin any chance of enjoying the tubers. – If you do this and you have a good hot climate, allow plenty of room because they can get really big and bushy! However, see the 4th image above! Varieties must vary, because my Urizun immediately put out plenty of side shoots on its own!

Otherwise, they are not drought tolerant! Maintenance is pretty much giving generous amounts of water for both the Long Red Beans and the Wings. The raccoons loved all that moisture and the worms that went with it, so there were diggings by them and recovering the roots by me. Thank goodness the Wings and Reds have strong long deep roots. Yellow or brown droopy leaves on the winged bean vine are a sign of overwatering, while dry brown crunchy leaves are a sign of underwatering.

Pests-Disease  The Long Reds attracted ants/aphids and a few got on the Wings but didn’t stay long. I think they don’t like the Wings. I sprayed them off and the Reds did better this year too. There were NO diseases on the Wings, but there were on the Reds when they were near finishing. Winged Beans are noted for disease resistance. However, Texas Real Food farmers report leaf spot and powdery mildew. They recommend to treat powdery mildew, use copper fungicide or sulfur plant fungicide. For leaf spot, use sulfur sprays or copper-based fungicides to prevent the spores from germinating. In Florida Nematodes can be a problem and in some areas, mites.

Ladies and Gentlemen! August brought Baby Urizuns and delicious eating size ones. I harvested up to 6″ long ones that were tender. Help the baby beans by pulling the dead flowers off the tip of the bean.

Harvests, plural!  The beans themselves can break just before the point where they are attached to the plant. Generally mine just popped off when I pulled them, but you will learn from your own plant what works best. There are still two last harvests! At the end of the season, flower production stops, seeds are saved, dig up your plant to see if there are any tubers! Note that some varieties of winged bean do not produce tubers. If your variety does make tubers and you want them more than the pods, remove the flowers!

Storage is simple. Fresh is best. On the counter they go limp quickly. In the fridge is better. Better to eat them right away or the little wings start turning black along the edge. They have a short shelf life, and fresh winged beans are very delicate, difficult to ship. Probably why they aren’t a commercial success. Freeze them if you need to store them longer.

October giants, 7-8″ long are hard as can be, no flex whatsoever, definitely not edible! They are doing a perfect job protecting ripening seeds inside. I cut one open, not an easy task, and the tender seeds are a good 1/4″ diameter, still green. They still have to form a protective covering and dry. November we had some early morning frosts and by the end of November pod production stopped.

SeedSaving  If your growing season is short, you may get plenty of pods for eating, but not many seeds.

Other timing can be a bit tricky too! When I thought I better leave a few pods to dry for seeds I stopped watering. I’m guessing these pups have long strong roots partly because even the raccoons couldn’t dig them up, but also because they kept right on producing when I stopped watering them. Then it rained. Twice. A few weeks apart. They are still as green as can be though there are fewer new ones. The plant stops making pods when there isn’t enough moisture. We want them to dry and darken. Still having to wait and it is the end of November now. They are a Perennial and with those long strong roots somewhat drought tolerant and they are proving it, LOL! And, rain is predicted again in a couple days…

Instead, do this! In short season areas, 1) immediately leave some pods on the vine and let to dry and turn dark colored or 2) start some plants separately for seed saving and let them run to seed right away. When the pods turn black and dry out, they’re ready to pick. Store your seeds in an airtight jar in a cool dark place. Harvesting is super easy. Split the pod open and remove the seeds!

Winged bean is a self-pollinating plant but mutations and occasional outcrossing may produce variations in the species. Nothing is ever 100% predictable, thank goodness!

Medicinal Benefits too! Winged Beans are loaded with healthfulness! Health Benefits Times says: Helps Prevent Premature Aging, Reduces Headaches and Migraines, Ensures a Healthy Pregnancy, Inflammation and Sprains, Helps Prevent Vision Problems, Weight loss, Weakness, Can Help Prevent Diabetes, Prevents Asthma, Increases Immunity and Fights Colds. Practical Health and Wellness Solutions cites 18 benefits, including some of the above, and more! They are a terrific bean, and not just for eating. Check the net!

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Nutrition and You cautions:

Winged beans and plant parts can be safely consumed by all healthy persons without any reservations. However, individuals with known immune-allergy to legumes and in G6PD-enzyme deficiency disease should avoid them.

Winged beans carry oxalic acid, a naturally occurring substance found in some vegetables which may crystallize as oxalate stones in the urinary tract in some people. Therefore, individuals with known oxalate urinary tract stones are advised to avoid eating vegetables that belong to Brassica and Fabaceae family. Adequate intake of water is therefore advised to maintain normal urine output in these individuals to minimize the stone risk.

Also, mature seeds must be cooked for 2-3 hours to destroy the trypsin inhibitor and hemagglutinins that inhibit digestion.

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Culinary Treats! WBs are often referred to as a ‘supermarket on a stalk!’

• The beans are one of the commonly featured ingredients in Indonesian, Malaysia, Vietnam, and Cambodian cooking.
• I eat the beans raw off the vine! For longer keeping and tasty eating, pickle them!
• Finely chopped beans added in salads, stir-fries, and sambal.
• Whole immature pods may be grilled and seasoned with oil, salt, and pepper, served with a dipping sauce. In Sri Lanka winged bean recipes include various fried and curry dishes. I personally enjoyed pods cut on the diagonal in my omelets!
• The tender leafy greens and shoots cooked in stews and stir-fries.
• Flowers are lovely scattered over salad. The flowers of the winged bean are used to color rice and pastry.
• Fresh green winged beans seeds can be eaten like fresh peas! They can be roasted or added to stews. Sautéed or steamed, they can be served as a side dish with fish, seafood, and poultry. Generally, they are used in the same manner as peas.
• Dried and roasted, seeds can be ground into flour, make high protein bread. When brewed, it can be used to make a drink similar to coffee.
• Winged beans can also be made into milk, similar to soy milk.
• In Indonesia they make a popular Tempeh from the dried beans. Legumes can also be turned into curd by sprouting it, similar to tofu. Miso.
• Oil! Like soy beans, the seeds produce oil, used for cooking, illumination and soap. Expressed oil cakes are fed to livestock.
• Roots of winged beans can be eaten like potatoes.
• Tubers are eaten raw or cooked, have a nutty flavor due to their high protein content. Boil, steam, bake or fry them thoroughly. Evergreen Seeds says: They are significantly higher protein than potatoes or yams. Certain varieties of winged bean plants produce larger and better-tasting tubers, usually at the expense of seed pod production. Not all varieties produce tubers… Depending on varieties, tubers are harvested at 5 to 12 months.
• In addition, winged beans are used as animal feed for cattle, poultry, fish, and other livestock.

What a versatile plant! Though it is slow to start, it is worth waiting for! It is super nutritious, a somewhat drought tolerant perennial legume, a soil restorative! From a permaculture standpoint it IS a super plant! From an artistic point of view, it is pretty crazy and wild! Just plain fun ~ The freshest place to buy it and try it is likely your local Asian market, the farmers market or if you are lucky a friend will gift you! You don’t really have to have an adventurous palate or a strong gut because it is neither oddly flavored nor spicy hot! It has a subtle flavor like asparagus or peas! It’s distinctive shape is most certainly a conversation starter! Please enjoy this Baker Creek mini Vid!

See about more valuable Perennials

Highland tribesmen in Papua New Guinea esteem it so highly that they hold winged bean sing-sings (feasts) at harvest time. I hope your plantings bring you such happiness!

Bon Appétit, Dear Gardeners!

Updated 3.3.23

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Love your Mother! Plant bird & bee food! Think grey water! Grow organic! Bless you for being such a wonderful Earth Steward!

The Green Bean Connection started as correspondence for the Santa Barbara CA USA Pilgrim Terrace Community Garden. Both remaining Santa Barbara City’s community gardens are very coastal. During late spring/summer we are often in a fog belt/marine layer most years, locally referred to as the May grays, June glooms and August fogusts. Keep that in mind compared to the microclimate niche where your veggie garden is. Bless you for being such a wonderful Earth Steward!

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Happy December 2022! A Blessed Holiday Season to You and Yours! Thank you always for your kind support!

Delicious December ~ Winter’s June 2022!

Harvests, Maintenance, Planning & Getting Seeds!

A misty morning at the garden…..

We in SoCal are so fortunate that we can plant heartily in ‘Winter!’ Brassicas and Peas are the main story. What I call the ‘littles’ are the understory! Lettuces, root crops like beets, parsnips, turnips, Daikon radish. Smellies like onions and garlic, cilantro and arugula, and herbs like Rosemary and others, protect your garden from certain pests, and make your garden oh so fragrant and your meals so tasty!

If you already have these going, plant your last rounds now so waiting for their harvest doesn’t interfere with earliest spring plantings.

The 10 hour day! Here’s a point to know and remember! Some plants stop growing or grow very slowly with less than 10 hour days. In a greenhouse you can add lighting and that will keep them going. In Santa Barbara CA we get to just under that 10 hrs December and January. At that time some of your lettuces may take a break. Either some supplemental purchases may be needed, or change some of your eating choices for a while…

During the cold months, northern gardeners eagerly wait for the more than 10 hour days to return so they can start planting! Our Stoney Acres, in Riverton UT zone 6a, recommends heating your soil for early seed planting germinating by covering your soil with clear 10 mil plastic – lasts longer and can be reused, 3 weeks before you intend to plant! Amazing soil temp difference! See more!

Well, there are several important events in December, LOL.

1. First is being sure everyone who knows you, knows what is on your holiday garden wish list!
2. Plan your 2022 gardens, get catalogs, and order seeds NOW – for the entire year to come!
3. Maintain your garden, keep up with SoCal winter harvesting, enjoy your bounty, try some new recipes!
4. If you wish, plant your last round of winter plants, succession planting – know that if they come in late they may interfere with earliest spring planting space. Place them carefully so tall early spring plants can be installed on time. Or leave those spots open. ‘Open’ might mean just putting some lettuces or other ‘littles’ there.

Harvest Brassicas of all sorts! The big ones, broccoli, cauliflower, kale and Brussels sprouts, have grown big enough now and your earliest plantings and varieties are producing handsomely. Harvest your brocs and caulies while the heads are still tight. If you miss that, harvest asap, even the flowers and flower stalks are edible! After you take the main broccoli head, let your plant continue to grow so it will produce smaller side shoots. Some varieties produce large 3 to 4″ mini brocs and later, smaller salad size ones right on through summer! Cauliflowers are a one time harvest though you can keep eating the greens. To replace them, you might choose to pop in some beautiful chard, a potato patch, or quick growing mini cabbages in the large open spots that become available. Some cabbages, especially the mini and early varieties, are now headed tightly and ready to eat – slaw, steamed, dropped into soups and cold weather stews. You can still replant them with mini cabbies if you love them!

Deliciously fresh and nutritious winter heading lettuces, kale, celery, bok choy, cilantro, arugula and all manner of cut and come agains are in! Table onions scallions, chives and leeks can be snipped or cut off about 2″ above the ground and let to grow back 3 to 4 times! Do the same but at about 3″ with cilantro and arugula. Let some of your cilantro and arugula grow out for flowers to bring the bees, make seeds for the birds and for you to plant more! The simplest way is to scatter some of the seeds where they are needed and let them come up at will!

Winter brings a lot of tasty Root Crops. Winter long Cylindra Beets are colorful, and have cut and come again leaves too! Long winter radishes like Daikons are spicy! Carrots are splendid to eat at the garden, share with your kids, pup, bunnies, shred into salads, add to winter soups, stews and stir frys. Slice/chop/make sticks and freeze for later! Grow some Parsnips too! Turnips have so unique a flavor you might want to eat them separately to just enjoy that flavor.

Harvest peas when they get to the size you want them, and be prompt and regular with that harvesting to keep them coming! Plant more rounds if you love peas!

MAINTAINING

Sidedressing is like snacking. Some of your heavy leaf producers and big bodied Brassicas, may need a feeding now and again or just when they start to fruit. If they slow down, or just don’t look perky, slip them a liquid feed out to their dripline, or cultivate in a wee bit of blood meal. Get your long spouted watering can and foliar feed! Get that nozzle under those low cabbage leaves to get them fed there too! Lettuces love manures. Compost and manure teas, fish emulsion (when there are no digging predators), powdered box ferts, are all good. Winter feeds need to be easy for your plant to take up. Use ½ the strength of your summer feedings. Slow release is a wise consideration. An excellent way to get feeds to the roots is to push in a spade fork no more than 6″ deep. Push it in vertically (so as not to break the main tap roots), wiggle it back and forth just a bit, remove the fork, pour your foods into the holes, close ’em back up. Soil organisms will get right to work, your plant will stay healthy and be quite productive! Worm castings, though not food, work wonders with immunity, soil conditioning and help germination! Mix some in with your liquid feeds you pour around your plant. Especially add them to seed patches before planting! Protect the patch from worm loving predators.

The exceptions are carrots, peas and favas. Carrots get hairy and will fork with too much food! Over watering or uneven watering makes them split and misshapen. Your peas and favas are busy gathering Nitrogen from the air, feeding themselves. But if you didn’t use an inoculant when you planted the seeds, they may not be able to produce their own Nitrogen. If they yellow or look peaked, give them a bit, just a sprinkle or two, of blood meal for quick uptake, a little fish emulsion. Protect them from predators attracted to blood and fish.

A mini task is to keep covering the shoulders of carrots, beets, radishes, parsnips and turnips. They substantially push right up above ground as they grow. Planting their seeds deeper doesn’t compensate. It’s the nature of the veggie! Never hurts to put a handy little pile of extra soil near where you plant them, or plant them in a low sloped trench. When they need covering, pull the sides of the trench down to cover them. Uncovered shoulders look dry, are tough, sometimes bitter, and need peeling before cooking. Uncovered carrot shoulders don’t ripen but stay green, just like exposed parts of potatoes turn green. The green on potatoes is slightly poisonous, not enough to do harm, but it doesn’t look good.

Watering is important even in cool weather. Also, some plants simply like being moist ie chard, lettuce and short rooted peas, beets. No swimming, just moist. Finger check your soil after rains to see if your soil is moist at least 2″ deep. Sometimes it is rain moistened only 1/4″ deep, needs more water! Also, be careful of too much water, that makes for an aphid tasty soft plant. Watch WEATHER reports in case of freezes, heavy winds, rain. Before weather, stake and tie plants that need support. After strong winds check everybody right away to see if any plants need help. See more about rainy days!

Santa Barbara’s average First Frost (fall) date AT THE AIRPORT is December 19, Last Frost (spring) date is (was?) January 22. That can vary from the coastal areas to the foothills, and our climate is changing generally to warmer, so these dates may not be viable guides much longer, if even now. And remember, these are average dates! See great tips – Protect Your Veggies from Freezing

Except for erosion control, in winter, we pull mulch back to let the soil warm up during the short winter days. The only areas we mulch are around lettuces and chard to keep mud splash off the leaves. Also, it’s good to remove pest habitat, let the soil dry a bit between rains to kill off wilts fungi. Bag up, or pile and cover clean uninfested summer straw, mulches, to use as compost pile layers during winter. Do not keep straw from areas where there have been infestations. Don’t put it in compost, bag and trash it.

Pests & Diseases Prevention and removal! Keep an eye out for pests and diseases and take quick action! 

BEFORE you put in seeds, sprinkle a bit of Sluggo type stuff around at least two times (to kill the generations) to keep snails and slugs from vanishing upcoming seedlings overnight, making you think they never came up! No, they didn’t let you down. Killing off the creatures ahead of time saves the babies. It stops new transplants from being seriously damaged or entirely eaten while they are small. Do this a few times, to knock off the generations, and there will be no tiny vegetarian predators for a while.

Don’t lose your crops to birds! There is less food for them in winter, and, often, little rain, so they resort to eating tender juicy veggie leaves and sip the dewdrops. Buy pre made covers, or get clever and cover seeded rows with DIY small openings wire tunnels or a patch cover bent that has sides bent to the ground to keep birds from pecking at little leaves or from plucking tiny seedlings right out of the ground! You can also use small plastic bottle sections to make mini sleeves that birds won’t go down into. Or for baby lettuces, make large plastic bottle cloches, though wire covers let more light in and water through! Bird netting is inexpensive, tears easily, but is good to stretch over peas on a trellis. See more about bird, animal and insect above ground protection covers!

A common pest of Brassicas is the larvae of the pretty little Cabbage White Butterfly, Pieris rapae. The green Cabbage Worm, caterpillar, chews large, irregular holes in the leaves. They blend so well you can easily miss seeing them on the undersides of leaves. Per Natural Planet: ‘They lay up to 200 tiny yellow eggs that hatch in 7 or more days. The larvae feed heavily for 15 or more days. There are 3 to 5 overlapping generations each year, as many as 8 in warmer areas. They bore into the center of cabbage heads contaminating them with its fecal pellets. The dark-green pellets can also be found in the crook of leaves near the stem.’ See here for some terrific natural ideas on what to do!

Chard and beets get Leafminers. Where they have eaten looks terrible but the good part of the leaves is perfectly safe to eat. Plant chard so mature leaves don’t touch, or best of all, in different places around your garden, not in rows or clusters. Thin your plants so they have room. Harvest leaves that might touch first. Remove infested leaves immediately to reduce spread! Beets are not a permanent crop, so they are planted closely. Simply harvest them at their leaves’ prime – ahead of the Leafminers.

A typical disease is Powdery mildew. Plant leaving plenty of space for air circulation, water early in the day so they dry before evening. For mildew apply your baking soda mix. The best combo is 1 regular Aspirin, a 1/4 cup nonfat powdered milk, heaping tablespoon of baking soda, a teaspoon liquid dish soap per gallon/watering can. Before sunrise drench under and upper sides of the foliage of young plants to get them off to a great start! It takes only an hour for the mix to be absorbed! Do this the same or next day if transplanting. Reapply every 10 days or so, and after significant rains. This also means no overhead watering, ground level only. Prevention is so much better than after mildew has set in. See Aspirin Solution. Hose away aphids and whiteflies, mildew. Remove yellowing Brassica leaves. Yellow attracts whiteflies. In general, plant further apart for air circulation, water and feed just a little less to let those leaves harden up a bit. Soft fat leaves are an invitation to aphids and mildew!

Do not compost diseased or infested leaves or plants. Don’t put them in green waste. Bag and put them in the trash. Wash your hands and clippers before you go to other plants.

Windy days are prime time to gather leaves to add to compost or process for Leaf Mold, Mulch or Compost! Leaf Mold is low in nutrients, but makes a superb soil improver, conditioner for vegetable and flower beds. Leaf mulch is free for the making! Leaf Compost processes faster when made the right way! See more!

