November Chores

By Ann Dozier Master Gardener

I’m cleaning up my garden and pulling out summer tomatoes and squash.  Can I plant in November for a harvest of winter vegetables?  Dan P. Arroyo Grande

In winter, a sunny plot can grow beets, carrots onions, peas, chard, onions, radishes and turnips from seed.  Seedling plants would be a better choice for slower developing broccoli, cabbage and cauliflower. In mild coastal areas, you could grow various salad greens, though it’s probably too cold in North County for tender lettuce to survive. 

In planning your garden, remember you can discourage soil borne pests by not planting crops from the same family in the same spot for two years running. If your problem with root disease is serious, you might even consider a four-year crop rotation; e.g. corn, tomatoes, squash, beans.

If you should decide against growing winter vegetables this year, you might plant a cover crop of clover, fava beans, rye or vetch to enrich the soil for next season’s veggies. 

 After you have cleaned up the vegetable garden, give the rest of your garden a clean-up.  Rake up leaves, cut back grasses and perennials. You can still divide perennials like iris and daylilies before frosts. Cut back berry canes to the ground, leaving new young canes to bear next year’s fruit. Late fall is a good time to plant biennial flowers like hollyhocks, Canterbury Bells and foxglove – they need cold weather to produce a good show next spring.

You can also add some flowers to your winter garden. Narcissus of all kinds can be planted until late fall (until Christmas along the coast). They will naturalize in spots where they are happy – give them well drained soil and avoid regular summer water.  If you want to plant tulips and hyacinths for spring bloom, bulbs should be purchased now and chilled in the refrigerator for six weeks before planting out.

Finish up fall garden chores by mulching everything. A good layer of mulch will keep down weeds and make them easy to pull when they do appear. It will retain moisture if this is a dry winter and prevent erosion if big storms arrive.

Cover Crops

by Andrea Peck  Master Gardener

If you’ve been keeping up on your fall chores, your garden has been raked and trimmed. The last of your tomato plants have been plucked. Your compost bin is full of summer detritus and even the minutest of pest hiding spots are done away with. Your garden beds are clean as a whistle while they lay idle for spring.

 Suddenly, the garden appears a bit sterile and well, clean.

But, there is a solution: Cover crops. Like a good renter, cover crops use your bed for a short time and actually improve the plot while they’re there. Cover crops to sow during autumn include berseem clover, rose clover,  crimsom clover, fieldpeas, sweet clover,  vetch and cereal grasses  such as, barley, oat, rye and wheat.

While you are renting your beds out, you can expect a number of benefits. Cover crops increase water permeability and nutrient holding capacity by creating looser, more porous soil. They compete with weeds, thereby lessening their hold, while reducing soil borne diseases.   Great for erosion and dust control, and reduction of muddy areas, cover crops attract beneficial insects and nematode worms. Legume cover crops provide nitrogen to the soil as an extra perk.  All that and they provide a bit of life during the darker winter months.

By the time spring arrives, your beds will be far from empty. From here, you can do one of two things: you can till your crop into the soil and wait a few weeks for decomposition to take place. Keep in mind, planting is not recommended at this time because a temporary shortage of nitrogen will occur during the decomposition process. Alternatively, you can cut and pull out your renters and deposit them into the compost bin for later use. With this method, you can plant away.

Garden Based Learning Training: Curriculum Connections to School Gardens (Saturday, October 27, 2012, from 9:00 AM to 2:00 PM at UCCE Auditorium and Sunshine Garden)
The Master Gardeners of San Luis Obispo County wants to help foster these important life lessons by offering a workshop to assist school teachers, parents and others with connecting their school garden to classroom instruction. The workshop is open to all teachers, school staff, parents, and volunteers who work with the children at a school based garden. Each attendee will receive a curriculum binder with lesson plans that incorporate California’s Instructional Standards. The Garden Based Learning workshop will be held at School Garden plot in the Garden of the Seven Sisters in San Luis Obispo. The Garden of the Seven Sisters has eighteen different themed gardens including one designed specifically to demonstrate a school gardens.

The workshop will be held Saturday, October 27, 2012, at 2156 Sierra Way, San Luis Obispo. The workshop starts at 9 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. and includes garden snacks.. To join us in a fun and informative day of garden based learning, please register at http://ucanr.org/gardenbasedlearning For more information, contact Contact: treelees@charter.net

Click HERE to find more resources about School Gardens.

Master Gardeners Workshop - Winter Vegetables

By Terri Sonleitner Law UC Master Gardener

Q. What vegetables can I plant in my garden now?  Cameron, San Luis Obispo.

A. There are many cool season vegetables you can plant now, which produce well from seeds or from transplants, in the cooler months of the year.  Among these vegetables are broccoli, carrots, chard, kale, kohlrabi, leeks, lettuce, spinach, onions and most Asian greens.  In San Luis Obispo County, many herbs such as chives, parsley, rosemary and thyme are also hardy year round.

A chart of recommended vegetable planting dates is available through the University of California:  http://ucanr.org/sites/gardenweb/files/29040.pdf

If planting and keeping a kitchen garden over the cooler months seems daunting, come to the Master Gardener October “Advice To Grow By” workshop! We’ll feature a talk on kitchen gardens, including how to prepare the garden, grow and enjoy winter vegetables.  It will be held in our demonstration garden, the Garden of the Seven Sisters, 2156 Sierra Way, in San Luis Obispo on Saturday, October 20 from 10:00am to noon.  Bring a hat, dress for the weather and bring your vegetable and herb gardening questions for our Master Gardener experts.

Q.  Every year we’re faced with an invasion of some kind of pest.  Once it was mice, and ants are always a problem.  What can we do to thwart these pests?  Bobbie, Templeton.

A. We have a great resource available! Information on most pests found in California is only a few keystrokes away. The University of California Agricultural & Natural Resources website has a searchable database of research-based information on household pests at the UC IPM Online website: http://www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/PMG/menu.house.html

The Master Gardener’s next “Advice To Grow By” workshop will also feature a timely talk about our most common winter pests, ants and mice, including their habits and effective control methods. Come to the workshop on Saturday, October 20 from 10am to noon, at the Garden of the Seven Sisters, 2156 Sierra Way. Park in the lot adjacent to the garden and bring your timely pest questions for the Master Gardeners.

For more information about Vegetable Gardening, visit The San Luis Obispo UC Master Gardeners Website.  You can find the Cool Season Vegetable Planting Guide for SLO County  (aka Crop Circle) there!