Get Your Winter Garden Going. It’s Easier Than You Think!

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winter garden
cilantro, romaine lettuce, and garlic

Winter is a great time to introduce your family to homegrown produce. We’ve all had the experience of buying a bag or clamshell of greens only to have to throw it out because your lettuce got slimy (or because it’s infested with e.coli). Growing greens in your winter garden is a great way to have healthy, unproblematic lettuce available when you need it and not when you don’t.

What Should I Plant?

Don’t have a ton of space? Don’t have a lot of experience gardening? Start with greens and peas! You can find seeds at garden centers, nurseries, or online. If you prefer to source your seeds locally, you can join a garden exchange group on Facebook like this one or look out for seeds from San Diego Seed Company in local nurseries or online.

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French Breakfast Radish

Gourmet Mesclun Mix

Sugar Snap Peas

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Lacinato Kale

Bloomsdale Spinach

Beginner Garden Gift Pack

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easy summer garden
Image by San Diego Seed Company

With our area’s mild winters, these crops should continue to grow until the weather turns a bit warmer, ideally until March or April. You’ll know that the cool season crops are finishing up when your peas turn brown and die, and your greens sprout flowers. Let your greens go to seed so you can collect and use it in the fall!

Don’t forget to start your spring and summer veggies indoors in January or February (peppers, tomatoes, etc). Using a greenhouse set up like this one will help keep your seedlings well watered and strong. Throw out some native wildflower seeds to attract pollinators, like California Poppy, Fve spot, and California Bluebells.

winter garden
California poppy

Level Up!

If you’re looking for a little more inspiration and don’t want to go buy extra stuff, take the sprouting veggies in your pantry and pop them into the ground!

Garlic

The ideal time for planting garlic in most of California is early October, but I’m not one for sticking to a strict schedule. Garlic has a very long growing season, so make sure to pop it somewhere you can commit to for 9-10 months. Just pull the garlic once one or two sets of leaves start to brown and hang it outside to cure for a couple weeks in a dry spot. I bought a big bag of garlic heads from Costco to make sure I have enough to plant liberally throughout my winter garden. For bonus points, plant it around fruit trees, roses, and anything else you want to keep aphids off of.

Potatoes & Sweet Potatoes

If you have sprouting potatoes leftover from Thanksgiving, use them! If you’re inland, get them in the ground ASAP for a spring crop. If you’re coastal you have a bit more time to work with; just be sure to get them in the ground before the weather is consistently in the 70s. Sweet potatoes are much more tolerant of high heat so just pop a slip in the ground and see what happens! Pull potatoes out of the ground when the leaves start dying. Dig around the ground before pulling to make sure you have potatoes growing off the root. Any potatoes you miss will probably show themselves eventually as volunteer plants.

Carrots

Carrots are another good cold weather option but they can be tricky to germinate. They need pretty moist conditions and usually about two weeks to sprout. Once they are 1″-2″ high you’ll need to thin the seedlings to give the roots room to develop. Carrot seed tape is a good option, though it’s more expensive than carrot seed on its own.

Feed Your Garden

I’ve had great results from using a mixture of compost, Dr. Earth Fertilizer (I prefer liquid because my dogs love to eat the granulated stuff), and a mycorrhizal inoculant sprinkled onto the roots or into the hole at planting time.

winter garden
calendula, blue sage, and California poppy seedlings

For more garden tips, follow me on Instagram at @drea.did.it

What are you growing this winter? Have your eye on anything for the spring?

Let me know in the comments!

4 COMMENTS

  1. My garden mostly feeds the birds, but occasionally we will get some produce for one meal. 🙂

    I do love the time spent in my garden (a couple of tomato plants, peppers, and some herbs. It is my happy place.

    This is great motivation to do a little bit more!!!!

    • Being greeted with food and flowers is a great motivator! I’ve found that it’s easier to get carried away once spring gets started; gardener’s mania takes hold.

  2. I love gardening! I’ve ever done winter gardening, usually our mild fall allows me to keep my spring garden all the way to winter.

    • Yes! It’s almost frustrating to have to take summer and spring things out to make room in our beds…. so I mostly don’t ?I’m taking my chances on three different peppers this winter.

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