PLANT JUDICIOUSLY NOW

Per square foot, fast growing cut-and-come-again Lettuce, Chard and Kale are by far the top winter producers! Plant more big plants like brocs and cauliflower, but remember, with cooler weather, they will grow more slowly. That may interfere with early spring plantings in March. Allow enough time to let added compost, manures, worm castings and Sphagnum peat moss (increases water holding capacity) become part of the soil organism community. If you do plant more now, better to get transplants if you can, and shave six weeks of their needed growing time to maturity. Select faster maturing varieties now.

As lettuces tire, and other plants like carrots and beets are removed, add more of them and any ‘littles’ you love on the sunny side and between the big plants. If the littles need more sun, remove large lower leaves of the big plants. Mild tasting littles include bok choy, kohlrabi, garden purslane, arugula, mizuna, watercress, young parsnips and turnips, Daikon winter radishes, and Napa cabbage. For a little more spice, go for those dark green kales, mustard, rutabaga and turnip greens! Try some culinary dandelions for super nutrition! These are plants that will take you through February, March and leave enough time to add compost and to let sit until major spring planting begins in April.

Believe me, you are going to get spring planting fever along about March, so plan ahead for it!!! Start seeds indoors the first three weeks of January for early March plantings! Choose varieties that are cold tolerant and are early maturers for the soonest table eats!

If you have enough seeds, over planting is fair game! Thin your beets, carrots, chard, kale, mustard, turnips. Take out the smaller, weaker plants. They are great in your salads along with small tender Brassica leaves. Plant patches of Mizuna and mow it!

Remember your winter companion planting tips:

1. Carrots enhance peas, onion family stunts peas
2. Carrots thrive when Cilantro, Chamomile (a spring/summer plant), Marigold are planted with them.
3. Onions, leeks and chives help repel the carrot root fly. But remember you can’t put the onion family near peas!
4. Lettuces repel cabbage white butterflies. Plant them generously among your Brassicas.
5. Cilantro enhances Brassicas – broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, kale and repels aphids on them!

Besides beautiful bareroot roses, decide now where you will be buying any January bareroot veggies you want! Consider: grape vines; artichokes; short-day (sweet) globe onions; strawberries: cane berries such as raspberries (get low-chill types); low-chill blueberries; and rhubarb (be cautious where you plant it, it can be poisonous to humans – children, dogs and chickens), asparagus, and horseradish. Artichoke pups need 3’ to 4’ space, 6′ to 8′ is more a reality! They are hefty growers and live 10 years! If you keep them watered, and there is enough space, they are a great street strip plant!

SPRING PREPS especially include getting the right seeds! 

Seeds! Place your order for the entirety of 2023, while seeds are still available. Now is the perfect time to sit with seed catalogs, do online research. Get your summer garden layout in mind. Dovetail it with your fall/winter 2023 choices! First choose what is good for your excellent health! Next might be how much plant you get per square foot if you have limited space and want to feed several people. When we are in drought conditions, water could be a strong consideration. Choose cold and/or heat and drought tolerant varieties per your location. Always look for disease and pest resistance per your location.

When you are planting from seeds, it’s essential to know your long and short day varieties because of your location, equator to Alaska, north or south US! See Short Day, Long Day, Day Neutral Plants -Photoperiodism! Another essential factor is days to maturity, especially if you are a northern planter!

This is the time of year when the seeds of plants that self-seed need to be in the cold! Throw them on the ground now where you want them to come up in spring. Stake the area so you don’t disturb them and know where to keep the soil moist. Cover the seed bed with something tough like hardware cloth that has small openings to protect from digging predators like raccoons if you have them. I put heavy stones on the hardware cloth to hold it in place. As soon as the seedlings start coming up, remove the hardware cloth and enclose the area until the plants are up, well and deeply rooted. This over wintering process is called Cold Stratification! Thank goodness there are other options if you miss this window. See the post.

Soonest table supply tricks! Get some early varieties, for earliest harvests along with later maturing varieties for a continuous table supply. Earlier variety fruits are generally smaller, but what a treat! Of the tomatoes, Cherry tomatoes come in first. Another trick is to plant both bush and pole varieties at the same time. The bush varieties come in sooner, followed by the pole varieties that produce continuously through the season – beans, cucumbers, peas! Peas are shorter lived; plant frequently. Cucumbers often don’t have the best disease resistance. Get the most resistant varieties and be prepared to replant in different locations.

Buying Lettuce Seeds: Summer Lettuce Varieties: In summer you want a stronger lettuce, heat tolerant & slow bolting! Lettuce Leaf Red Sails is a beauty. Jericho Romaine from Israel has become the classic summer romaine for warm regions. Sierra, Nevada. Parris Island is slow bolting. Green Towers Romaine tolerates moderate summer heat and has some resistance to tip burn and bolting. Green Star is phenomenal! Super productive, tolerance to hot weather, bolting, and tipburn, so it can be grown all season. High resistance to downy mildew. Black Seeded Simpson. And there are more – try several! Winter Lettuces favor heading and thin leaved varieties. If your area is frost prone, choose frost hardy varieties.

Know your Cucumbers! If you have been getting few fruits, low pollination is a likely factor. There are several special considerations ~ if you want to grow the best and which varieties will do what you need, how to hand pollinate or not at all, selecting companion plants, plants for pollinators, see more before you buy seeds this year!

Consider pollinator favorite flowering plants, 4 Lovely favorites! Companion planting is a super smart choice for so many reasons: Summer  Winter The longer production time of often drought tolerant water saving perennials is another wise choice!

FREE 15th Santa Barbara Community Seed Swap! SAVE THE DATE: Sunday, January 29, 2023, save your seeds to share! New location, the Santa Barbara Community Arts Workshop (SBCAW), indoor & outdoor space.

Already! Start thinking of next summer’s plantings – what seeds you will need. Process your seeds to share. Get some envelopes/baggies!

Remember, a Seed Swap is a random affair. Get your standby favorites earlier from those reliable catalogs while the seeds are still available. Use Seed Swaps as a fun backup source, new things to try, and most importantly, for local seeds. The last Saturday of January every year is National Seed Swap Day! Look in your area for an event, and if you don’t find one, collaborate with your local garden clubs or permaculture group, neighbors, to get one going! If your climate is warm enough, no rain predicted, holding it outdoors may work.

SOIL BUILDING!

Definitely start building compost for spring planting.

You could plant green manure where you will grow heavy summer feeders like tomatoes, potatoes, eggplants, peppers, chilies, squash, pumpkins, cucumbers, melons, and corn; hungry stalk vegetables like celery, fennel, rhubarb, and artichokes; or continually producing green, leafy vegetables like lettuce, spinach, Swiss chard, or strawberries. Or plant it if you want a break! Just lay in some green manure seed mix – vetch, bell beans, Austrian peas and oats. In Santa Barbara area get the Harmony mix and the essential inoculant at Island Seed & Feed. See The Critical Importance of Inoculants at Peas. Let it grow two to three months to bloom stage. Chop down, chop up and let it lie on the surface about 2 weeks, keeping it moist. Add any amendments you want – additional manure, compost, and turn under. Let it sit two weeks to two months. Your choice. Let the herds of soil organisms do their work! I usually do about 3 weeks. OR, lay on as many layers of compost material as you can get for an up to 18″ deep area where you will be planting. Put in some surface feeding red wriggler worms. The BEST soil enhancer and you will have a tasty raised bed!

VEGGIES STORAGE

For veggies in your kitchen, here is the UCDavis Quick Guide to Fruits & Vegetables Storage!

Birds and Bees! Plant NATIVE wildflowers seed now to take advantage of winter rains for early spring flowers for native bees! Germination in cooler weather takes longer, so don’t let the bed dry out between rains. If you have space, make habitat for beneficial insects, birds and animals too! Start building now to put your solitary bee home up for wild bees in March or early April! If you already have one, clean it, and if you have an owl house, now is the time to clean it out too, asap! Depending on where you live they are usually empty from Halloween until early December! Nesting site selection starts in January, so build yours and get it up as soon as you can!

Wonderful Gardener Style Holiday Gifts!

Please be generous with your time these holidays. Rather than just serving food, maybe show someone how to grow veggies, give them seeds with instructions, give them and the kids a tour of your garden – eat carrots together!

Layer up, enjoy these crisp days. Let the wind clear your Spirit, the rain cleanse and soften your Soul.

Happy December Gardening and Happy Winter Solstice, Yule!

Please enjoy Rancheria Community Garden, Santa Barbara CA November images! Seed Saving, Green Manure Planting, Plant Protection Methods, Beautiful and intriguing Pollinators! Take a look before you decide on planting plans or buy seeds for next year ~ you may get some terrific ideas! We are Sowing the Future!

Updated annually 

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Check out the entire December 2022 Newsletter!

Wisely Select the Right Seeds for Your Annual Plantings!
Lettuce ~ Beautiful, Nutritious, Low Calorie!
Waffle Gardens, The Roots of Square Foot Gardening!
Heating Greenhouses Without Electricity!
Wonderful Gardener-Style Holiday Gifts!

Upcoming Gardener Events!

World Soil Day Dec 5! US Composting Council’s 31st Annual Conference & Tradeshow Jan, Jan 30 FREE 15th Santa Barbara Community Seed Swap is ON! 76th Annual Holtville Carrot Festival, Santa Cruz Permaculture 2023 Design Permaculture Course April-Sep, ADVANCE NOTICE NATIONAL HEIRLOOM EXPO Sep 2023!

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Love your Mother! Plant bird & bee food! Think grey water! Grow organic! Bless you for being such a wonderful Earth Steward!

The Green Bean Connection started as correspondence for the Santa Barbara CA USA Pilgrim Terrace Community Garden. Both remaining Santa Barbara City’s community gardens are very coastal. Climate is changing, but it has been that during late spring/summer we are in a fog belt/marine layer area most years, locally referred to as the May grays, June glooms and August fogusts. Keep that in mind compared to the microclimate niche where your veggie garden is.

SUBSCRIBE to the entire newsletter!    Friend on Facebook! 

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Happy November 2022! A Bountiful, Blessed ThanksGiving to You! Thank you always for your kind support!

One of the joys of gardening is the pollinators! This beautiful Monarch appeared Oct 24, 2022 on the Giant Marigold. The Marigold is used in Day of the Dead celebrations, representing Transformation. Cerena Childress photo.

November Garden Magic is in the Air! Shorter cooler magical days, rich and deep! More Brassicas, Peas, Chard, Lettuce!

SoCal September planted lettuces are being eaten, plant more! Peas are being eaten, plant more. Kale leaves are or soon will be ready to start harvesting. Broccoli and Cauliflower soon to be tasty! Cabbages will take a bit longer as they ‘heart up,’ pack those leaves on tightly. You can harvest them when they are small, or if you want more food, let them get bigger, but not so big they lose that look of fresh bursting vibrance!

Plant more rounds of everything in space you have reserved, or as plants finish. At this cooler shorter day’s time when plants are growing slower, it’s time to plant from transplants. Seeds are fine, and seeds of the same plants, if planted at the same time as the transplants, give an automatic equivalent of a second round of planting! Just remember, as days shorten and weather cools, they won’t germinate or grow as fast as ones planted earlier.

Space your plants well. Think of the footprint of your mature plant. Crowded plants can shade each other out, and winter already has shorter days. They don’t get their full productive size or produce as productively. Smaller plants too close together can get rootbound, suffer from lack of nutrition. The remedy is simple! Thin when young and eat these luscious little plants! Or thin when they are bigger – take the whole plant! Rather than planting so closely, keep some of those seeds back for another later planting, or deliberately over plant for tender additions to your salad! If they come crowded in a nursery six pack, gently separate the little plants, plant separately. If you are really brave, do it the John Kohler way! Video Give away your extras! Plant to allow airflow so your plants will harden up a bit. Don’t over feed or water, inviting sucking pests like aphids and whiteflies that easily feed on that soft tissue. Especially true for beets and chard that get leaf miners. Ideally with chard, often a ‘permanent’ plant, space them so the mature leaves won’t touch another chard. Plants that have generous space produce more and bigger!

If you like Broccoli a lot, try these varieties! Know that there are container minis like Small Miracle to giants like Premium Crop that make 9-10″ heads ideal for freezing.

1. Arcadia tolerance of both cold and heat, good in foggy or wet conditions. 63-70 Days, 5-8″ heads with excellent side shoot production. Extremely disease-resistant – stands up to rot and mildew. 24 to 36″ tall.
2. Cruiser 58 days to harvest, tolerant of dry conditions.
3. If you can’t wait, De Cicco is only 48 to 65 days to maturity. It is an Italian heirloom, bountiful side shoots. Produces a good fall crop, but considered to be a spring variety. Since it is early, the main heads are smaller.
4. Nutribud, per Island Seed & Feed, is the most nutritious per studies, having significant amounts of glutamine, one of the energy sources for our brains! Purple broccoli, in addition to this, contains anthocyanins which give it its color. These have antioxidant effects, which are thought to lower the risk of some cancers and maintain a healthy urinary tract as well.
5. Green Comet if you can get it! It is just like its name says, speedy! It is a low, compact broc and produces 3 to 4″ side shoots! Amazing plant!
6. Premium Crop is an AAS (All-America Selections) winner! Heat tolerant, 24-30″ tall.

Brassica/Broccoli Pest Strategies, Companions

• Research shows the more broccoli varieties you plant, mixing them up, alternating the varieties in the row, not planting in rows at all, the less aphids you will have! Biodiversity means to mix up your plantings to stop diseases and pests from spreading down a row or throughout a patch. Monoculture can be costly in time spent and crop losses. Plant different varieties of the same plant with different maturity dates. Pests and diseases are only attracted at certain stages of your plants’ growth and the pest’s own life cycle stages.
• Cilantro repels aphids on Brassicas – broccoli, kale, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts! Said to make them grow REALLY well, bigger, fuller, greener! Plant generous mini patches here and there, close to your Brassicas. Harvest some; let others flower for bees and beneficial insects. Then share some seeds with the birds, collect some seeds for next plantings. Broadcast seeds where you will be planting more brocs. Take extras to the Seed Swap.
• Heading winter lettuces like plenty of water to stay sweet, grow quickly, stay in high production. Put them in a low spot or near the spigot, on the sunny side of taller celery, other water loving plants. Also, lettuces repel cabbage moths. Put a few of them between the cabbages. Lettuces you want under Brassicas, plant from transplants because dying parts of Brassicas put out a poison that prevents some seeds, like tiny lettuce seeds, from growing. Remove those dying Brassica leaves asap.
• Plant your Brassicas a little to one side to allow room for smaller understory plants on their sunny side.
• Keep your Brassicas cleaned of yellowing leaves that attract White flies.

See Super Fall Veggies Varieties, Smart Companion Plantings!

Brocs LOVE recently manured ground. Well-drained, sandy loam soils rich in organic matter are ideal. Feed up your soil out to where you anticipate your plant’s drip line will be. The trick to producing excellent broccoli heads is to keep the broccoli plants growing at a strong steady pace. Top-dress the plants with compost or manure tea; or side-dress with blood-meal or fish emulsion; and water deeply. Repeat this process every 3-4 weeks until just before harvest! John Evans, of Palmer, Alaska, holds the world’s record for his 1993 35 lb (no typo) broc! He still holds the record in 2021! He uses organic methods, including mycorrhizal fungi! And, yes, moose eat broccoli!

The Pilgrim Terrace April 2016 Cunningham Family monster Cabbages make the good sized Lacinato Kale behind them look small! The Cabbage heads were well over a foot wide at maturity! Cerena Childress photo

If you reserved space for planting mid-January bareroot strawberry beds, plant it to 2 month crops, like lettuce that matures quickly, arugula, mustard, turnips, and crispy red radishes that are ready to pick in little more than a month. Arugula, spinach, pretty Asian greens, such as tatsoi or mizuna, grow so fast you will have baby plants to add to stir-fries and soups just three weeks after sowing. For a quick payback on your table, select the earliest maturing varieties available. Chard grows quickly, but it is a cut and come again plant, so give it a permanent location.

Or, pop in a green manure mix to restore your soil. Island Seed & Feed has the wonderful Harmony Four green manure seed mix and the inoculant that goes with it. Nov is late to plant this mix; plant as early in the month as possible. It will grow more slowly in the cooler weather. Cut down, chop, turn in sooner for mid-January bareroot planting! See more

Seascape strawberry variety is my #1 pick! It was bred locally at UCSB, is an everbearer, harvest June to October! It makes huge berries that have tasty flavor and keep well. It has long roots so seeks water deeper down, more heat and drought tolerant. It is Strawberry Spot resistant. More on Strawberries!

Celery is lovely, fragrant, low-cal! Like lettuce, it is a cut and come again. Feed it from time to time, it’s working hard. Plant it by the water spigot. If you have room, you can let celery, cilantro and carrots, flower and seed too! It is super susceptible to the wilts, so be prepared to let it go. Or, try Tango, a hybrid that is sweet, extra-crunchy, grows extra tall: up to 18 inches! You can also sow the seeds 6-8 inches apart instead of 12, which makes for a larger, heartier crop. It’s tolerant of temperature fluctuations, read less bolting, and resistant to fusarium wilt! Laura Melchor says: …addition to soups and stews and together with bell peppers and onions, is one of the “Holy Trinity” of Creole and Cajun cuisine. You can use your homegrown crop as a base for jambalaya or gobble up the crisp, crunchy stalks straight from the garden – with peanut butter, of course!

Peas on a trellis, in a cage, take up less space, are off-the-ground clean and easier to harvest. Make a note to plant carrots on the sunny side of peas to enhance the growth of your peas! Baby Little Fingers make small carrots quicker than most, only 57 days to maturity! Put some beets behind the peas. They will get light through the frilly carrot leaves and the peas will go up. Peas and beets don’t mind a fair bit of water, but carrots will split if overwatered. Plant the peas a little lower and the carrots a little further away and water them a tad less once they are up. The onion family stunts peas, so NO onions, bunch onions, leeks, garlic, shallots, chives nearby. See Best Varieties of PEAS and Why! IMPORTANT: When you plant from seeds, be sure to treat them with their right kind of inoculant for plentiful crops.

1st half of Nov: Plant seeds of globe onions for slicing. Grano, Granex, Crystal Wax.

GARLIC! Hmm…usually I would encourage you to grow garlic but with these general overall warmer times, some garlic lovers are reporting they aren’t growing it here anymore. Garlic likes chill, so even in our regular winters we don’t get the big cloves like up in Gilroy CA, the Garlic Capital. Just like the new more heat tolerant artichokes, we need someone to breed some heat tolerant garlic! For now, if you don’t mind smaller bulbs, plant away. Plant rounds of your fattest garlic cloves now through Dec 21, Winter Solstice, for June/July harvests! See a LOT about GARLIC!

