Planting a Tasty Organic Winter Garden
We certainly are blessed living in a fair climate that can support growing nearly year round.
Many garden crops do well in coastal Northern California during the winter months, but most need to be planted while it is still October, so that they germinate well and size up before it gets cold. There are several things to take into account in planting a organic winter garden, though.
1) Drainage—Be sure to build raised beds to plant your winter vegetables in; you may also want to incorporate some compost to lighten the soil texture.
2) Slugs and Snails— Snails are a nuisance all year, but slugs and snails especially like the wet weather. Try to eliminate their favorite hiding places (boards, plastic pots). The best way to control them is to pick them by hand at night or early in the morning and then, uh, “terminate” them. People who grew up in California often had this job when they were kids. Snails and slugs can destroy seedlings, so start your seeds in pots and then transplant the young seedlings when they have at least 6 or 8 leaves on them. Commercial snail baits are not only toxic, they are also not effective because of our heavy, sustained rains.
3) Plant Nutrition–you have already used up soil nutrients growing things over the spring and summer, so dig in some composted manure or alfalfa meal for nitrogen, or balanced organic fertilizer, as well as some compost, to give your winter vegetables the nutrition they need.
Plants that people have had success with in winter include
garlic
fava beans
peas
sweet peas (flowers)
lettuce
cabbage (a favorite of slugs and snails)
broccoli
beets/swiss chard (easier than easy, last all winter; beets taste great roasted!)
leeks
artichoke
For more information on winter gardening, and gardening in the Bay Area, see
Pam Peirce, Golden Gate Gardening (Seattle: Sasquatch Books, 1998).
