It is time to get ready for fall vegetable gardening!

Just because summer is over, the heat is mellowing and cool evenings are returning doesn't mean your gardening year is done. It just means the vegetable garden plants we have to work with are changing.

Coastal California has an unending growing season, and we still have the warm to hot autumn days to mature our fall and winter garden crops. I have already started my fall vegetable garden planting with beets and garlic, lettuce is set out in pre-mulched garden beds, and blackberries have had the fruit canes removed and are ready to be divided and transplanted.

Cool weather vegetables you can still plant include cabbage, peas, broccoli (I get good results with Renee's 3-season mix), lettuce (Romaine does great here, if you can keep the rabbits away!), green onions, scallions, multi-colored Cauliflower, multi-colored Chard, deep green Kale, Rhubarb and many varieties of Asian Greens and Lettuces.

I prefer to start my plants in seed trays and transplant into already mulched garden beds. This allows me to start plants early and have them ready to plant at the right time. This speeds transition from one crop to the next and allows me to grow exactly what I want, when I want it. If you don't grow your own starts, you are subject to the whims of the big-box stores and their vendors...

If you are into heirloom vegetable gardening, select the best fruit to save seeds from. To prevent cross-polination of your heirlooms, hopefully you didn't forget to keep them physically sepearted during their flowering periods, or cover the flowering plants with floating row covers.

Here at the end of our hot season, we have time to start our cool weather fall and winter vegetable gardening plants. For a list of cool weather veggies, and approximate planting times, please refer to our 'When to Plant Veggies' page. Remember that your plants can be started from seed up to 2 months prior to their 'set out' dates.

Remove your garden plants as they finish their season and add them to the compost pile. General garden clean up of waste fruit and plants will denigh many insects their over-wintering habitat. Replant the areas with fall or winter crops, or sow with a cover crop.

Consider over-planting your garden with nitrogen-fixing cover crops, such as peas, red clover or vetch.

Red clover is attractive, bright green, has bright red powder-puff flowers, attracts bees, and fixes an incredible amount of nitrogen. Highest nitrogen yeild comes during the 2nd year when the above ground growth is tilled in and below ground mass is at its maximum. Clover also stays reasonably low, and can be grown as an understory to taller veggies.

Vetch is good at an erosion control and a prolific green manure source in the spring, but perhaps best suited to larger-than-backyard sites. It produces a lot or organic matter that is somewhat fiverous and requires larger mowers or shredders to quickly process the material.

Any nitrogen fixing cover crop is a good choice for areas you want to fallow, or let rest and recover.

It is a little late for beans, but they are also fast-growing and good at fixing nitrogen, so try them as the soil warms in spring.

Cover crops established now will have time to grow extensive root systems and start increasing the nitrogen in your soil. They are will help prevent erosion during the spring rains.

When starting with bare soil (as we are in our new community garden), add micorrhiyzal bacteria to the seeds before planting. This gaurentees that roots will start their growth in the presence of the companion bacteria they need to be able to thrive and fix nitrogen. Once your soil has been innoculated, the bacteria will be present in the soil from then on and re-innoculation should not be needed. The bacteria should be present in your soil already, but adding some with your seeds will kick-start the process.

My bananas are under relentless atack by gophers, and I am using the last of this warm season to get some transplanted pups established. I have broken down and made wire mesh cages to grow the differnt species in to give them some gopher protection. The little buggers have cost me half of the species I collected a few years ago.

Now is also the time to take final control over any weeds. Any weeds that have set seed should go into the garden-wastes can for pick-up, and the un-seeded weeds should go into the compost pile. If you have an active, high-temp compost pile, it will cook MOST weed seed, but requires that you manage your pile.

Remove any mustard plants/weeds growing to eliminate over-wintering habitat for Harlequin Bugs. Taking control of this common weed last year gave me a harlequin bug-free garden this year.

Renew any thin mulch areas to prevent erosion should we get heavy rains. NOAA reports suggest that we are in for el Nino again and to expect 150% of our usual rainfall this year, so ersion control is critical, especially in areas that have been burned or cleared. Mulch does a good job of absorbing excess rain fall and releasing it to the soil at a usable rate.