Divide your artichokes! Give new babies plenty of room to grow big and make pups of their own or give them to friends! Remember, they easily have a huge 6′ footprint when they thrive and are at full maturity. Plant bareroot artichoke now or in Feb, or in March from pony packs. They have a 10 year life expectancy and a huge footprint generally not planted with an understory! Please see the latest about Artichokes, A Wild & Wonderful Experience!  There are new things to know, varieties to consider, and Artichokes are a little different in their growing process than other veggies.

Shade  If you want a lower profile or space is limited, get dwarf varieties. That allows more flexibility when you choose how to place your plants or are filling in a spot where a plant has finished. Plant your Tall plants in zig zag ‘rows’ so you can plant them closer together. In the inside of a zig zag, on the sunny side in front of the ‘back’ plant, put in your fillers – medium height plants and shorties. A mix of winter beets like Cylindra, Bok Choy, mustards, longer winter radishes – Daikon, kohlrabi, parsnips, rutabagas and turnips would be exciting and give tasty winter variety to your table!

Soil & Feeding

With the majority of fall crops, the main harvest is leaves! Cut and come again means a long harvest…and a very hungry plant! So, plant in super soil to get a good start! Add composts, manures, worm castings. In the planting hole, mix in a handful of nonfat powdered milk in for immediate uptake as a natural germicide and to boost their immune system. For bloomers, brocs and caulis, throw in a handful of bone meal for later uptake at bloom time. If you have other treats you like to favor your plants with, give them some of that too! Go very lightly on incorporating coffee grounds either in your compost or soil. Studies found coffee grounds work well at only 0.5 percent of the compost mix. Yes, that’s only 1/2 a percent, barely a sprinkle! See more details about soil building! The exception is carrots! Too much good soil makes them hairy, fork, and too much water makes them split.

Also at transplant time, sprinkle mycorrhizal fungi directly on transplant roots, except Brassicas! Pat it on gently so it stays there. Direct contact is needed. Brassicas don’t mingle with the fungi and peas may have low need for it, so no need to use it on them either.

Winter plants need additional feeding, and steady adequate moisture to stay healthy and able in such demanding constant production. Give them yummy compost that releases slowly to keep their soil nutritious, fluffy with oxygen, the water holding capacity up to par. Be careful not to damage main roots. Get a spade fork if you don’t have one. Make holes in your soil instead, then, if you don’t have skunks or other digging predators, pour in a fish/kelp emulsion cocktail! Or compost, manure, or worm cast tea down the holes. Your plants will thrive, soil organisms will party down!

Winter Water! An inch a week is the general rule, but certain areas and plants may require more or less water. Don’t let light rains fool you. Do the old finger test to see if the top 2” of soil are moist. If you are managing a landscape or larger veggie garden, slow, spread and sink incoming water. Install berms or do some terracing. Direct special channels to water your precious fruit trees. Carrying buckets of water builds character, but a gray water system is ace! See Rainy Day Tactics for Spectacular Veggies! See Santa Barbara Rebates for both residential and commercial assistance.

Securely stake tall or top heavy plants before predicted winds! Tie your peas to their trellis or plant them inside well-staked remesh round cages so the peas are protected from winds. Check on everything the morning after. Some areas may need more shelter and you could create a straw bale border, or even better, a permeable windbreak of low growing bushes, like maybe blueberries! Lay down seedless straw (anchored so it won’t blow away), a board, or stepping stone pathways so your footwear doesn’t get muddy. Treat yourself to some great garden clogs or fab muck boots! (Sloggers)

Some areas will be having freezes! See Protect Your Veggies from Freezing! Cover and tuck ‘em in! In all cases, rain, wind and freezes, keep a close eye on weather reports. If you have a special farmers’ weather report in your area, use that one!

Mulch? The purpose for mulch in summer is to keep your soil cool and moist. If you live where it snows, deep mulch may keep your soil from freezing so soon. But when SoCal temps start to cool, days are shorter, it’s time to remove mulch, especially if it is a moist pest or disease habitat, and let what Sun there is heat up the soil as it can, and dry a bit. If your area is windy, lay on some mulch to keep your soil moist. If you regularly have high winds, anchor the mulch or use mulch that doesn’t blow away easily. When it is rainy, mulch slopes with mulch that won’t blow or float away. If needed, cover it – garden staple down some scrap pieces of hardware cloth, cut-to-fit wire fencing or that green plastic poultry fencing, or even floating row cover laid right on the ground. Or do a little quick sandbag terracing. Low to the ground leaf crops like lettuce, arugula, spinach, bok choy and chard need protection from mud splash. Lay down some straw before predicted storms. Storms come with wind, so lay something over the straw, like maybe rebar pieces, to hold the straw in place, some remesh, or some anchored chicken wire. If the straw area is small, just pop in some garden staples. Everyone’s needs are unique ~ be creative!

Pest & Disease Prevention Drench young plants, seedlings getting their 3rd and 4th leaves, and ones you just transplanted, with Aspirin solution to get them off to a great start! One regular Aspirin mashed, 1/4 C nonfat powdered milk, heaping tablespoon baking soda, 1/2 teaspoon liquid dish soap (surfactant), per gallon of water. Baking soda makes the leaves alkaline and inhibits fungal spores like mildew! Aspirin triggers a defense response and stimulates growth! Powdered milk is a natural germicide and boosts their immune system. Reapply every 10 days or so, and after significant rains.

RESTORE OR REST an area. Decide where you will plant your tomatoes, heavy feeders, next summer and plant your Green Manure there! Plant some bell beans (a short variety of fava easier to chop down) or a vetch mix for green manures to boost soil Nitrogen. The legume mix can include vetch, Austrian peas and bell beans, plus oats that have deep roots to break up the soil. When the bell beans start flowering, chop the mix down into small pieces. Let that sit on the surface, keeping it moist, for two weeks, then turn it under. The Nitrogen from the legumes’ roots nodules is only released after the plant dies. That’s why we wait 2 weeks – for it to be released into the soil. Being moist aids decomposition. If your soil can use other amendments, manures, green sand, compost with bark bits for water holding capacity, add them and turn everything under at the same time! Wait 2 or more weeks for it to mingle and get the soil organisms going again, then plant! Bell beans alone are great; you get a lot of green manure per square foot. If you change your mind, eat the beans!

Or cover an area you won’t be planting this winter with a good 6″ to 18″ deep of mulch/straw, crushed leaves, clean garden waste – spent plants, kitchen waste, sprinkle grass clippings so they don’t mat, seaweed, add amendments as you wish. Some gardeners add a bit of granular organic fertilizer for nitrogen. Alternate green/wet layers with brown/dry materials as possible, just like making compost! Then simply let the herds of soil organisms do their work over winter. This is called Lasagna gardening, sheet composting or composting in place – no turning or having to move it when it’s finished. If you are vermicomposting, have worms, add a few handfuls to speed up and enrich the process. Keep it slightly moist. Next spring you will have rich nutritious soil for no work at all!

For many plants this is a good time to start cold stratification! Stake the area and label so you don’t disturb the seeds or later plant something over your seeds already installed. See more!

Birds and Bees! Plant wildflowers now from seed for early spring flowers! Germination in cooler weather takes longer, so don’t let the bed dry out. If you have space, make habitat for beneficial insects, birds and animals too! Start building now to put your solitary bee home up in March or early April! If you already have one, clean it, and if you have an owl house, now is the time to clean it out too. Depending on where you live they are usually empty from Halloween until early December! Nesting site selection starts in January, so build yours and get it up as soon as you can!

Santa Barbara’s FREE 15th Annual SEED SWAP is Sunday Jan 29, 2023, 11-4 PM at its new location the Santa Barbara Community Arts Workshop (SBCAW)! The last Saturday of January every year is National Seed Swap Day! Look in your area for an event, and if you don’t find one, collaborate with your local garden club or permaculture group to get one going! Or just gather your neighbors and do it yourself!

Plant gift plants or bowls or baskets for the holidays now! Make Lavender sachets! Put ribbons on some of your seed jars gifts. See Wonderful Gardener-Style Holiday Gifts!

Please enjoy Rancheria Community Garden, Santa Barbara CA October images! Amazing Colorful Corn, Bule Gourd Browning, Gorgeous Butterflies, Cempasúchil, Japanese Winged Bean seed pods! Take a look before you decide on planting plans or buy seeds for next year ~ you may get some terrific ideas! We are Sowing the Future!

Layer up, enjoy these crisp days. Let the wind clear your Spirit, the rain cleanse and soften your Soul.

Updated annually

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Check out the entire November 2022 Newsletter!

Rainy Day Tactics for Spectacular Veggies!
Protect Your Veggies from Freezing! Cover and tuck ‘em in!
Cold Stratification for Some of Your Seeds
Magnificent Cabbages are Easy to Grow!
Wonderful Gardener-Style Holiday Gifts!

Upcoming Gardener Events! World Soil Day Dec 5! US Composting Council’s 31st Annual Conference & Tradeshow Jan, Jan 30 FREE 13th Santa Barbara Community Seed Swap is ON!
ADVANCE NOTICE NATIONAL HEIRLOOM EXPO Sep 2023!

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Love your Mother! Plant bird & bee food! Think grey water! Grow organic! Bless you for being such a wonderful Earth Steward!

The Green Bean Connection started as correspondence for the Santa Barbara CA USA Pilgrim Terrace Community Garden. Both remaining Santa Barbara City’s community gardens are very coastal. Climate is changing, but it has been that during late spring/summer we are in a fog belt/marine layer area most years, locally referred to as the May grays, June glooms and August fogusts. Keep that in mind compared to the microclimate niche where your veggie garden is.

SUBSCRIBE to the entire newsletter!    Friend on Facebook! 

Top^

Read Full Post »

October 2022 Very Last Summer Harvests, Final SeedSaving, Fall Transplants!

See the Farmers’ Almanac Fall Forecast 2022: When Will Sweater Weather Arrive?

Congratulations on your Squash & Pumpkin harvests and Happy Halloween, Day of the Dead!

Brassicas are the SoCal winter veg garden winners!

LARGE BRASSICAS

Broccoli is the favorite Brassica and rightfully so per the nutrition it offers. Plants differ in size, head color and shapes, how heat tolerant they are, if you intend to let them over summer and make side shoot production, varies! To get value for the room Brocs take up, a lot of gardeners seek varieties that produce a lot of side shoots after the main head is taken. Some newer varieties produce side shoots before the main head is taken! These smaller heads are great steamed if large, or tossed with your salad if small. Do as you wish! Many of these newer varieties grow no more than 1 to 1 1/2′ tall, in other words, close to the ground rather than up on taller stalks. This means you can’t cut off the lower leaves to plant smaller plants underneath. So before you select varieties, take a look online at mature plant profile. You can still plant around them, just not under them. Keep that in mind when planning your layouts. Research has shown there are less aphids when you plant different varieties of brocs together! Probably true for other large Brassicas as well. Superb Broccoli!

Kale has become a have-to-have! Eat young leaves fresh in salads. Steam with other veggies over rice. High in Vitamin A and anti-cancer properties! Lovely varieties – green or purple, flat or curly leaves. They just keep growing. They are technically a biennial, 2 year plant. The first year is for production, the second they make seeds. But. In SoCal they can over winter several years. Or if we have exceptionally hot weather, they may bolt and make seeds the first year! You can end up with a pom pom style, a poof of small leaves on a tall bare stalk, especially the curly leaf or dinosaur kales. But they lose their verve, look tired, are tasteless, rather tortured. A fresh young kale in good soil will easily take up a 3′ footprint and produce thick tender vibrant leaves like crazy! What a difference. I hope you start fresh ones each year. They grow so quickly. You won’t lose any harvest time if you plant a baby at the base of the old one, then take the old one down when you are getting those sweet young leaves from the baby. I’ll bet you forgot how good they can really taste! Just be sure to work in some high quality compost so it can be strong and keep producing well. Beautiful Kale!

Cauliflower now comes in the standard white, also green, orange and purple! The disadvantage is there is only one head and that’s it, though as with any Brassica, the leaves are edible. Like Collard greens.

Cabbage is more dense for the dollar than Cauliflower though it too has only one head and takes a long time to grow – even the mini varieties! But what a feast! A cabbage head is amazing and you can fix it so many ways. Shred in salad, coleslaw, steamed, cabbage soup – Borscht, stir fried, cabbage rolls, cabbage kimchi, in tacos, as sauerkraut! Or try a traditional Irish dish, colcannon, a mixture of mashed potatoes, cabbage or kale, onions, and spices. YUM! There are many cabbage varieties as well – ‘white,’ red or green. Different sizes, and I do mean different. There are 4 to 6″ minis for container gardens, sooner eating or you just don’t need a huge cabbage. There are easily more than a foot in diameter monsters you can barely carry! First they grow loose, then they fill in and make hard dense heads. An amazing plant! While your cabbages are putting on size, plant lettuces among them and other Brassicas. Lettuce repels cabbage moths. Magnificent Cabbages!

Brussels Sprouts are charming mini cabbages on a stalk! They like a colder climate to make big sprouts. In Santa Barbara SoCal area you need to be prepared to harvest lots of small ones. But, I have to tell you, the last couple years we have been getting sprouts up to almost 2″ diameter in two of our community gardens, so it wasn’t good soil that made the difference. The sprouts liked the weather or new more heat tolerant varieties are on board!

All these big Brassicas need feeding from time to time because they are big, and most of them are continuously producing leaf crops! They are all susceptible to Mildew. Try for resistant varieties. Water in the morning when possible so they can dry by evening. A good reason not to over water or fertilize is aphids and whiteflies! They like softer plants. Use plenty of worm castings, as much as possible in their soil – as much as 25% if you can! Plant your Brassicas far enough apart, leaves not touching, for airflow when they are mature, so pests and diseases don’t easily spread plant to plant. Brassicas are generally frost tolerant, even a bit freeze tolerant, and it is said their flavor improves with a freeze!

Cilantro is their best companion! If you like the scent, winter, early spring are good times for cilantro. It doesn’t bolt so fast. Summer it bolts, winters it will freeze, so replants go with the territory. Cilantro makes brocs grow REALLY well, bigger, fuller, greener! Plant it just inside the mature drip line and let it grow up and through your Brassicas! The exception is cabbage since it can’t grow through cabbage. I grow cilantro even though I don’t eat it. I like how it looks and smells and it is a living mulch. When it seeds I scatter the seeds where I think I will be wanting some as companion plants and comes up where and when it wants if you keep the soil moist. Cilantro!

ENJOY LOTS OF SMALL BRASSICAS! 

For salads arugula, bok choy, kohlrabi, mizuna, mustard, tatsoi, peppery sweet alyssum! Alyssum is a terrific little companion plant and attracts special small pollinators. Root crops are winter Daikon and White Icicle, pretty China Rose and handsome Long Black Spanish radish, turnips, rutabagas! Grow horseradish for fermenting. No need to allot special space for these except for the horseradish. It has a good 3′ diameter footprint! Plant these tasty small Brassicas in rows, between, among, around, in patches on the sunny side of big brassicas! A few here, a few there! Be artful with your design – sizes and colors. Enjoy their many flavors at your winter table! Same with other little winter types like onions, beets.

Then, there are all the other plants not Brassicas!

Peas – Flat, Snap or Pod

Flat is the same as Chinese or snow peas. String ’em or buy the stringless variety, and eat ’em right then and there or toss a few with your salad, steam or stew in Asian dishes, add to your stir fry! Shelling or English peas are so delicious fresh out of the pod and mighty tasty steamed so fresh from the pod. SNAP peas are the sinful favorite of many. The pod is thick and tender, sweet and delicious! Few make it home from my garden. I just eat them. That’s why you get stringless varieties. Who wants to be picking their teeth at the garden, LOL?! Ok, if some of those snap peas do make it to the kitchen, add them to salads. If you must, lightly steam them, add them to stir fries. They are very tender. To keep their fresh green look, undercook….

Yellow, green or purple, you can get bush or pole peas! Bush peas come in sooner; pole peas grow tall, so come in later. Soon as your bush peas are done, the pole peas will come in shortly after, making for a steady supply. And the pole peas keep on coming. Compared to beans or tomatoes, peas have a shorter life span. And when they are done, they are done. Fertilizing, coaxing, additional water doesn’t help. Successive planting is the answer. Plant once a month or so if you love peas. You do have to keep them picked or, like beans, they stop producing. They have short roots and need to be kept moist. Onion family stunts peas! But carrots enhance peas! Plant carrots around the cage or along the trellis. If you plant carrots on one side of them, trench peas a tad lower. Water the pea side so the carrots don’t get too much water and split.

Peas are the winter legume as beans are the summer legume of your garden! They are the trellis plants of our winter gardens. Put in your trellis first, then plant pole seeds, plus transplants of bush and pole all at the same time for them to come in one after the other. Your bush peas in cages will produce first, then your pole peas, and likely your seeded pole peas will follow in short order. Soon as your peas are done, clip off the plant, leaving the roots with their Nitrogen nodules in the ground to feed your soil. The Nitrogen is only released from the nodules after the plant has died. Plant more!

Presprouting your pea seeds makes sense! Presprouting assures no spots will be empty where a seed didn’t come up and you lose production! Presprouting peas is super simple. Paper towel on plate, lay out peas an inch apart, fold the paper towel over them, spritz with clean water, keep them moist. By +/- 5 days they will have sprouted, some more than others! Carefully put the ones that sprouted in the ground so you don’t break the little roots. If you have hungry birds, cover the sprouted peas with aviary wire soon as you put them in the ground. A smart trick is to plant them in a slight low sloped mini trench. Moisture goes to the bottom of the trench, drying wind goes over the top of the trench. When you are planting while it is still warm in late fall, if you are planting from sprouts, very carefully cover the soil with a very fine mulch to keep the soil moist. Planting from seed do the same cover the soil lightly. The sprouts will emerge and grow through the mulch. You can cover the trench with a board on top of the aviary wire. It’s high enough so the sprouts can get some size. Be sure there is a tad of airflow so the sprouts under the board are not baked! Delicious Peas! As with any seeds or transplants, a couple days before planting put down organic slug/snail bait and remove any overnight marauders that would feast on your tiny new plants.

You can have a terrific time with beets! They thrive in cooler weather. Many colors! Grow the elongated winter biggies, Cylindra! Plant them at the same time you plant smaller varieties so you have the littles first, while you are waiting for the biggies! Early Wonder Tall Tops and Dutch Baby Ball are a tasty choices, or red cold hardy Flat of Egypt! Try a yellow like Touchstone Gold! All About Beets, So Sweet!

Chard is an elegant super productive winter favorite! Handsome, colorful, really, they are the ‘flowers’ of the winter garden! Superlative nutrition, low calorie, easy to grow! If you want quantity, plant Fordhook Giants! They are wondrous – easily 3′ tall, foot wide leaves when conditions are right for them! Chard can’t be beat for production per square foot. Elegant Nutritious Chard!

