Gardening : 2nd Spring Planting for Vegetables in Autumn

In Southland vegetable gardens, autumn marks the beginning of our second “spring planting season.” Southern California is the absolute envy of the gardening world. We live in one of the few regions of the world where gardening is possible on a year-round basis.

If you’ve never grown an autumn vegetable garden, you’ve missed one of the most pleasant of gardening experiences.

In our area, an autumn garden means growing the cool-season vegetables that thrive in our warm fall days and cool, crisp evenings. It is my favorite gardening time of the year. The autumn days are warm, yet comfortable. The weeds grow slower--and there are fewer of them. Watering is still necessary, of course, but not as often as spring or summer, and insects slow down their activities and many disappear and don’t return until spring.

Get your garden in as soon as possible. As the days grow shorter, the growing time needed for harvest increases greatly.

What are the cool-season vegetables to include in your autumn garden? Choose from the following: beets, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage (including Chinese cabbage), carrots, cauliflower, celery, celtuce, chard, collards, cress, endive, escarole, garlic, kale, kohlrabi, leeks, lettuce, mustard greens, onions, parsley, parsnips, peas (including edible-podded and sugar snap peas), potatoes, radishes, rutabagas, salsify, shallots, spinach and turnips.

Most of the above will have to be planted from seeds, but some, such as broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, celery and onions are available as transplants at most local nurseries. You will save about six weeks of growing time by using transplants.

Since the sun is not as intense in the autumn, it is necessary to locate your garden where it will receive a lengthy period of sunlight each day. Think back to last summer and the site of the sunniest area of your yard. Although a few vegetables will tolerate partial shade, most require full sun to make rapid growth. The area you choose should receive, at the minimum, seven hours of sunlight daily.

The selected site should be away from trees or other structures that might shade the plot. In addition, trees have extensive root systems that tend to rob vegetables of nutrients and moisture. The southern side of a home or other building often provides a good garden plot as it receives full sun and the building will also shelter the vegetables from northerly winds.

Do not worry if your yard does not contain the ideal growing area. Consider using areas along sunny fences or interplanting vegetables in flower beds.

Spade and work your soil and enrich it with organic materials such as compost and peat moss and add a balanced vegetable fertilizer to it. Water your garden area and let the soil settle for a couple of days; then sow your seeds while the soil is still moist.

Plant more seeds than recommended since some will not germinate. When the young seedlings appear and grow to a couple of inches high, thin them to the distances recommended on the seed packets. It is sometimes difficult, especially for the beginning gardener, to pull up young, healthy plants, but thinning is an important process in successful gardening and must be done ruthlessly.

When transplanting vegetable plants into the garden, try to avoid making the transplant during the heat of mid-day. The best transplanting time is toward evening so that the plants will have cool night temperatures to recover from transplant shock. Water the plants during the transplanting process.

Generally speaking, until our rainy season begins in late November, you should irrigate your garden weekly; more often during hot spells or if you are gardening in containers.

As previously mentioned weeds will not be as prevalent during the fall, but there will be some; keep them in control. Insects will be fewer, however, cabbage worms on all the cole crops and many other vegetables, are still a major threat. Control them easily by applying a spray that contains Bacillus thuringiensis (BT), a biological control that won’t harm beneficial insects. I spray my autumn garden with this material every 10 days and there is never a worm problem.

Santa Ana winds will be a problem. During these hot, dry winds, sprinkle your garden twice a day.

For many of these cool-season vegetables, the harvest period will begin in mid-November; some, like radishes and leaf lettuce, will be earlier, others like Brussels sprouts will be later.

If you are new to vegetable gardening, when planning the size of your garden, my advice would be to think big, but start small. Start with a small plot and see how you like vegetable gardening and how much time you have to devote to it. A large garden can easily overwhelm the novice because proper garden maintenance makes large demands on one’s time.

A common mistake of many beginning gardeners is planting cool-season vegetables during warm weather and warm-season crops during cool periods. For instance, peas are a cool-season crop and if planted in our warm season they do very poorly. Beans are a warm-season crop and will fail when planted during the cool season. If you match the crop to the season, gardening can be a year-round pleasure in the Southland.