The Cool Season

Peas, cilantro and butter lettuce

         A common error of some gardeners in the non frost prone areas of Southern California is to think that the productive garden ends with summer.  Certainly, the long, warm summer days in a garden teeming with flowers, bees, fruit and veggies is hard to match.  But far too many gardeners overlook the amazing possibilities of a winter, or cool season garden.  We are blessed, particularly here in San Diego, with beautiful winter weather, and one can have the garden to prove it.  In fact the winter garden offers a joy all its own.  The cooler temperatures slow down the garden pests, and winter rains help out with the watering.  Weeding is a rarer event and easier when it happens.

            The winter makes it possible to grow plants that would cook in the long hot days of summer.  The related cole crops, broccoli, cauliflower, kale, cabbage, why, that’s alliteration in a seed packet and some of the healthiest food you can eat. And this is just the Eurocentric cole crops.  Let’s not forget bok choi and the various Asian greens we have had much success with lately.  Chard comes in the colors of red, yellow, and white, and, like kale, can yield harvests again and again from the same plant.  Chard is the gift that keeps on giving, and with a patch of chard in your garden, you will never go wanting for an easy side dish.  The multi-hued stems, diced and sautéed with some onions and garlic until tender, are just waiting for the greens to be added and wilted for a perfect vegetable course. 

Russian Kale

            The cool season is also the time for salad greens.  We have experimented with all types of lettuces and, being unable to decide which variety is most to our liking, we have come upon the Mesclun mixes.  These are a mix of various salad greens in one seed packet.  Thus, an area of our garden can be sown with a pre-mixed variety of greens.  When the tender young plants are big enough to eat, simply grab a handful and cut off just above ground level with a sharp knife, and viola! Instant salad!  These mixes come in different combinations:  all lettuces, or more piquant mixes with endive and arugula, etc., which are our favorites.

Mesclun Mix Greens

          

       Which brings us to the peas, one of the real treats of the cool season.  Tender, edible pod peas are so good; many don’t even make it back to the kitchen, being picked and eaten raw right in the garden.  These fresh peas are a very healthy alternative for chips to go with a dip at a fall gathering, and a stir-fry is not really official unless it has some fresh pea pods in the mix. 

Sugar Snap Peas

      But being a practical man, I always want to maximize yield, filling every available space with food producers.  Yet man (and woman) does not live by vegetables alone, as my lovely wife will remind me, and the cultivation of her favorite flowering sweet pea vines the proof of this.  These delicate, fragrant garden gems brighten up the cool season with deep hues and intoxicating fragrances.  My better half has scoured seed catalogs to find, after seasons of trials, her favorite varieties, which include Regal Robe and Cupani’s Original.  Walking into your house after a long day and being greeted with the scent of freshly cut Sweet Peas can make you appreciate both garden and spouse.

            

Sweet Peas- Cupani's Original

     I would be remiss if I didn’t mention cool season root crops.  Beets are surprisingly easy to grow, and golden beets offer a wonderful sweetness and change of pace to the red.  When thinning, the baby beets and greens are delicious additions to many dishes.  And although it is sometimes difficult to get your carrots to approach the size and shape of the supermarket brands, the heirloom varieties more than make up for it in flavor and freshness.  We had our first serious planting of potatoes last year, and plan to do so again.  Freshly harvested potatoes are surprisingly flavorful, and harvesting them is like an Easter egg hunt!  We particularly like the red and fingerling varieties.

            

Beauty and the Beets!

     There are strategies for a cool season garden.  Unlike summer, when long late afternoons provide time for garden chores out of the heat of the day, the days are now shorter, and garden tasks must be moved toward the middle of the day.  And carrots seeds seem particularly sensitive to our alkaline water, so saving some rainwater or planting just before a rainstorm will insure good germination.  The sun is lower in the sky, and the shadows cast by trees, hedges and buildings are larger, stealing sufficient sunlight from areas that might have worked for you in the summer.  But the joys of the cool season garden are many, and I hope you will be inspired you to try.

Now get out there and grow something!
Peace,
Swami bruce