Lettuces thrive in cooler weather too, but do cover them at threatened heavy pelting rain storms and freezes. Lay down tomato cages, cover, and secure the cover so it doesn’t blow away. Remove when the day warms up. Lettuces come in all kinds of shapes and delicious colors. They do best in rich soil, regular moisture. Winter is the cooler time when tender butter leafs and heading varieties do well.

Try super dense Salanova! Johnny’s Seeds says: Harvested as fully mature heads, the flavor and texture have more time to develop than traditional baby-leaf lettuces. The unique structure of the core produces a multitude of uniformly sized leaves, harvestable with one simple cut. Salanova is more than 40% higher yielding, has better flavor and texture, and double the shelf life of traditional baby-leaf lettuce, making it an excellent, more economical option. What do you think about that?!  Beautiful Lettuce!

Perfect timing for tasty root crops – beets, turnips, rutabagas, daikon radish. Beets are a double winner because the roots and the leaves are edible! Pick leaves from time to time. When your beets are the size you want, pull them and eat all the leaves and the beets as well!

Winter is growing time for long Daikon Radish. And Carrots. Carrots are a dense root, so they take a while. Plant short varieties like Thumbelina and Little Fingers for sooner eating. Kids love them! At the same time plant longer varieties to eat when the Little Fingers are done. Or plant successively, every 2 weeks, once a month per your needs. The longer the carrot, the longer it takes to grow. Look at the seed pack to see how many days it takes to maturity. Of course, you can pull them sooner and smaller, like for you and your pup! 🙂 Avoid manuring where you know you will be planting carrots – makes them hairy. Steady water supply and not too much or they split or fork. You might enjoy some of the mixed color packs – Circus Circus, Sunshine, or Cosmic Purple! Tasty Nutritious Carrots!

Parsnips, celery and parsley are all in the carrot family and enjoy cool SoCal weather. Celery is another in-the-garden edible let alone low calorie! Leeks and bunch onions, but, remember, NO onion family near peas.

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 If you haven’t planted already…some of you carry your layout plan in your head, others draw and redraw, moving things around until it settles and feels right. Do add a couple new things just for fun! Try another direction. Add some herbs, flowers for pollinators, or different edible flowers. Leave a little open space for surprises! Stand back, take a deep breath and ask yourself why you plant what you plant and why you plant the way you do. Anything been tickling the back of your mind you are curious about? More about Designing Your SoCal Winter Veggie Garden!

Once you have decided what to plant, when is the big question! Day length and temps are important. Temp sequences make a difference! Some plants bolt easily – Cilantro, Brassicas, Beets and Chard. Bolting is when your plant sends up a flowering stalk to seed. Check out Bolting aka Running to Seed! Causes and Prevention!  Day Neutral/Photoperiodism

Where you plant, sun/shade is important. Plant longer maturing larger and taller varieties to the back, shorter early day varieties in front where they will get sun. Put littles on the sunny side of these. Plant your tall plants first, let them get up a bit. Then clip off the lower leaves on the sunny side and plant your littles. Or plant quick rounds of littles between, among the tall plants. They will be ready to harvest when the big plants would start shading them. A classic combo is lettuces among starting cabbages that take quite a while to make their big footprints!

Mixes rule! Plant several varieties for maturity at different times and to confuse pests. Pests are attracted at certain stages of maturity. They may bother one plant but leave others entirely alone depending on temps and the pest’s life cycle! There are less aphids on broccoli when you plant different varieties together. See Super Fall Veggies Varieties, Smart Companion Plantings! for excellent biodiverse choices.

Peas and green manure mixes – legumes and oats, feed and replenish your soil because they take N (Nitrogen) out of the air and deposit it in little nodules on their roots! If an area in your garden needs a pep up, plant it to green manure. Broadcast a seed mix of legumes and oats and let them grow. Bell beans, Austrian peas, vetch and oats from Island Seed & Feed Goleta is an excellent choice. Be sure to get the legume inoculant they recommend to use with it. The first three deposit N; the oats have deep roots that bring nutrients up and create soil channels for oxygen, water, soil organisms and roots! Plant it where next summer’s heavy feeders, like tomatoes, will be grown!

If you are planning for mid January bareroot strawberry planting, be preparing your strawberry patch now if you are planting green manure! The green manure mix I use takes 2+ months to grow. I chop it down when the bell beans start to flower. Chop it into bits, let it lay on the surface 2 weeks. Keep it moist. For strawberries and many other plants, add acidic (azalea/camellia) compost, worm castings and turn it all under at the same time. It takes two to three weeks to decompose, let the soil organisms restabilize, and be ready to plant. That puts us right at mid January when the bareroots arrive! More details on Living Mulch!

Here’s the schedule:

1. Oct 1 plant your living mulch – put this on your garden calendar! If Bell beans are in your seed mix, or are your choice, they take a couple months to start to flower.
2. About Dec 1 chop down/mow, chop up your living mulch and let it lay on the surface two weeks. This is necessary to let the dead plants release the Nitrogen from their roots. If Bell beans are in the mix, chop when they flower or before the stalks will get too tough to easily chop into small pieces. Keep your chopped mulch moist, not wet, until it is tilled in. Being moist aids decomposition.
3. Mid Dec till in your living mulch for mid January bareroot planting. The little white balls on the roots are like a beautiful little string of pearls. Those are the Nitrogen nodules legume plants make that we are growing them for! At this time add any other amendments you want. Strawberries and many veggies like slightly acidic soil, so I add store bought Azalea/Camellia acid compost. It has little bark bits that add water holding capacity.

OR. Strawberry runner daughters can be clipped Oct 10 to 15, stored in the fridge for planting Nov 5ish in Santa Barbara. Remove any diseased soil where your beds will be; prep your beds with acidic compost like an Azalea mix. Commercial growers replace their plants every year. Some gardeners let them have two years but production of some varieties tapers off a lot the second year. Seascape, bred at UCSB, has excellent second year production! If you let them have two years, generously replenish the soil between the berries with acidic compost. I lay down boards between the rows where my berries will be planted. The boards keep the soil moist underneath. I planted the berries just far enough apart that they self mulched (shaded the soil) when they grew up a bit. Worked beautifully. I got the idea for the boards from a pallet gardener. If you use boards, just lift them, scoop out a little soil, add the new acidic compost.

Plant in super soil to get a good start! Clean up old piles of stuff, remove old mulches that can harbor overwintering pest eggs and diseases. Note whether you plant needs slightly acidic soil and add the right compost for that. Add the best-you-can-get composts, manures, worm castings. Worms casting are especially good in seed beds. They increase and speed germination and boost immunity. In planting holes, toss in a handful of nonfat powdered milk for immediate uptake as a natural germicide and to boost your plant’s immune system. Throw in a handful of bone meal that will decompose for uptake at bloom time, and some bird guano high in P in the NPK ratio, to extend bloom time after that. If you have other treats you like to favor your plants with, give them some of that too! If your soil has Verticillium or Fusarium Wilts, go lightly on incorporating coffee grounds either in your compost or soil. In studies, what was found to work well was coffee grounds at only 0.5 percent of the compost mix. Yes, that’s only 1/2 a percent! See more details about soil building! If you have containers, dump that old spent stuff and put in some tasty new mix!

Winter Feeding Lettuces like a light feed of chicken manure cultivated in the top 1/4 inch. All the winter plants are heavy producers – lots of leaves, some of those leaves are monsters! Cabbages are packed tight, leaf after leaf! They may need a light feed. Remember, it’s cooler now, so their uptake is slower, so give them liquid feeds of things easy for them to uptake. Fish emulsion (if you don’t have predators like raccoons or skunks) or a tasty tea mix – compost, worm castings, manure (no manure tea for lettuces). Slow release like alfalfa pellets.

Weather! Rain may be coming. Give your berms a check. Restore or add, shift their location if needed. Before wind or rain, double check cages and trellises, top heavy plants. Stake them, tie peas to the trellis or cage. More Rainy Weather Tips  Start gathering sheets, light blankets for possible cold weather to come. Keep tomato cages handy. Protect Your Veggies from Freezing! Cover and tuck ’em in!

You don’t have to garden this winter!

1. You can cover it deeply with all the mulch materials you can lay your hands on up to 18′ deep. Believe me, it will settle quickly. Let the herds of soil organisms do their work over winter. That’s called sheet composting or composting in place, lasagna gardening – no turning or having to move it when it’s finished. If you are vermicomposting, have worms, add a few handfuls to speed up and enrich the process. Next spring you will have rich nutritious living layers of whole soil for no work at all!
2. If you have access to materials, another wise option is to do some form of long term sustainable Hugelkultur! There are many variations, quite adaptable to your situation. It can be done in a container, a tub, on a hillside, a field, in your own little garden plot!
3. A third thing is to plant legumes and oats for superb soil restoration that takes some labor, but a lot less than tending your garden on a daily basis! You can plant it with green manure. Laying on lots of mulch is a ton of work when you do it, just gathering the materials can be a challenge. Green manure takes some work too, but it has awesome results as well. You broadcast a seed mix of legumes and oats, cover ever so lightly with soil, let them grow. Bell beans, Austrian peas, vetch and oats from Island Seed & Feed in Goleta is an excellent choice. Legumes gather Nitrogen from the air and store it in nodules on their roots! N is the main ingredient your plants need for their growth! The oat roots break up the soil. They dig deep and open channels for water and air flow, soil organisms, roots.

“Our most important job as vegetable gardeners is to feed and sustain soil life, often called the soil food web, beginning with the microbes. If we do this, our plants will thrive, we’ll grow nutritious, healthy food, and our soil conditions will get better each year. This is what is meant by the adage ‘Feed the soil not the plants.‘ – Jane Shellenberger, Organic Gardener’s Companion: Growing Vegetables in the West (Colorado)

Winter watering in drought areas is the same as for summer. Before 10:30 AM, after 4 PM. Watch which way water flows along the leaves. Some plants it flows to the central stem. Some drip water off the leaf tips in a circle around your plant, the dripline. Some go both ways. Make berms just beyond where the mature plant’s water flows. If at the dripline, that’s where the tiny feeder roots take up moisture and nutrients. That’s why they call them feeder roots! If your garden has a low spot, plant your water loving plants – chard, lettuces, spinach, mizuna, mints – there or near a spigot.

Fall Pests & Diseases

• Prevention Drench young plants, ones you just transplanted, with Aspirin solution to get them off to a great start! Drench your seedlings when they get up a few inches. One regular Aspirin, 1/4 C nonfat powdered milk, 1/2 teaspoon liquid dish soap (surfactant), per gallon of water. Aspirin triggers a defense response and stimulates growth! Powdered milk is a natural germicide and boosts the immune system. Be sure to get under the leaves too!
• Brassicas, Peas! Lots of ants and on Brassicas, lengthwise curling leaves are the giveaways for aphids, then whiteflies. Aphids carry viruses. Aphids come in fat gray or small black. Avoid over watering and feeding that makes for soft plants, tender leaves that aphids thrive on, and ant habitat. Spray aphids and whiteflies away, make the ants leave. Get up under those leaves, and fervently but carefully do the tender center growth tips. Do it consistently until they don’t come back. Cinnamon is amazing. Ants don’t like it at all, and when you are starting seedlings it prevents molds and damping off. Sprinkle it on the soil in your six pack. Get it in big containers at Smart and Final or bulk food stores. Reapply as needed. ASAP remove yellowing leaves that attract whiteflies.
• Chard, Lettuces, Spinach – Slugs and snails are the bane of so many crops, but these especially. Lay down something like Sluggo immediately. Then do it again in a week or so. Kill the parents, kill the children. After about 3 times you rarely need it again anytime soon.
• Biodiversity In general, avoid row planting where disease and pests wipe the plants out from one to the next to the next. Instead or rows, plant in several different spots. If you can’t help yourself, because your family always planted in rows or that’s the way farm pictures show plantings, remember, this is YOUR garden! Also, leave room so mature plants’ leaves don’t touch. Give them room to breathe, get good big leaves that get plenty of sun and produce lots more big leaves and many big fruits! Stunted crowded rootbound plants just don’t perform as well and are more disease and pest susceptible. Leaving that breathing room between plants pay off when you plant little plants along, under bigger plants. It’s like having two crops in the same space. No need to make separate space for smaller plants. There is no law that says you must plant in a straight line or a separate space! Forget the stakes and twine; plant where you want to! Use companion plants where they will do the most good!

Keep up with your maintenance. Weed so seedlings aren’t shaded out or their nutrients used up.

If you have lots of seeds, over planting is an age old practice. Plant too, too many, then thin them with tiny pointy scissors, aka harvest the young, and eat ’em! Young radish sprouts, teeny carrots – for you and your pup, beets, cilantro, arugula, onions, little Brassicas of all kinds are wonderful in a salad! If they get a little big, steam them or add to stir fries and stews. Another way to do it is plant flats of lettuces, Mesclun mixes, and mow them! Tender baby greens! They will grow back 3, 4 times.

Have it in the back of your mind what summer plants you will be wanting, where you will plant them. For example, plant more permanent plants like a broccoli you will keep over summer for side shoots (like All Season F1 Hybrid), or a kale that will keep on going, where they will not be shaded out by taller indeterminate summer tomatoes.

October is the last of Seed Saving time for most of us. Make notes on how your plants did, which varieties were the most successful. These seeds are adapted to you and your locality. Each year keep your best! Start sorting and labeling seed baggies on coming cooler indoor evenings. Store your keepers in a cool dry place for next year’s plantings. Generously gather seeds for upcoming January Seed Swaps!

Santa Barbara’s 15th Annual Seed Swap is January 29 2023!  More details in the Oct Newsletter! The last Saturday of January every year is National Seed Swap Day! Look in your area for an event, and if you don’t find one, collaborate with your neighbors, local garden clubs or permaculture group to get one going!

Plant gift plants or bowls or baskets for the holidays now! Make Lavender sachets! Put ribbons on some of your seed jars gifts. See Wonderful Gardener-Style Holiday Gifts!

Please enjoy Rancheria Community Garden, Santa Barbara CA September images! Definitely a Corn Month! See a giant butterfly and tomatoes, fun Bird Baths! The White Flowered Gourd is getting huge;  the long red beans are seeding! Take a look before you make final October planting plans ~ you may get some terrific ideas! We are Sowing the Future!

Take a deep breath of this fine fall weather! Happy Gardening!

Updated annually

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Check out the entire October 2022 Newsletter!

Chard! An Elegant, Colorful, Nutritious Pleasure!
Growing the Best Varieties of PEAS, How and Why!
CARROTS! Steaming, Roasted, Juicing, Snacking, Salad!
Bird, Animal, Insect Pests Above Ground Protection!

Upcoming Gardener Events! Loomis CA Eggplant Festival OCT 1, 43rd American Community Gardening Assn Conference. Lane Farms Pumpkin Patch IS OPEN! World Soil Day Dec 5! Jan 30 FREE 13th Santa Barbara Community Seed Swap is ON!

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Love your Mother! Plant bird & bee food! Think grey water! Grow organic! Bless you for being such a wonderful Earth Steward!

The Green Bean Connection started as correspondence for the Santa Barbara CA USA Pilgrim Terrace Community Garden. Both remaining Santa Barbara City’s community gardens are very coastal. Climate is changing, but it has been that during late spring/summer we are in a fog belt/marine layer area most years, locally referred to as the May grays, June glooms and August fogusts. Keep that in mind compared to the microclimate niche where your veggie garden is.

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September 2022 Last Summer Harvests, SeedSaving, Fall Transplants!

This veg garden is at Gaia Retreat, in Bundjalung Country, Brooklet, Australia. They are approaching vernal equinox now, while we in SoCal are soon upon autumnal equinox. Their cool plants are finishing while we are starting ours! This spot offers a fine shed, a native bee home low on the pole and a three floor bird apt at the top! 

It’s definitely fall now. In coastal Santa Barbara July, and now August, there have been lots of cool  overcast days and mildews to match. Some plants never got full stride, some are ending a bit early. Some possibly record breaking heat is predicted here at the very end of August and early Sep at 80 and over for over a week! If you love your summer plants a lot more than winter plants, you can take a chance. Plant that last batch of bush beans, even pole beans, and early cold tolerant determinate bush tomatoes. More likely it will be better to get those winter plants going a few days after the heat, like mid September, otherwise there may be early bolting. That will give you time for second plantings November/December. If late August was hot where you garden, and so is September, it will be a tad challenging getting winter seeds and starts going. Extra watering will be critical; shade may be needed for seedlings.

Many of you that had HOT August weather haven’t gotten transplant starts going, but have started seedlings at home. Rather than planting out your seeds garden wide, it would be easier to plant them in a shaded patch for transplant later. Caring for them will be all in one place, easier to cover if needed. See the details: Veggie Garden Nursery Patch Many veg gardeners are still waiting until the bolting time passes in your area. California has had severe fires; other areas flooding, floods feared in after fire areas. Here are some tips for remediation and recovery if you are in extreme conditions. Call in Permaculture teams to make the best new beginnings. Even many of them have never been so challenged and are learning as they go. Take time to work with the team as much as you can. Get connected with experience leaders. Collaborating is productive.  

Last Harvests are being collected and stored, seeds saved! See more about SeedSaving!  How to Save Tomato Seeds! 

Many have been prepping their soil as various summer plants are finishing and space becomes available! When you do, make your fall planting beds extra yummy! Add 5-10% compost, and, if you have them, add 25% worm castings – seeds germinate better and plants do especially better with worm castings! Manure amounts depend on the type of manure and which plants. Rabbit poop manure can be used immediately with no composting – get some at the shelters! We want rich soil for big winter plants so they can make lots of those marvelous leaves for greens too. Winter plants like brocs, collards, cauliflower, cabbage and chard, are heavy producers, need plenty of food, but remember, winter is cooler and slower. Reduce you feeds potency by about 50%. Know that Carrots need little if any manure. With too much food/water they grow hairy, split /fork. Peas are legumes and usually feed themselves! Smart Manure Choices  More winter Soil tips!

It’s BRASSICA time! They are the mainstay of winter gardens! Their nutrition can’t be beat! Kale’s the Queen! Broccoli, Brussels sprouts, Cabbages, Cauliflower and Collard greens! Then there are all the mini Brassicas, the fillers and littles – arugula, bok choy, mizuna, kohlrabi, mustards, radish, turnips. Rather than plant just six packs of transplants, put in seed at the same time when possible and stagger your plantings of the large Brassicas. Rather than all six cauliflower coming in at once, plant two now, two later and so on. Adjust that, of course, if you have a large area available to plant and a lot of people to feed! Another way to do it is to get varieties with early, middle and late maturity dates and plant them all at once! Plant both mini and monster cabbages at the same time! Minis come in sooner, while waiting for the monsters! Successive plantings mean a steady table supply.

There’s kale and there’s kale! This truly tasty purple curly leaf kale image is by Steve!

Finicky, or bored, eaters may enjoy a selection! Fall veggies come in lots of shapes and colors! Kales are renowned for their beauty and varieties – classic curly leaf, plain and simple flat leaf like in the image a left (less aphids and easy to hose away), Red Russian, Elephant, Red Bor that is really purple are just a few! Cauliflower comes in traditional shape and spiral, classic white plus yellow and purple and green! Get seed packs of them all and mix them together! Carrots already come in color mix seed packets! Circus Circus is a fun choice, especially when your kids are planting! Thumbelinas are faster producers for excited kids. Beets are terrific fun! Yellows, reds, pinks, whites and Chioggias (concentric circles of colors)! You can get them in rainbow mixes just like getting rainbow chard mixes! Rather than have your finicky, or bored, eater say no, open up that catalog or take them shopping at the nursery and let them pick what they would like to try!

More ‘littles,’ understory veggies that love cooler weather are beets, carrots, celery, chard, cilantro, leeks, spinach and especially lettuce – now is the time for tender butter leafs and heading lettuce! If you anticipate a hot Sep, plant more heat tolerant lettuces.

The SoCal winter legume is PEAS! Peas are like beans, our summer legume; they come in bush and pole types. And those come in three main types – English shelling, eat-’em-whole snap peas and flat China/snow peas! They are super easy to sprout! Definitely plant some every month or so. They don’t live all season long. When they are done, they’re done. It is true that picking peas, just like picking beans, is labor intensive. I eat a lot of mine before they get home, so I don’t mind. Bush peas come in first and pretty much all at once; pole come on later and continue to produce. On the first round it makes sense to plant both at once! If you don’t have time to do seeds, and aren’t wanting varieties nurseries don’t carry, just wait and when they arrive, get six packs! Transplants are always stronger than tiny seedlings. But do cover your plants if they show signs of being pecked by birds! That’s little V shaped nibbles on the leaves. Aviary wire is your best choice because it allows pollinators access and it is durable. You can clothespin or use clips for harvest and plant care access to hold openings closed when not in use.

CARROTS! Compost, yes! They want easy-to-push-through soil. Manure, no! Makes them hairy and they fork. And over watering, irregular watering, can make them split. Build your beds up so they drain well, are above the coldest air that settles low down. PEAS! The same. Compost to keep the soil loose and have water holding capacity for these short rooted green People. This winter legume makes their own Nitrogen, so feed only lightly if at all. Decide where both of these will be planted and amend accordingly. Conveniently, Peas are enhanced by Carrots! Start your carrots as much as 3 weeks to a month before you start your peas so the Carrots will be up and helping.

If your ground hasn’t been planted to peas before, or if you don’t know if it has, it’s more than wise to use peas specific inoculant at planting time. Seeds may be unable to start, if there isn’t ample Rhizobium leguminosarum, a nitrogen fixing bacteria, available to them. The bacteria ‘infect’ your plants and cause them to make the nodules they need for quality survival. Without those nodules, they are feeble, struggle and produce little. Very sad. See more and how to use the inoculant at Peas!

Presprouting your Peas is easy and it’s fun to watch them come to life! Fold a paper towel in half on a plate. Spritz the half on the plate with water. Lay on your seeds about an inch apart. Cover and spritz until good and wet. Put them in a warm place ie top of fridge, out of sunlight. Check them about every 6 hours; keep them moist. Water well at bedtime so they make it those 8 hours. Take them to work with you if it’s only you doing the parenting. While you are waiting, put up their trellis if they are pole peas.

When the little sprout is 1/4 to 1/2″ long, depending on temps it takes 2 -5 days, gently put them in the ground sprout (root) down, right at the foot of that trellis. Don’t forget to use the inoculant! Gardeners vary greatly on how they space those pealets. 1″, 2″, 6″. There is good reason to leave a little more space. More air circulation makes for less mildew that Peas are quite susceptible to. You can put the pea practically at the surface! But do cover it a bit so it doesn’t dry out. Next thing you know, you will have little plant sprouts coming up! The nice thing about presprouting is you know if you’ve got one! If a seed doesn’t sprout, you won’t be wondering like as you would had you planted it in the ground. That’s why some gardeners always presprout their Peas. If you plant early fall there may still be some warm days. Be prepared to give them some shade if they need it. They are short rooted and, and in those conditions, may need water daily or even twice daily. Transplants will be along at your nursery…see more on how to pick the best varieties for you!

Onions For the biggest, sweetest harvests, late summer and early fall are the prime times to sow seeds of short- or intermediate-day onions. Fall-sown short- and intermediate-day onions tend to yield more and are larger and sweeter than those seeded or transplanted in early spring.

Varieties that do better in winter are long beets like Cylindras – at left, long radishes like Daikons, pretty China Rose and handsome Long Black Spanish! Plant small beets like Dutch Baby Ball for quick beets while your Cylindras are growing twice to three times bigger! All about Beets, So Sweet!


Companion planting combos make a difference! Carrots enhance peas, onions stunt peas. Late summer plant the carrots on the sunny side at the feet of finishing pole beans. The Carrots will be up for when the beans are replaced by winter peas! Combos can use space wisely! Carrots grow down, peas grow up, perfect! Cabbage babies need to be planted 12 to 28″ apart! A healthy plant will take up much closer to that 28″. They take a long while to grow, head, head tight! While waiting, plant lettuces that repel cabbage moths, or other small fillers, that mature sooner, in the space between the Cabbages. You can do this at home amongst your ornamentals, and/or in containers too! Fillers can be onion/chive types, beets. Short quickest growing winter radishes can be among the long slower growing carrots among the slowest growing, your cabbages. Cilantro makes brocs grow REALLY well, bigger, fuller, greener! Research has shown there are less aphids when you intermingle different varieties of brocs! See more!

No need to plant blocks or rows of smaller plants, unless you want to for the look. Biodiversity works better and uses space more wisely! Scatter them about on the sunny side between larger plants as an understory – living mulch! If it happens to be flowers, they bring pollinators right to your plant! Plant different varieties to keep your table exciting. Don’t plant them all at once, but rather every week or two for steady table supply. If you would enjoy a quick payback for your table, select the earliest maturing varieties.

If you have lots of seeds, over planting is an age old practice. Plant too, too many, then thin them with tiny pointy scissors, aka harvest the young, and eat ’em! Young radish sprouts, teeny carrots, little Brassicas of all kinds are wonderful in a salad! If they get a little big, steam them or add to stir fries and stews. Another way to do it is plant flats of lettuces, toss an entire packet of seeds in a small spot, Mesclun mixes, micro greens and mow or thin them! Tender baby greens! If mowed, they will grow back 3, 4 times.

When planting in hot fall weather, plant your outdoor seeds a tad deeper than you would in spring; soil is moister and cooler an extra inch or two down. It’s the law to keep them moist. If you plant successively for steady fresh table supply, plant a batch in September, again in October. Days will shorten and start cooling, but early fall you are taking advantage of a fast start because your plants will grow quickly in the warmer weather now than later on. September plant from seeds & transplants if you can get them, October from transplants. Be careful which plants to plant ~ see bolting!

Winter Feeding Lettuces like a light feed of chicken manure cultivated in. All the winter plants are heavy producers – lots of leaves, some of those leaves are monsters! Cabbages are packed tight, leaf after leaf! They may need a light feed. Remember, it’s cooler now, so their uptake is slower, so give them liquid feeds, teas, half strength, and things easy for them to uptake.

Keep letting your strawberry runners grow for Oct harvest. Store them in the coldest part of your fridge for them to get chilled. Plant in January. OR. Let the babies grow through winter and get the earliest spring berries! Very carefully remove old parent plants. If the roots are entangled, cut the parent plant off just below the crown. If you replace your strawberries annually, as commercial growers do, in Santa Barbara area try Seascape, bred locally at UCSB. Seascapes are big fill-your-palm plentiful berries, firm, tasty, store well, are strawberry spot resistant! They have strong roots that gather plenty of nutrition. Plan ahead! Call ahead, earliest January, to get the date bareroots arrive – they go fast! Seascapes and other varieties are available as transplants later if you miss the January window. If you will be planting bareroot berries in January for April eating, remove old plants.

Some gardeners like precise and efficient organization. Others like every square inch planted like Food Forests. Some of you carry your layout plan in your head, others draw and redraw, moving things around until it settles and feels right. Others let it happen as it happens… Do add a couple new things just for fun! Try a different direction. Add some herbs or different edible pollinator flowers. Leave a little open space for surprises! Leave some space for succession planting. Stand back, take a deep breath and ask yourself why you plant what you plant and why you plant the way you do. Anything been tickling the back of your mind you are curious about? More about Designing Your SoCal Winter Veggie Garden!  Consider a Food Forest Guild!

Soil is always first in garden care! An old adage is ‘Feed the soil, not the plants.’

Winter plants need different care than greedy summer production plants, heavy feeders. Special soil tips for your winter plants! Almost all soil can do with some compost. Some say the most important soil tip of all is Gopher wire prevention, LOL, and I can tell you the misery it is to lose a prime plant in full production that took months of growing and TLC to get there. Grrr! See Gopher prevention

The right soil! Many veggies like slightly or more acidic soil! Use that azalea/camellia compost! SoCal ‘winter’ plants in blue. Acid tolerant veggies: beans, broccoli, cabbage, turnips, carrots, cauliflower, lettuce, celery, cucumbers, garlic, onions, corn, sweet peppers, pumpkins, winter and summer squash and fruits tomatoes, strawberries, raspberries, blueberries and many herbs. Acid loving veggies are radish, sweet potato, parsley, peppers, eggplant, potato, rhubarb. Note that there are varying opinions on these choices. Some say some of the acid tolerant veggies prefer acidic soil! Please see Sasha Brown’s post for more details, pH and tips!

Per GardenGuides.com there’s no reliable way to guess about or estimate soil pH, so having the soil tested is the best approach to ensuring that your vegetables have the proper acidity levels. The Cooperative Extension System offices in your state can help with this. My note: If you have a small plot like our community garden 10X20s, it may not help to soil test because there is so much variance within even a couple feet, but you can do it and see! You can get a pH meter if you want only pH readings. Or you can get a soil test kit that tests for soil deficiencies and pH! Best 2022 Soil Test Kits compared

Here are lists of veggies and fruits pH tolerance. 7 is the neutral point. I was surprised at the acidic tolerance of the majority of plants! See Acu>Rite’s site for shrub and tree pHs. These pHs are not to be confused with the alkalinity/acidic qualities of the veggies and fruits when we eat them! See chart!

You can add tasty items to the planting holes too! Some plants might like a bit more manure. Add a handful of bonemeal for blooms at 2 to 3 months, and also add bat/seabird guano for continued later blooming at 4 months! It takes that long for it to become available to your plants. A handful of powdered milk is for disease prevention. Worm Castings are super valuable, give immunity and increased water holding capacity! You may have some specials of your own depending on the soil in your area and which plant you are planting there. Some gardeners spritz the roots and planting hole with Hydrogen Peroxide to add oxygen, help plant roots absorb nutrients from the soil and more!

If you need to skip a beat, take some time off from the garden, let it rest, but be smart and let nature rebuild your soil while you are resting!

1. You can cover it deeply with all the mulch materials you can lay your hands on up to 18′ deep. Believe me, it will settle quickly to less than half that height in a few days to a week depending on temps! Let the herds of soil organisms do their work over winter. That’s called sheet composting or composting in place, lasagna gardening – no turning or having to move it when it’s finished. All you have to do is keep it moist. If you live in a windy area you might cover it.  If you are vermicomposting, have worms, add a few handfuls to speed up and enrich the process. Next spring you will have rich nutritious living layers of whole soil ready for planting for no work at all! Yarrow and Comfrey leaves also speed composting. Lay them in and on.
2. You can plant it with green manure. Laying on lots of mulch is a ton of work when you do it, just gathering the materials can be a challenge. Green manure takes some work too, but it has awesome results as well. You broadcast a seed mix of legumes and oats and let them grow. Bell beans, Austrian peas, vetch and oats from Island Seed & Feed in Goleta is an excellent choice. Legumes gather Nitrogen from the air and store it in nodules on their roots! N is the main ingredient your plants need for their growth! The oat roots break up the soil. They dig deep and open channels for water and air flow, soil organisms. Cover Crops  Living Mulch

Here’s the schedule:

1. Oct 1 plant your living mulch/cover crop – put this on your garden calendar! Bell beans take that long if they are in the mix or are your choice. Use the specific FRESH inoculant to produce the Nitrogen nodules on the legume plants.
2. About Dec 1 chop down/mow, chop up your living mulch and let it lay on the surface. Studies show there is more nutrition if it is let to lay before turning under. Keep your chopped mulch moist, not wet, until it is tilled in. Being moist aids decomposition. If Bell beans are in the mix, chop when it first flowers or the stalks get too tough to easily chop into small pieces.
3. Mid Dec till in your living mulch for mid January bareroot planting. The little white balls on the roots are like a beautiful little string of pearls. Those are the Nitrogen nodules legume plants make! If there are no nodules, you either forgot to use the inoculant or not enough. The whole purpose for growing the legumes is for these Nitrogen rich nodules that restore your soil, so it is critical to use that inoculant! When you turn the chopped bits under, also turn in the right compost at the same time! For strawberries, or other acid soil loving plants, add acidic compost. If your soil needs more water holding capacity, choose compost with slightly chunkier bits.

If you aren’t planting bareroot berries in January, you can plant your soil feeding cover crop September, just be sure you have enough time for when you plan to plant in spring.

Pest and Disease Prevention Drench young plants, ones you just transplanted, with Aspirin solution to get them off to a great start! Drench your seedlings when they get up a few inches. One regular Aspirin crushed, 1/4 C nonfat powdered milk, heaping tablespoon Baking Soda, 1/2 teaspoon liquid dish soap (surfactant), per gallon of water. Aspirin triggers a defense response and stimulates growth! Powdered milk is a natural germicide and boosts the immune system. Be sure to get the under sides of the leaves too!

• Brassica pests! Lots of ants and lengthwise curling leaves are the giveaways for aphids. Aphids carry viruses. Aphids come in green, black, red, yellow, brown or gray. Avoid over watering that makes for soft plants, tender leaves that aphids thrive on, and ant habitat. Spray the aphids away, make the ants leave. Get up under those leaves, and fervently but carefully do the tender center growth tips. Do it consistently until they don’t come back. Cinnamon works sometimes and other times not at all. Boo. But when you are starting seedlings it prevents molds and damping off. Sprinkle it on the soil in your six pack. Doesn’t hurt to get it on the leaves. Get it in big containers at Smart and Final/bulk stores. Reapply as needed. There are other spray mixes that get rid of those aphids. Water and Vinegar, or hydrogen peroxide, alcohol, a few drops of simple dish soap. If you want to spend more money, use Neem Oil. Soaps, neem oil, and horticultural oil kill only aphids present on the day they are sprayed, so applications may need to be repeated. Plant garlic and chives among your Brassicas! Their strong scent repels aphids. IPM re Aphids
  
  Most of all, generously plant CILANTRO among your Brassicas! It repels aphids as well as attracting bees and beneficial insects!
• Later on, the most prevalent disease problem is mildew. Give your plants some room for air circulation, feed and water less so they don’t get so soft. It is much harder to deal with mildew once it has started. Better to do preventative treatments of the Aspirin Solution.

September is still Seed Saving time for some areas and some plants. Make notes on how your plants did, which varieties were the most successful. These seeds are adapted to you and your locality. Each year keep your best! Store your keepers in a cool dry place for next year’s plantings. Generously gather seeds for upcoming January Seed Swaps! If your area doesn’t have a seed swap, start organizing one!

Don’t forget winter food for our pollinators! Borage is a beautiful cool season herb with edible flowers, blue for bees! It has a large 3 to 4′ footprint, so allow for that or plan to keep clipping it back. It is a helper companion plant, so when possible, plant it right in the middle of your other plants! See more about Borage!  What flower colours do birds and bees prefer?

Plant Sweet Peas for Christmas bloom! Plant gift plants or bowls or baskets for the holidays! 

Have you put up your Greenhouse yet?! Get going! DIY Hoop houses are quickly built, inexpensive and do the job admirably! See also Greenhouses in Climate Emergencies. You can start more seedlings, overwinter sensitive plants – eat tomatoes in December! A greenhouse may be perfect for you – the right size, easy to maintain!

Have fun! September gardens are a magical time of creativity and transition!

See wonderful August summer images at Rancheria Community Garden – See the giant Double Beefsteak Tomato, Specialty Beans, Bule Gourd, Birds, Beauty and Seeds! We are Sowing the Future!

Updated annually

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Check out the entire September 2022 Newsletter!

SoCal Fall/Winter Veggie Soil Tips for Delicious Returns!
Super Fall, Winter Veggie Varieties, Smart Companion Planting!
Bolting aka Running to Seed! Causes and Prevention!
Love Kale! Beauty, Super Nutrition, Easy to Grow!
Taming Your Butternut, Waltham, Winter Squash!

This month’s topics are how to prepare for and start us fall planting – Soil, healthy productive Seed choices, Garden Design that includes companion plants and understory planting places, plus, how to safely cut up your winter squashes!

Upcoming Gardener Events! Santa Barbara City College Permaculture Design Course, Lane Farms Pumpkin Patch, 43rd American Community Gardening Assn Conference. The next National Heirloom Expo will be in 2023! Jan 29, 2023 FREE 15th Santa Barbara Community Seed Swap is ON!

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Love your Mother! Plant bird & bee food! Think grey water! Grow organic! Bless you for being such a wonderful Earth Steward!

The Green Bean Connection started as correspondence for the Santa Barbara CA USA Pilgrim Terrace Community Garden. Both remaining Santa Barbara City’s community gardens are very coastal. During late spring/summer we are often in a fog belt/marine layer most years, locally referred to as the May grays, June glooms and August fogusts. Keep that in mind compared to the microclimate niche where your veggie garden is. Bless you for being such a wonderful Earth Steward!

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Delicious December ~ Winter’s June 2021!

Harvests, Maintenance, Planning & Getting Seeds!

A misty morning at the garden…..

We in SoCal are so fortunate that we can plant heartily in ‘Winter!’ Brassicas and Peas are the main story. What I call the ‘littles’ are the understory! Lettuces, root crops like beets, parsnips, turnips, Daikon radish. Smellies like onions and garlic, cilantro and arugula, and herbs like Rosemary and others, protect your garden from certain pests, and make your garden oh so fragrant and your meals so tasty!

If you already have these going, plant your last rounds now so waiting for their harvest doesn’t interfere with earliest spring plantings.

Well, there are several important events in December, LOL.

1. First is being sure everyone who knows you, knows what is on your holiday garden wish list!
2. Plan your 2022 gardens, get catalogs, and order seeds NOW – for the entire year to come!
3. Maintain your garden, keep up with SoCal winter harvesting, enjoy your bounty, try some new recipes!
4. If you wish, plant your last round of winter plants, succession planting – know that if they come in late they may interfere with earliest spring planting space. Place them carefully so tall early spring plants can be installed on time. Or leave those spots open. ‘Open’ might mean just putting some lettuces or other ‘littles’ there.

Harvest Brassicas of all sorts! The big ones, broccoli, cauliflower, kale and Brussels sprouts, have grown big enough now and your earliest plantings and varieties are producing handsomely. Harvest your brocs and caulies while the heads are still tight. If you miss that, harvest asap, even the flowers and flower stalks are edible! After you take the main broccoli head, let your plant continue to grow so it will produce smaller side shoots. Some varieties produce large 3 to 4″ mini brocs and later, smaller salad size ones right on through summer! Cauliflowers are a one time harvest though you can keep eating the greens. To replace them, you might choose to pop in some beautiful chard, a potato patch, or quick growing mini cabbages in the large open spots that become available. Some cabbages, especially the mini and early varieties, are now headed tightly and ready to eat – slaw, steamed, dropped into soups and cold weather stews. You can still replant them with mini cabbies if you love them!

Deliciously fresh and nutritious winter heading lettuces, kale, celery, bok choy, cilantro, arugula and all manner of cut and come agains are in! Table onions scallions, chives and leeks can be snipped or cut off about 2″ above the ground and let to grow back 3 to 4 times! Do the same but at about 3″ with cilantro and arugula. Let some of your cilantro and arugula grow out for flowers to bring the bees, make seeds for the birds and for you to plant more! The simplest way is to scatter some of the seeds where they are needed and let them come up at will!

Winter brings a lot of tasty Root crops. Winter long Cylindra Beets are colorful, and have cut and come again leaves too! Long winter radishes like Daikons are spicy! Carrots are splendid to eat at the garden, share with your kids, pup, bunnies, shred into salads, add to winter soups, stews and stir frys. Slice/chop/make sticks and freeze for later! Grow some Parsnips too! Turnips have so unique a flavor you might want to eat them separately to just enjoy that flavor.

Harvest peas when they get to the size you want them, and be prompt and regular with that harvesting to keep them coming! Plant more rounds if you love peas!

MAINTAINING

Sidedressing is like snacking. Some of your heavy leaf producers and big bodied Brassicas, may need a feeding now and again or just when they start to fruit. If they slow down, or just don’t look perky, slip them a liquid feed out to their dripline, or cultivate in a wee bit of blood meal. Get your long spouted watering can and foliar feed! Get that nozzle under those low cabbage leaves to get them fed there too! Lettuces love manures. Compost and manure teas, fish emulsion (when there are no digging predators), powdered box ferts, are all good. Winter feeds need to be easy for your plant to take up. Use ½ the strength of your summer feedings. Slow release is a wise consideration. An excellent way to get feeds to the roots is to push in a spade fork no more than 6″ deep. Push it in vertically (so as not to break the main tap roots), wiggle it back and forth just a bit, remove the fork, pour your foods into the holes, close ’em back up. Soil organisms will get right to work, your plant will stay healthy and be quite productive! Worm castings, though not food, work wonders with immunity, soil conditioning and help germination! Mix some in with your liquid feeds you pour around your plant. Especially add them to seed patches before planting! Protect the patch from worm loving predators.

The exceptions are carrots, peas and favas. Carrots get hairy and will fork with too much food! Over watering or uneven watering makes them split and misshapen. Your peas and favas are busy gathering Nitrogen from the air, feeding themselves. But if you didn’t use an inoculant when you planted the seeds, they may not be able to produce their own Nitrogen. If they yellow or look peaked, give them a bit, just a sprinkle or two, of blood meal for quick uptake, a little fish emulsion. Protect them from predators attracted to blood and fish.

A mini task is to keep covering the shoulders of carrots, beets, radishes, parsnips and turnips. They substantially push right up above ground as they grow. Planting their seeds deeper doesn’t compensate. It’s the nature of the veggie! Never hurts to put a handy little pile of extra soil near where you plant them, or plant them in a low sloped trench. When they need covering, pull the sides of the trench down to cover them. Uncovered shoulders look dry, are tough, sometimes bitter, and need peeling before cooking. Uncovered carrot shoulders don’t ripen but stay green, just like exposed parts of potatoes turn green. The green on potatoes is slightly poisonous, not enough to do harm, but it doesn’t look good.

Watering is important even in cool weather. Also, some plants simply like being moist ie chard, lettuce and short rooted peas, beets. No swimming, just moist. Finger check your soil after rains to see if your soil is moist at least 2″ deep. Sometimes it is rain moistened only 1/4″ deep, needs more water! Also, be careful of too much water, that makes for an aphid tasty soft plant. Watch WEATHER reports in case of freezes, heavy winds, rain. Before weather, stake and tie plants that need support. After strong winds check everybody right away to see if any plants need help. See more about rainy days!

Santa Barbara’s average First Frost (fall) date AT THE AIRPORT is December 19, Last Frost (spring) date is (was?) January 22. That can vary from the coastal areas to the foothills, and our climate is changing generally to warmer, so these dates may not be viable guides much longer, if even now. And remember, these are average dates! See great tips – Protect Your Veggies from Freezing

Except for erosion control, in winter, we pull mulch back to let the soil warm up during the short winter days. The only areas we mulch are around lettuces and chard to keep mud splash off the leaves. Also, it’s good to remove pest habitat, let the soil dry a bit between rains to kill off wilts fungi. Bag up, or pile and cover clean uninfested summer straw, mulches, to use as compost pile layers during winter. Do not keep straw from areas where there have been infestations. Don’t put it in compost, bag and trash it.

Pests & Diseases Prevention and removal! Keep an eye out for pests and diseases and take quick action! 

BEFORE you put in seeds, sprinkle a bit of Sluggo type stuff around at least two times (to kill the generations) to keep snails and slugs from vanishing upcoming seedlings overnight, making you think they never came up! No, they didn’t let you down. Killing off the creatures ahead of time saves the babies. It stops new transplants from being seriously damaged or entirely eaten while they are small. Do this a few times, to knock off the generations, and there will be no tiny vegetarian predators for a while.

Don’t lose your crops to birds! There is less food for them in winter, and, often, little rain, so they resort to eating tender juicy veggie leaves and sip the dewdrops. Buy pre made covers, or get clever and cover seeded rows with DIY small openings wire tunnels or a patch cover bent that has sides bent to the ground to keep birds from pecking at little leaves or from plucking tiny seedlings right out of the ground! You can also use small plastic bottle sections to make mini sleeves that birds won’t go down into. Or for baby lettuces, make large plastic bottle cloches, though wire covers let more light in and water through! Bird netting is inexpensive, tears easily, but is good to stretch over peas on a trellis. See more about bird, animal and insect above ground protection covers!

A common pest of Brassicas is the larvae of the pretty little Cabbage White Butterfly, Pieris rapae. The green Cabbage Worm, caterpillar, chews large, irregular holes in the leaves. They blend so well you can easily miss seeing them on the undersides of leaves. Per Natural Planet: ‘They lay up to 200 tiny yellow eggs that hatch in 7 or more days. The larvae feed heavily for 15 or more days. There are 3 to 5 overlapping generations each year, as many as 8 in warmer areas. They bore into the center of cabbage heads contaminating them with its fecal pellets. The dark-green pellets can also be found in the crook of leaves near the stem.’ See here for some terrific natural ideas on what to do!

Chard and beets get Leafminers. Where they have eaten looks terrible but the good part of the leaves is perfectly safe to eat. Plant chard so mature leaves don’t touch, or best of all, in different places around your garden, not in rows or clusters. Thin your plants so they have room. Harvest leaves that might touch first. Remove infested leaves immediately to reduce spread! Beets are not a permanent crop, so they are planted closely. Simply harvest them at their leaves’ prime – ahead of the Leafminers.

A typical disease is Powdery mildew. Plant leaving plenty of space for air circulation, water early in the day so they dry before evening. For mildew apply your baking soda mix. The best combo is 1 regular Aspirin, a 1/4 cup nonfat powdered milk, heaping tablespoon of baking soda, a teaspoon liquid dish soap per gallon/watering can. Before sunrise drench under and upper sides of the foliage of young plants to get them off to a great start! It takes only an hour for the mix to be absorbed! Do this the same or next day if transplanting. Reapply every 10 days or so, and after significant rains. Prevention is so much better than after mildew has set in. See Aspirin Solution. Hose away aphids and whiteflies, mildew. Remove yellowing Brassica leaves. Yellow attracts whiteflies. In general, plant further apart for air circulation, water and feed just a little less to let those leaves harden up a bit. Soft fat leaves are an invitation to aphids and mildew!

Do not compost diseased or infested leaves or plants. Don’t put them in green waste. Bag and put them in the trash. Wash your hands and clippers before you go to other plants.

Windy days are prime time to gather leaves to add to compost or process for Leaf Mold, Mulch or Compost! Leaf Mold is low in nutrients, but makes a superb soil improver, conditioner for vegetable and flower beds. Leaf mulch is free for the making! Leaf Compost processes faster when made the right way! See more!

PLANT JUDICIOUSLY NOW

Per square foot, fast growing cut-and-come-again Lettuce, Chard and Kale are by far the top winter producers! Plant more big plants like brocs and cauliflower, but remember, with cooler weather, they will grow more slowly. That may interfere with early spring plantings in March. Allow enough time to let added compost, manures, worm castings and Sphagnum peat moss (increases water holding capacity) become part of the soil organism community. If you do plant more now, better to get transplants if you can, and shave six weeks of their needed growing time to maturity. Select faster maturing varieties now.

As lettuces tire, and other plants like carrots and beets are removed, add more of them and any ‘littles’ you love on the sunny side and between the big plants. If the littles need more sun, remove large lower leaves of the big plants. Mild tasting littles include bok choy, kohlrabi, garden purslane, arugula, mizuna, watercress, young parsnips and turnips, Daikon winter radishes, and Napa cabbage. For a little more spice, go for those dark green kales, mustard, rutabaga and turnip greens! Try some culinary dandelions for super nutrition! These are plants that will take you through February, March and leave enough time to add compost and to let sit until major spring planting begins in April.

Believe me, you are going to get spring planting fever along about March, so plan ahead for it!!! Start seeds indoors the first three weeks of January for early March plantings! Choose varieties that are cold tolerant and are early maturers for the soonest table eats!

If you have enough seeds, over planting is fair game! Thin your beets, carrots, chard, kale, mustard, turnips. Take out the smaller, weaker plants. They are great in your salads along with small tender Brassica leaves. Plant patches of Mizuna and mow it!

Remember your winter companion planting tips:

1. Carrots enhance peas, onion family stunts peas
2. Carrots thrive when Cilantro, Chamomile (a spring/summer plant), Marigold are planted with them.
3. Onions, leeks and chives help repel the carrot root fly. But remember you can’t put the onion family near peas!
4. Lettuces repel cabbage white butterflies. Plant them generously among your Brassicas.
5. Cilantro enhances Brassicas – broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, kale and repels aphids on them!

Besides beautiful bareroot roses, decide now where you will be buying any January bareroot veggies you want! Consider: grape vines; artichokes; short-day (sweet) globe onions; strawberries; cane berries such as raspberries (get low-chill types); low-chill blueberries; and rhubarb (be cautious where you plant it, it can be poisonous to humans – children, dogs and chickens), asparagus, and horseradish. Artichoke pups need 3’ to 4’ space, 6′ to 8′ is more a reality! They are hefty growers and live 10 years! If you keep them watered, and there is enough space, they are a great street strip plant!

SPRING PREPS

Seeds for Spring & Summer planting! Perfect time to sit with seed catalogs, do online research. Get your summer garden layout in mind. First choose what is good for your excellent health! Next might be how much plant you get per square foot if you have limited space and want to feed several people. When we are in drought conditions, water could be a strong consideration. Choose cold or  heat and drought tolerant varieties per your location. Always look for disease and pest resistance per your location.

When you are planting from seeds, it’s essential to know your long and short day varieties because of your location, equator to Alaska, north or south US! I’m in progress of getting a post ready for you. Another essential factor is days to maturity if you are a northern planter!

This is the time of year when the seeds of plants that self-seed need to be in the cold! Throw them on the ground now where you want them to come up in spring. Stake the area so you don’t disturb them. It’s called Cold Stratification! Thank goodness there are other options if you miss this window.

Get some early varieties, for earliest harvests along with later maturing varieties for a continuous table supply. Earlier variety fruits are generally smaller, but what a treat! Cherry tomatoes come in first. Place your seed order for the entire 2022, while seeds are still available. Another trick is to plant both bush and pole varieties at the same time. The bush varieties come in sooner, soon followed by the pole varieties that produce continuously!

FREE 13th Santa Barbara Community Seed Swap! We’re ON! SAVE THE DATE: It will be on Sunday, January 30, 2022, save your seeds to share!
New location, the Santa Barbara Community Arts Workshop (SBCAW), indoor & outdoor space. https://www.sbcaw.org

Already! Start thinking of next summer’s plantings – what seeds you will need. Process your seeds to share. Get some envelopes/baggies!

Remember, a Seed Swap is a random affair. Get your standby favorites from those reliable catalogs. Use Seed Swaps as fun backup source, new things to try, and most importantly, for local seeds. The last Saturday of January every year is National Seed Swap Day! Look in your area for an event, and if you don’t find one, collaborate with your local garden clubs or permaculture group to get one going if you have an appropriate location for safe distancing! If your climate is warm enough, holding it outdoors may work.

For help making your seed decisions see:

• Choosing Seeds: Catalogs to Seed Swaps! I hope you fall asleep with your catalogs and dream of a glorious garden!
• Smart Design for Your Spring & Summer Garden, Seed Selection!
• See also some of the bigger long term Permaculture choices for planning and designing your garden.
• Super SoCal Fall, Winter Veggies Varieties, Smart Companion Plantings!
• 4 Lovely Companion Flowers and What They Do!
• Delicious choices to consider:  Perennial Soon I will add Chaya, aka Tree Spinach, to the Perennial list!  Heat & Drought Tolerant – per Southern Exposure ~

Summer Lettuce Varieties: In summer you want a stronger lettuce, heat tolerant & slow bolting! Lettuce Leaf Red Sails is a beauty. Jericho Romaine from Israel has become the classic summer romaine for warm regions. Sierra, Nevada. Parris Island is slow bolting. Green Towers Romaine tolerates moderate summer heat and has some resistance to tip burn and bolting. Green Star is phenomenal! Super productive, tolerance to hot weather, bolting, and tipburn, so it can be grown all season. High resistance to downy mildew. Black Seeded Simpson. And there are more – try several!

Definitely start building compost for spring planting. You could plant green manure where you will grow heavy summer feeders like tomatoes, potatoes, eggplants, peppers, chilis, squash, pumpkins, cucumbers, melons, and corn; hungry stalk vegetables like celery, fennel, rhubarb, and artichokes; or continually producing green, leafy vegetables like lettuce, spinach, Swiss chard, or strawberries. Or plant it if you want a break! Just lay in some green manure seed mix – vetch, bell beans, Austrian peas and oats. In Santa Barbara area get the Harmony mix and inoculant at Island Seed & Feed. Let it grow two to three months to bloom stage. Chop down, chop up and let it lie on the surface about 2 weeks, keeping it moist. Add any amendments you want – additional manure, compost, and turn under. Let it sit two weeks to two months. Your choice. Let the herds of soil organisms do their work! I usually do about 3 weeks. OR, lay on as many layers of compost material as you can get for an up to 18″ deep area where you will be planting. Put in some surface feeding red wriggler worms. The BEST soil enhancer and you will have a tasty raised bed!

WINTER VEGGIES STORAGE

This is such a great post by Anthony Reyes at FarmScape Gardens, here is the link! Winter Vegetable Storage, Part 2

For veggies in your kitchen, here is the UCDavis Quick Guide to Fruits & Vegetables Storage!

Birds and Bees! Plant NATIVE wildflowers seed now to take advantage of winter rains for early spring flowers! Germination in cooler weather takes longer, so don’t let the bed dry out between rains. If you have space, make habitat for beneficial insects, birds and animals too! Start building now to put your solitary bee home up for wild bees in March or early April! If you already have one, clean it, and if you have an owl house, now is the time to clean it out too, asap! Depending on where you live they are usually empty from Halloween until early December! Nesting site selection starts in January, so build yours and get it up as soon as you can!

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Wonderful Gardener Style Holiday Gifts!

Please be generous with your time these holidays. Rather than just serving food, maybe show someone how to grow veggies, give them seeds with instructions, give them and the kids a tour of your garden – eat carrots together!

Layer up, enjoy these crisp days. Let the wind clear your Spirit, the rain cleanse and soften your Soul.

Happy December Gardening and a Blessed Winter Solstice, Yule!
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Updated annually

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See these wonderful November images at Rancheria Community Garden, Santa Barbara CA! We had six days of above 80 temps! We’re still getting strawberries! Winter plants are in beautiful progress! Lovely flowers, tasty veggies, butterflies, starting more fall plantings! We are Sowing the Future!

Check out the entire December 2021 Newsletter! It includes these items and more!

Wisely Select the Right Seeds for Your Annual Plantings!
Lettuce ~ Beautiful, Nutritious, Low Calorie!
Waffle Gardens, The Roots of Square Foot Gardening!
Heating Greenhouses Without Electricity!
Wonderful Gardener-Style Holiday Gifts!

Details of Upcoming Gardener Events! Santa Cruz Permaculture 2022 Design Permaculture Course, Mesa Harmony Garden Schedule, Sunday Dec 5 World Soil Day! US Composting Council’s 30th Annual Conference & Tradeshow! Sunday Jan 30 2022 Santa Barbara’s FREE 13th Annual SEED SWAP at new location Santa Barbara Community Arts Workshop!

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Love your Mother! Plant bird & bee food! Think grey water! Grow organic! Bless you for being such a wonderful Earth Steward!

The Green Bean Connection started as correspondence for the Santa Barbara CA USA Pilgrim Terrace Community Garden. Both of Santa Barbara’s community gardens are very coastal. During late spring/summer we are often in a fog belt/marine layer most years, locally referred to as the May grays, June glooms and August fogusts. Keep that in mind compared to the microclimate niche where your veggie garden is. Bless you for being such a wonderful Earth Steward!

SUBSCRIBE to the entire newsletter!    Friend on Facebook! 

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Happy October 2020, Gardeners! It’s Pumpkin Time!

Last of Summer Harvests, Seed Processing, Glorious Fall Planting!

‘Winter Squash, Gourd, Pumpkin are now being harvested! Vivid fruitfulness: the variety of squash available is vast, and all make satisfying nutritious winter warmers!’ Delightful discussion by Francine Raymond at The Telegraph in the UK

Congratulations on your Squash & Pumpkin harvests and Happy Halloween!

Brassicas are the SoCal winter veg garden winners!

LARGE BRASSICAS

Broccoli is the favorite Brassica and rightfully so per the nutrition it offers. Plants differ in size, head color and shapes, how heat tolerant they are if you intend to let them over summer, and make side shoot production varies! To get value for the room Brocs take up, a lot of gardeners seek varieties that produce a lot of side shoots after the main head is taken. Some newer varieties produce side shoots before the main head is taken! These smaller heads are great steamed if large, or tossed with your salad if small. Do as you wish! Research has shown there are less aphids when you plant different varieties of brocs together! Probably true for other large Brassicas as well. Superb Broccoli!

Kale has become a have-to-have! Eat young leaves fresh in salads. Steam with other veggies over rice. High in Vitamin A and anti cancer properties! Lovely varieties – green or purple, flat or curly leaves. They just keep growing. They are technically a biennial, 2 year plant. The first year is for production, the second they make seeds. But. In SoCal they can over winter several years. Or if we have exceptionally hot weather, they may bolt and make seeds the first year! You can end up with a pom pom style, especially the curly leaf or dinosaur kales. But they lose their verve, look tired and tasteless, rather tortured. A fresh young kale in good soil will easily take up a 3′ footprint and produce thick tender vibrant leaves like crazy! What a difference. I hope you start fresh ones each year. They grow so quickly. You won’t lose any harvest time if you plant a baby at the base of the old one, then take the old one down when you are getting those sweet young leaves from the baby. I’ll bet you forgot how good they can really taste! Just be sure to work in some good compost so it can be strong and keep producing well. Beautiful Kale!

Cauliflower now comes in the standard white, also green, orange and purple! The disadvantage is there is only one head and that’s it, though as with any Brassica, the leaves are edible. Like Collard greens.

Cabbage is more dense for the dollar than Cauliflower though it too has only one head and takes a long time to grow – even the mini varieties! But what a feast! A cabbage head is amazing and you can fix it so many ways. Shred in salad, coleslaw, steamed, cabbage soup – Borscht, stir fried, cabbage rolls, cabbage kimchi, in tacos, as sauerkraut! Or try a traditional Irish dish, colcannon, a mixture of mashed potatoes, cabbage or kale, onions, and spices. YUM! There are many cabbage varieties as well – ‘white,’ red or green. Different sizes, and I do mean different. There are 4 to 6″ minis for container gardens, sooner eating or you just don’t need a huge cabbage. Easily more than a foot in diameter monsters you can barely carry! First they grow loose, then they fill in and make hard dense heads. An amazing plant! While your cabbages are putting on size, plant lettuces among them and other Brassicas. Lettuce repels cabbage moths. Magnificent Cabbages!

Brussels Sprouts are charming mini cabbages on a stalk! They like a colder climate to make big sprouts. In Santa Barbara SoCal area you need to be prepared to harvest lots of small ones. But, I have to tell you, the last couple years we have been getting sprouts up to almost 2″ diameter in two of our community gardens, so it wasn’t good soil that made the difference. The sprouts liked the weather or new more heat tolerant varieties are on board! 

All these big Brassicas need feeding from time to time because they are big, and most of them are continuously producing leaf crops! They are all susceptible to Mildew. Try for resistant varieties. Water in the morning when possible so they can dry by evening. A good reason not to over water or fertilize is aphids and whiteflies! They like softer plants. Use plenty of worm castings, as much as possible in their soil – as much as 25% if you can! Plant your Brassicas far enough apart, leaves not touching, for airflow when they are mature, so pests and diseases don’t easily spread plant to plant. Brassicas are generally frost tolerant, even a bit freeze tolerant, and it is said their flavor improves!

Cilantro is their best companion! If you like the scent, winter, early spring are good times for cilantro. It doesn’t bolt so fast. Summer it bolts, winters it will freeze, so replants go with the territory. Cilantro makes brocs grow REALLY well, bigger, fuller, greener! I grow cilantro even though I don’t eat it. I like how it looks and smells and it is a living mulch. When it seeds I scatter the seeds where I think I will be wanting some as companion plants and comes up where and when it wants if you keep the soil moist. Cilantro!

ENJOY LOTS OF SMALL BRASSICAS! 

For salads arugula, bok choy, kohlrabi, mizuna, mustard, tatsoi, peppery sweet alyssum! Alyssum is a terrific little companion plant and attracts special small pollinators. Root crops are winter Daikon and White Icicle, pretty China Rose and handsome Long Black Spanish radish, turnips, rutabagas! Grow horseradish for fermenting. No need to allot special space for these. Plant these tasty small Brassicas in rows, between, among, around, in patches on the sunny side of big brassicas! A few here, a few there! Be artful and enjoy their many flavors at your winter table! Same with other little winters like onions, beets.

Peas – Flat, Snap or Pod

Flat is the same as Chinese or snow peas. String ’em or buy the stringless variety, and eat ’em right then and there or toss a few with your salad, steam or stew in Oriental dishes, add to your stir fry! Shelling or English peas are so delicious fresh out of the pod and might tasty steamed so fresh from the pod. SNAP peas are the sinful favorite of many. Few make it home from my garden. I just eat them. That’s why you get stringless varieties. Who wants to be picking their teeth at the garden, LOL?! Ok, if some of those snap peas do make it to the kitchen, add them to salads. If you must, lightly steam them, add them to stir fries. They are very tender. To keep their fresh green look, undercook…. 

Yellow, green or purple, you can get bush or pole peas! Bush peas come in sooner; pole peas grow tall, so come in later. Soon as your bush peas are done, the pole peas will come in shortly after, making for a steady supply. And the pole peas keep on coming. Compared to beans or tomatoes, peas have a shorter life span. And when they are done, they are done. Fertilizing, coaxing, additional water doesn’t help. Successive planting is the answer. Plant once a month or so if you love peas. You do have to keep them picked or, like beans, they stop producing. They have short roots and need to be kept moist. Onion family stunts peas! But carrots enhance peas! Plant carrots around the cage or along the trellis. If you plant carrots on one side of them, trench peas a tad lower. Water the pea side so the carrots don’t get too much water and split.

Peas are the winter legume as beans are the summer legume of your garden! They are the trellis plants of our winter gardens. Put in your trellis first, then plant pole seeds, plus transplants of bush and pole all at the same time for them to come in one after the other. Your bush peas in cages will produce first, then your pole peas, and likely your seeded pole peas will follow in short order. Soon as your peas are done, clip off the plant, leaving the roots with their Nitrogen nodules in the ground to feed your soil. Plant more!

Presprouting your seed peas makes sense! Presprouting assures no spots will be empty where a seed didn’t come up and you lose production! Presprouting peas is super simple. Paper towel on plate, lay out peas an inch apart, fold the paper towel over them, spritz with clean water, keep them moist. By +/- 5 days they will have sprouted, some more than others! Carefully put the ones that sprouted in the ground so you don’t break the little roots. If you have hungry birds, cover the sprouted peas with aviary wire soon as you put them in the ground. A smart trick is to plant them in a slight low sloped mini trench. Moisture goes to the bottom of the trench, drying wind goes over the top of the trench. When you are planting while it is still warm in late fall, you can cover the trench with a board on top of the aviary wire. It’s high enough so the sprouts can get some size. Be sure there is a tad of airflow so the sprouts under the board are not baked! Delicious Peas! As with any seeds or transplants, a couple days before planting put down organic slug/snail bait and remove any overnight marauders that would feast on your tiny new plants.

You can have a terrific time with beets! They thrive in cooler weather. Many colors! Grow the winter biggies, Cylindra! Plant them at the same time you plant smaller varieties so you have the littles first, then the biggies! Early Wonder Tall Tops and Dutch Baby Ball are a tasty choices, or red cold hardy Flat of Egypt! Try a yellow like Touchstone Gold! All About Beets, So Sweet!

Chard is an elegant super productive winter favorite! Handsome, colorful, really, they are the ‘flowers’ of the winter garden! Superlative nutrition, low calorie, easy to grow! If you want quantity, plant Fordhook Giants! They are wondrous – easily 3′ tall, foot wide leaves when conditions are right for them! Chard can’t be beat for production per square foot. Elegant Nutritious Chard!

Lettuces thrive in cooler weather too, but do cover them at threatened freezes. Lay down tomato cages, cover, and secure the cover. Remove when the day warms up. Lettuces come in all kinds of shapes and delicious colors. They do best in rich soil, regular moisture. Winter is the cooler time when tender butter leafs and heading varieties do well.

Try super dense Salanova! Johnny’s Seeds says: Harvested as fully mature heads, the flavor and texture have more time to develop than traditional baby-leaf lettuces. The unique structure of the core produces a multitude of uniformly sized leaves, harvestable with one simple cut. Salanova is more than 40% higher yielding, has better flavor and texture, and double the shelf life of traditional baby-leaf lettuce, making it an excellent, more economical option. What do you think about all that?! Beautiful Lettuce!

Perfect timing for tasty root crops – beets, turnips, rutabagas, daikon radish. Beets are a double winner because the roots and the leaves are edible! Pick leaves from time to time. When your beets are the size you want, pull them and eat all the leaves and the beets as well! 

Winter is growing time for long Daikon Radish. And Carrots. Carrots are a dense root, so they take a while. Plant short varieties like Thumbelina and Little Fingers for sooner eating. Kids love them! At the same time plant longer varieties to eat when the Little Fingers are done. Or plant successively, every 2 weeks, once a month per your needs. The longer the carrot, the longer it takes to grow. Look at the seed pack to see how many days it takes to maturity. Of course, you can pull them sooner and smaller. Avoid manuring where you know you will be planting carrots – makes them hairy. Steady water supply and not too much or they split. You might enjoy some of the mixed color packs – Circus Circus, Sunshine, Cosmic Purple! Tasty Carrots!

Parsnips, celery and parsley are all in the carrot family and enjoy cool SoCal weather. Celery is in-the-garden edible let alone low calorie! Leeks and bunch onions, but NO onion family near peas. 

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 If you haven’t planted already…some of you carry your layout plan in your head, others draw and redraw, moving things around until it settles and feels right. Do add a couple new things just for fun! Try another direction. Add some herbs or different edible flowers. Leave a little open space for surprises! Stand back, take a deep breath and ask yourself why you plant what you plant and why you plant the way you do. Anything been tickling the back of your mind you are curious about? More about Designing Your SoCal Winter Veggie Garden!

Once you have decided what to plant, when is the big question! Day length and temps are important. Temp sequences make a difference! Some plants bolt easily – Cilantro, Brassicas, Beets and Chard. Bolting is when your plant sends up a flowering stalk to seed. Check out Bolting aka Running to Seed! Causes and Prevention!

Where you plant, sun/shade is important. Plant longer maturing larger and taller varieties to the back, shorter early day varieties in front where they will get sun. Put littles on the sunny side of these. Plant your tall plants first, let them get up a bit. Then clip off the lower leaves and plant your littles. Or plant quick rounds of littles between, among the tall plants. They will be ready to harvest when the big plants would start shading them. A classic combo is lettuces among starting cabbages! 

Mixes rule! Plant several varieties for maturity at different times and to confuse pests. Pests are attracted at certain stages of maturity. They may bother one plant but leave others entirely alone depending on temps and the pest’s cycle! There are less aphids on broccoli when you plant different varieties together. See Super Fall Veggies Varieties, Smart Companion Plantings! for excellent biodiverse choices.

Peas and green manure mixes – legumes and oats, feed and replenish your soil because they take N (Nitrogen) out of the air and deposit it in little nodules on their roots! If an area in your garden needs a pep up, plant it to green manure. Broadcast a seed mix of legumes and oats and let them grow. Bell beans, Austrian peas, vetch and oats from Island Seed & Feed Goleta is an excellent choice. Be sure to get the inoculant they recommend to use. The first three deposit N; the oats have deep roots that bring nutrients up and create soil channels for oxygen, water and soil organisms! Plant it where next summer’s heavy feeders, like tomatoes, will be grown!

If you are planning for mid January bareroot strawberry planting, be preparing your strawberry patch now if you are planting green manure! The green manure mix I use takes 2+ months to grow. I chop it down when the bell beans flower. Chop it into bits, add acidic (azalea/camellia) compost, worm castings and turn it all under. It takes two to three weeks to decompose, let the soil organisms restabilize, and be ready to plant. That puts us right at mid January when the bareroots arrive! More details on Living Mulch!

Here’s the schedule:

1. Oct 1 plant your living mulch – put this on your garden calendar! If Bell beans are in your seed mix, or are your choice, they take a couple months to mature.
2. About Dec 1 chop down/mow, chop up your living mulch and let it lay on the surface two weeks. This is necessary to let the dead plants release the Nitrogen from their roots. If Bell beans are in the mix, chop when they flower or the stalks will get too tough to easily chop into small pieces. Keep your chopped mulch moist, not wet, until it is tilled in. Being moist aids decomposition.
3. Mid Dec till in your living mulch for mid January bareroot planting. The little white balls on the roots are like a beautiful little string of pearls. Those are the Nitrogen nodules legume plants make that we are growing them for! At this time add any other amendments you want. Strawberries like slightly acidic soil, so I add store bought Azalea/Camellia acid compost. It’s fluffy and adds water holding capacity. 

OR. Strawberry runner daughters can be clipped Oct 10 to 15, stored in the fridge for planting Nov 5ish. Remove any diseased soil where your beds will be; prep your beds with acidic compost like an Azalea mix. Commercial growers replace their plants every year. Some gardeners let them have two years but production of some varieties tapers off a lot the second year. Seascape has excellent second year production! If you let them have two years, generously replenish the soil between the berries with acidic compost. I lay down boards between the rows where my berries will be planted. The boards keep the soil moist underneath. I planted the berries just far enough apart that they self mulched (shaded the soil) when they grew up a bit. Worked beautifully. I got the idea for the boards from a pallet gardener. If you use boards, just lift them, scoop out a little soil, add the new acidic compost.

Plant in super soil to get a good start! Clean up old piles of stuff, remove old mulches that can harbor overwintering pest eggs and diseases. Then add the best-you-can-get composts, manures, worm castings. Worms casting are especially good in seed beds. They increase and speed germination and boost immunity. In planting holes, toss in a handful of nonfat powdered milk for immediate uptake as a natural germicide and to boost your plant’s immune system. Throw in a handful of bone meal that will decompose for uptake at bloom time, and some Jamaican guano to extend bloom time after that. If you have other treats you like to favor your plants with, give them some of that too! If your soil has Verticillium or Fusarium Wilts, go lightly on incorporating coffee grounds either in your compost or soil. In studies, what was found to work well was coffee grounds at only 0.5 percent of the compost mix. That’s only 1/2 a percent! See more details about soil building! If you have containers, dump that old spent stuff and put in some tasty new mix!

Winter Feeding Lettuces like a light feed of chicken manure cultivated in the top 1/4 inch. All the winter plants are heavy producers – lots of leaves, some of those leaves are monsters! Cabbages are packed tight, leaf after leaf! They may need a light feed. Remember, it’s cooler now, so their uptake is slower, so give them liquid feeds of things easy for them to uptake. Fish emulsion (if you don’t have predators) or a tasty tea mix – compost, worm castings, manure (no manure tea for lettuces). Slow release like alfalfa pellets.

Give your berms a check. Restore or add, shift them as needed. Before wind or rain, double check cages and trellises, top heavy plants. Stake them, tie peas to the trellis or cage. Start gathering sheets, light blankets for possible cold weather to come. Keep tomato cages handy. Protect Your Veggies from Freezing! Cover and tuck ’em in!

You don’t have to garden this winter! 

1. You can cover it deeply with all the mulch materials you can lay your hands on up to 18′ deep. Believe me, it will settle quickly. Let the herds of soil organisms do their work over winter. That’s called sheet composting or composting in place, lasagna gardening – no turning or having to move it when it’s finished. If you are vermicomposting, have worms, add a few handfuls to speed up and enrich the process. Next spring you will have rich nutritious living layers of whole soil for no work at all!
   
2. If you have access to materials, another wise option is to do some form of long term sustainable Hugelkultur! There are many variations, quite adaptable to your situation. It can be done in a container, a tub, on a hillside, a field, in your own little garden plot!
   
3. A third thing is to plant legumes and oats for superb soil restoration that takes some labor, but a lot less than tending your garden on a daily basis! You can plant it with green manure. Laying on lots of mulch is a ton of work when you do it, just gathering the materials can be a challenge. Green manure takes some work too, but it has awesome results as well. You broadcast a seed mix of legumes and oats, cover ever so lightly with soil, let them grow. Bell beans, Austrian peas, vetch and oats from Island Seed & Feed in Goleta is an excellent choice. Legumes gather Nitrogen from the air and store it in nodules on their roots! N is the main ingredient your plants need for their growth! The oat roots break up the soil. They dig deep and open channels for water and air flow, soil organisms.

“Our most important job as vegetable gardeners is to feed and sustain soil life, often called the soil food web, beginning with the microbes. If we do this, our plants will thrive, we’ll grow nutritious, healthy food, and our soil conditions will get better each year. This is what is meant by the adage ‘Feed the soil not the plants.‘ – Jane Shellenberger, Organic Gardener’s Companion: Growing Vegetables in the West (Colorado)

Winter watering in drought areas is the same as for summer. Before 10:30 AM, after 4 PM. Watch which way water flows along the leaves. Some plants it flows to the center stem. Some drip water off the leaf tips in a circle around your plant, the dripline. Some go both ways. Make berms just beyond where the mature plant’s water flows. If at the dripline, that’s where the tiny feeder roots take up moisture and nutrients. That’s why they call them feeder roots! If your garden has a low spot, plant your water loving plants – chard, lettuces, spinach, mizuna, mints – there or near a spigot.

Fall Pests & Diseases

• Prevention Drench young plants, ones you just transplanted, with Aspirin solution to get them off to a great start! Drench your seedlings when they get up a few inches. One regular Aspirin, 1/4 C nonfat powdered milk, 1/2 teaspoon liquid dish soap (surfactant), per gallon of water. Aspirin triggers a defense response and stimulates growth! Powdered milk is a natural germicide and boosts the immune system. Be sure to get under the leaves too!
  
• Brassicas, Peas! Lots of ants and on Brassicas, lengthwise curling leaves are the giveaways for aphids, then whiteflies. Aphids carry viruses. Aphids come in fat gray or small black. Avoid over watering and feeding that makes for soft plants, tender leaves that aphids thrive on, and ant habitat. Spray aphids and whiteflies away, make the ants leave. Get up under those leaves, and fervently but carefully do the tender center growth tips. Do it consistently until they don’t come back. Cinnamon is amazing. Ants don’t like it at all, and when you are starting seedlings it prevents molds and damping off. Sprinkle it on the soil in your six pack. Get it in big containers at Smart and Final. Reapply as needed. ASAP remove yellowing leaves that attract whiteflies.
  
• Chard, Lettuces, Spinach – Slugs and snails are the bane of so many crops, but these especially. Lay down something like Sluggo immediately. Then do it again in a week or so. Kill the parents, kill the children. After about 3 times you rarely need it again anytime soon. 
  
• Biodiversity In general, avoid row planting where disease and pests wipe the plants out from one to the next to the next. Instead or rows, plant in several different spots. If you can’t help yourself, because your family always planted in rows or that’s the way farm pictures show plantings, remember, this is YOUR garden! Also, leave room so mature plants’ leaves don’t touch. Give them room to breathe, get good big leaves that get plenty of sun and produce lots more big leaves and many big fruits! Stunted crowded rootbound plants just don’t perform as well and are more disease and pest susceptible.

Keep up with your maintenance. Weed so seedlings aren’t shaded out or their nutrients used up.

If you have lots of seeds, over planting is an age old practice. Plant too, too many, then thin them with tiny pointy scissors, aka harvest the young, and eat ’em! Young radish sprouts, teeny carrots – for you and your pup, beets, cilantro, arugula, onions, little Brassicas of all kinds are wonderful in a salad! If they get a little big, steam them or add to stir fries and stews. Another way to do it is plant flats of lettuces, Mesclun mixes, and mow them! Tender baby greens! They will grow back 3, 4 times.

Have it in the back of your mind what summer plants you will be wanting, where you will plant them. Plant more permanent plants like a broccoli you keep over summer for side shoots (like All Season F1 Hybrid), or a kale that will keep on going, where they will not be shaded out by taller indeterminate summer tomatoes. 

October is the last of Seed Saving time for most of us. Make notes on how your plants did, which varieties were the most successful. These seeds are adapted to you and your locality. Each year keep your best! Start sorting and labeling seed baggies on coming cooler indoor evenings. Store your keepers in a cool dry place for next year’s plantings. Generously gather seeds for upcoming January Seed Swaps! 

Santa Barbara’s 13th Annual Seed Swap is January 2021! The last Saturday of January every year is National Seed Swap Day! Look in your area for an event, and if you don’t find one, collaborate with your local garden club or permaculture group to get one going!

Plant gift plants or bowls or baskets for the holidays! Make Lavender sachets!

Take a deep breath of this fine fall weather!

Updated 9.25.20

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See the entire October Newsletter! Chard, Peas, Carrots and above ground pest protections! Upcoming events!

Veggies, Flowers & Birds! September Fall images and adventures at Rancheria Community Garden!

Love your Mother! Plant bird & bee food! Think grey water! Grow organic! Bless you for being such a wonderful Earth Steward!

The Green Bean Connection started as correspondence for the Santa Barbara CA USA Pilgrim Terrace Community Garden. All three of Santa Barbara’s community gardens are very coastal. During late spring/summer we are often in a fog belt/marine layer most years, locally referred to as the May grays, June glooms and August fogusts. Keep that in mind compared to the microclimate where your veggie garden is.

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September 2020! Happy Last of Summer, SeedSaving, Fall Starts & Transplants!

There’s kale and there’s kale! This truly tasty purple curly leaf kale image is by Steve!

With the HOT August SoCal weather we have been having, many of you haven’t gotten transplant starts, but have started seedlings at home. Many veg gardeners are still waiting until the bolting time passes – in SoCal, especially until after the predicted heatwave starting this weekend. California has had severe fires; the Gulf has had flooding. Here are some tips for remediation and recovery if you are in extreme conditions. Call in Permaculture teams to make the best new beginnings. Even many of them have never been so challenged and are learning as they go. Take time to work with the team as much as you can. Get connected with experience leaders. Collaborating is productive.  

Last Harvests are being collected and stored, seeds saved! Many have been prepping your soil as various summer plants are finishing and space becomes available! When you do, make your fall planting beds extra yummy! Add 5-10% compost, and, if you have them, add 25% worm castings – seeds germinate better and plants do especially better with worm castings! Manure amounts depend on the type of manure. Rabbit poop manure can be used immediately with no composting – get some at the shelters! We want rich soil for those big winter plants so they can make lots of those marvelous leaves for greens. Winter plants like brocs, collards, cauliflower, cabbage and chard, are heavy producers, need plenty of food. 

It’s BRASSICA time! They are the mainstay of winter gardens! Their nutrition can’t be beat! Kale’s the Queen! Broccoli, Brussels sprouts, Cabbages, Cauliflower and Collard greens! Then there are all the mini Brassicas, the fillers and littles – arugula, bok choy, mizuna, kohlrabi, mustards, radish, turnips. Rather than plant just six packs of transplants, put in seed at the same time when possible and stagger your plantings of the large Brassicas. Rather than all six cauliflower coming in at once, plant two now, two later and so on. Adjust that, of course, if you have a large area available to plant and a lot of people to feed! Another way to do it is to get varieties with early, middle and late maturity dates and plant them all at once! Plant both mini and monster cabbages at the same time! Minis come in sooner, monsters later! Successive plantings mean a steady table supply.

Finicky, or bored, eaters may enjoy a selection! Fall veggies come in lots of shapes and colors! Kales are renowned for their beauty and varieties – classic curly leaf, plain and simple flat leaf like in the image (less aphids), Red Russian, Elephant, Red Bor that is really purple are just a few! Cauliflower comes in traditional shape and spiral, classic white plus yellow and purple and green! Get seed packs of them all and mix them together! Carrots already come in color mix seed packets! Circus Circus is a fun choice, especially when your kids are planting! Thumbelinas are faster for kids. Beets are terrific fun! Yellows, reds, pinks, whites and Chioggias (concentric circles of colors)! You can get them in rainbow mixes just like getting rainbow chard mixes! Rather than have your finicky, or bored, eater say no, open up that catalog or take them shopping at the nursery and let them pick what they would like to try!

More ‘littles,’ understory veggies that love cooler weather are beets, carrots, celery, chard, cilantro, leeks, spinach and especially lettuce – now is the time for tender butter leafs and heading lettuce! If you anticipate a hot Sep, plant more heat tolerant lettuces.

The SoCal winter legume is PEAS! Peas are like beans, they come in bush and pole types. And those come in three main types – English shelling, eat-’em-whole snap peas and flat China/snow peas! As said above, they are super easy to sprout! Definitely plant some every month or so. They don’t live all season long. When they are done, they’re done. It is true that picking peas, just like picking beans, is labor intensive. I eat a lot of mine before they get home, so I don’t mind. Bush peas come in first and pretty much all at once; pole come on later and continue to produce. On the first round it makes sense to plant both at once! If you don’t have time to do seeds, and aren’t wanting varieties nurseries don’t carry, just wait and when they arrive, get six packs! Transplants are always stronger than tiny seedlings. But do cover your plants if they show signs of being pecked by birds! That’s little V shaped nibbles on the leaves.

CARROTS! Compost, yes! They want easy-to-push-through soil. Manure, no! Makes them hairy and they fork. And over watering, irregular watering, can make them split. Build your beds up so they drain well, are above the coldest air that settles low down. PEAS! The same. Compost to keep the soil loose and have water holding capacity for these short rooted green Peaple. This winter legume makes their own Nitrogen, so feed only lightly if at all. Decide where both of these will be planted and amend accordingly. Conveniently, Peas are enhanced by Carrots! Start your carrots as much as 3 weeks to a month before you start your peas so the Carrots will be up and helping.

If your ground hasn’t been planted to peas before, it’s wise to use an inoculant at planting time. Or, you can presprout your Peas! It’s easy and fun to watch them come to life! Fold a paper towel in half on a plate. Spritz the half on the plate with water. Lay on your seeds about an inch apart. Cover and spritz until good and wet. Put them in a warm place ie top of fridge, out of sunlight. Check them about every 6 hours; keep them moist. Water well at bedtime so they make it those 8 hours. Take them to work with you if it’s only you doing the parenting. While you are waiting, put up their trellis if they are pole peas. When the little sprout is 1/4 to 1/2″ long, depending on temps it takes 2 -5 days, gently put them in the ground sprout (root) down, right at the foot of that trellis. Gardeners vary greatly on how they space those pealets. 1″, 2″, 6″. There is good reason to leave a little more space. More air circulation makes for less mildew that Peas are quite susceptible to. You can put the pea practically at the surface! But do cover it a bit so it doesn’t dry out. Next thing you know, you will have little plant sprouts coming up! The nice thing about presprouting is you know if you’ve got one! If a seed doesn’t sprout, you won’t be wondering like as you would had you planted it in the ground. That’s why some gardeners always presprout their Peas. If you plant early fall there may still be some warm days. Be prepared to give them some shade if they need it. They are short rooted and, and in those conditions, may need water daily or even twice daily. Transplants will be along at your nursery…see more on how to pick the best varieties for you!

Onions For the biggest, sweetest harvests, late summer and early fall are the prime times to sow seeds of short- or intermediate-day onions. Fall-sown short- and intermediate-day onions tend to yield more and are larger and sweeter than those seeded or transplanted in early spring.

Varieties that do better in winter are long beets like Cylindras – at left, long radishes like Daikons, pretty China Rose and handsome Long Black Spanish! Plant small beets like Dutch Baby Ball for quick beets while your Cylindras are growing twice to three times bigger!

Companion planting combos make a difference!Carrots enhance peas, onions stunt peas. Late summer plant the carrots on the sunny side at the feet of finishing pole beans. The Carrots will be up for when the beans are replaced by winter peas! Combos can use space wisely! Carrots grow down, peas grow up, perfect! Cabbage babies need to be planted 12 to 28″ apart! A healthy plant will take up much closer to that 28″. They take a long while to grow, head, head tight! While waiting, plant lettuces that repel cabbage moths, or other small fillers, that mature sooner, in the space between the Cabbages. You can do this at home amongst your ornamentals, and/or in containers too! Fillers can be onion/chive types, beets. Short quickest growing winter radishes can be among the long slower growing carrots among the slowest growing, your cabbages. Cilantro makes brocs grow REALLY well, bigger, fuller, greener! Research has shown there are less aphids when you intermingle different varieties of brocs!

No need to plant blocks or rows of smaller plants, unless you want to for the look. But Biodiversity, interplanting, works better and uses space more wisely! Scatter them about on the sunny side between larger plants as an understory – living mulch! If it happens to be flowers, they bring pollinators right to your plant! Plant different varieties to keep your table exciting. Don’t plant them all at once, but rather every week or two for steady table supply. If you would enjoy a quick payback for your table, select the earliest maturing varieties.

If you have lots of seeds, over planting is an age old practice. Plant too, too many, then thin them with tiny pointy scissors, aka harvest the young, and eat ’em! Young radish sprouts, teeny carrots, little Brassicas of all kinds are wonderful in a salad! If they get a little big, steam them or add to stir fries and stews. Another way to do it is plant flats of lettuces, Mesclun mixes, micro greens and mow them! Tender baby greens! They will grow back 3, 4 times.

When planting in hot fall weather, plant your outdoor seeds a tad deeper than you would in spring; soil is moister and cooler an extra inch or two down. It’s the law to keep them moist. If you plant successively for steady fresh table supply, plant a batch in September, again in October. Days will shorten and start cooling, but you are taking advantage of a fast start because your plants will grow quickly in the warmer weather now than later on. September plant from seeds & transplants if you can get them, October from transplants. 

Winter Feeding Lettuces like a light feed of chicken manure cultivated in. All the winter plants are heavy producers – lots of leaves, some of those leaves are monsters! Cabbages are packed tight, leaf after leaf! They may need a light feed. Remember, it’s cooler now, so their uptake is slower, so give them liquid feeds, teas, things easy for them to uptake.

Keep letting your strawberry runners grow for Oct harvest. Store them in the coldest part of your fridge for them to get chilled. Plant in January. If you replace your strawberries annually, as commercial growers do, in Santa Barbara area try Seascape, bred locally at UCSB. Seascapes are big fill-your-palm plentiful berries, firm, tasty, strawberry spot resistant! They have strong roots that gather plenty of nutrition. Buying bareroot strawberries is no longer a Santa Barbara area option as of 2018. But Seascapes and other varieties are available as transplants at Terra Sol Garden Center – call ahead, earliest January, to get the date they arrive – they go fast! If you will be planting bareroot berries in January for April eating, remove old plants. A wise choice is to restore your soil by planting green manure in October. Here’s the schedule:

1. Oct 1 plant your living mulch/cover crop – put this on your garden calendar! Bell beans take that long if they are in the mix or are your choice.
2. About Dec 1 chop down/mow, chop up your living mulch and let it lay on the surface. Studies show there is more nutrition if it is let to lay. Keep your chopped mulch moist, not wet, until it is tilled in. Being moist aids decomposition. If Bell beans are in the mix, chop when it flowers or the stalks will get too tough to easily chop into small pieces.
3. Mid Dec till in your living mulch for mid January bareroot planting. The little white balls on the roots are like a beautiful little string of pearls. Those are the Nitrogen nodules legume plants make! For strawberries, or other acid soil loving plants, add acidic compost at the same time. If your soil needs it, add some coir for water holding capacity.

If you aren’t planting bareroot berries in January, you can plant your soil feeding cover crop September through 3 1/2 months before you plan to plant in spring. 

Some of you carry your layout plan in your head, others draw and redraw, moving things around until it settles and feels right. Others let it happen as it happens… Do add a couple new things just for fun! Try a different direction. Add some herbs or different edible flowers. Leave a little open space for surprises! Leave some space for succession planting. Stand back, take a deep breath and ask yourself why you plant what you plant and why you plant the way you do. Anything been tickling the back of your mind you are curious about? More about Designing Your SoCal Winter Veggie Garden! and Consider a Food Forest Guild!

Soil is always first in garden care! Winter plants need different care than greedy summer production plants, heavy feeders. Special soil tips for your winter plants! Almost all soil can do with some compost, but plants differ about their pH, like strawberries prefer their soil a tad to the acid side. If you plan to have a berry patch, keep that soil at the right frequency! Some say the most important soil tip of all is Gopher wire prevention, LOL, and I can tell you the misery it is to lose a prime plant in full production that took months of growing and TLC to get there. Grrr! See Gopher prevention

If you need to skip a beat, take some time off from the garden, let it rest, but be smart and let nature rebuild your soil while you are resting! 

1. You can cover it deeply with all the mulch materials you can lay your hands on up to 18′ deep. Believe me, it will settle quickly to less than half that height in a few days to a week depending on temps! Let the herds of soil organisms do their work over winter. That’s called sheet composting or composting in place, lasagna gardening – no turning or having to move it when it’s finished. If you are vermicomposting, have worms, add a few handfuls to speed up and enrich the process. Next spring you will have rich nutritious living layers of whole soil for no work at all! Yarrow and Comfrey leaves also speed composting. Lay them in and on.
2. You can plant it with green manure. Laying on lots of mulch is a ton of work when you do it, just gathering the materials can be a challenge. Green manure takes some work too, but it has awesome results as well. You broadcast a seed mix of legumes and oats and let them grow. Bell beans, Austrian peas, vetch and oats from Island Seed & Feed in Goleta is an excellent choice. Legumes gather Nitrogen from the air and store it in nodules on their roots! N is the main ingredient your plants need for their growth! The oat roots break up the soil. They dig deep and open channels for water and air flow, soil organisms. Cover Crops  Living Mulch

Pestand Disease Prevention Drench young plants, ones you just transplanted, with Aspirin solution to get them off to a great start! Drench your seedlings when they get up a few inches. One regular Aspirin crushed, 1/4 C nonfat powdered milk, heaping tablespoon Baking Soda, 1/2 teaspoon liquid dish soap (surfactant), per gallon of water. Aspirin triggers a defense response and stimulates growth! Powdered milk is a natural germicide and boosts the immune system. Be sure to get the under sides of the leaves too!

• Brassica pests! Lots of ants and lengthwise curling leaves are the giveaways for aphids. Aphids carry viruses. Aphids come in fat gray or small black. Avoid over watering that makes for soft plants, tender leaves that aphids thrive on, and ant habitat. Spray the aphids away, make the ants leave. Get up under those leaves, and fervently but carefully do the tender center growth tips. Do it consistently until they don’t come back. Cinnamon works sometimes and other times not at all. Boo. But when you are starting seedlings it prevents molds and damping off. Sprinkle it on the soil in your six pack. Doesn’t hurt to get it on the leaves. Get it in big containers at Smart and Final/bulk stores. Reapply as needed. There are other spray mixes that get rid of those aphids. Water and Vinegar, or hydrogen peroxide, alcohol, a few drops of simple dish soap. If you want to spend more money, use Neem Oil. Soaps, neem oil, and horticultural oil kill only aphids present on the day they are sprayed, so applications may need to be repeated. Plant garlic and chives among your Brassicas! Their strong scent repels aphids. IPM re Aphids
  
• Later on, the most prevalent disease problem is mildew. Give your plants some room for air circulation, feed and water less so they don’t get so soft. It is much harder to deal with mildew once it has started. Better to do preventative treatments of the Aspirin Solution. 

September is still Seed Saving time for some. Make notes on how your plants did, which varieties were the most successful. These seeds are adapted to you and your locality. Each year keep your best! Store your keepers in a cool dry place for next year’s plantings. Generously gather seeds for upcoming January Seed Swaps! If your area doesn’t have a seed swap, start organizing one!   

Don’t forget the winter pollinators! Borage is a beautiful cool season herb with edible flowers, blue for bees! It has a large 3 to 4′ footprint, so allow for that or plan to keep clipping it back. It is a helper companion plant, so when possible, plant it right in the middle of your other plants! See more about Borage! What flower colors do birds and bees prefer?

Plant Sweet Peas for Christmas bloom!Plant gift plants or bowls or baskets for the holidays! 

This is a terrific time to put up a Greenhouse!  See also Greenhouses in Climate Emergencies. You can start more seedlings, overwinter sensitive plants – eat tomatoes in December! A greenhouse may be perfect for you – the right size, easy to maintain!

Have fun! September gardens are a magical time of creativity and transition!

Last updated 8.28.20  

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See the entire September Newsletter! Kale, Winter Soil Tips, Varieties Choices, Companion Plants, Bolting!

Veggies and Flowers, Birds & Bees! Summer is finishing! Please enjoy the abundance and adventures of bright August images at Rancheria Community Garden!

Love your Mother! Plant bird & bee food! Think grey water! Grow organic! Bless you for being such a wonderful Earth Steward!

The Green Bean Connection started as correspondence for the Santa Barbara CA USA Pilgrim Terrace Community Garden. All three of Santa Barbara’s community gardens are very coastal. During late spring/summer we are often in a fog belt/marine layer most years, locally referred to as the May grays, June glooms and August fogusts. Keep that in mind compared to the microclimate where your veggie garden is.

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