March Garden Report and What to Plant in So Cal

Oh boy oh boy. It is the start of the summer veggie planting season, if you haven't already started. And I hope not because it got quite cold the other night. I saw snow in the hills west of Lake Elsinore yesterday and I never see snow there!

What to plant in March:

Beans, Bush
Beans, Pole
Beets
Cabbage
Carrots
Corn
Cucumber
Eggplant
Herbs
Lettuce
Onions/Garlic sets
Peppers
Potatoes
Spinach
Squash, summer
Squash, Winter
Sunflowers
Tomato plants

My garden now:
I did not plant until a little late so all the squares are still filled with spring things not quite ready to harvest. Even the radishes have been slow.



The peas look great. There are two types and I forgot to mark which was which but they are both edible podded. No peas yet though.



And the potatoes are coming along. All of the green except one are from the slips. The seed potatoes are slow going or are never going to perform.

Thanks Chopper,

I just planted cucumber, bell pepper, onion and carrots. I directly seeded those in the box. I also planted 6 romaine and 6 swiss chard plants from the nursery. Wish me luck!

Being a rookie I planted some cauliflower and broccoli plants too. I'm a little late on those I guess. Maybe I'll get lucky and they will produce something from me.

Beav395 wrote:

Being a rookie I planted some cauliflower and broccoli plants too. I'm a little late on those I guess. Maybe I'll get lucky and they will produce something from me.

Hey, you never know. Maybe you will be the winner because we get an unusually cool spring!

I had success getting hot pepper seedlings out of 6-12 year old seeds. And then winter hit, lack of good soil, and probably transplanting them too soon killed them. But I will be trying again.

It's 88 F here and I almost had heat stroke working in the garden. I got my 4th bed filled and thoroughly watered then came in to cool off.
Red sails lettuce is bolting but so far still tastes good. Still have romaine growing good - growing faster than this family of 4 can eat it.
I also have onions, garlic & potatoes growing well. Just put more lettuce, carrots & I think spinach in a week or so ago. I have one tomato still going from last year as an experiment- just took the others out to move the trellis.
I have seedlings started inside of several different tomatoes, bell peppers, cucumbers, celery, kale & chard. Planted more lettuce & spinach yesterday.

Plus I hope to plant the following in the garden sometime this month:
Beans
corn
more onions
delicata squash
And the above seedlings.

First kids(baby goats) of the year were born yesterday. This is the start of a very busy & can be very stressful season but I still love spring.

I've been using http://www.digitalseed.com/gardener/schedule/vegetable.html for my planting guide. I just looked at http://www.almanac.com/gardening/planting-dates/zipcode/92843 and it is completely different!

Which to believe?

Chopper, your temps are so different from mine! That changes everything! What do you use for your planting guide?

To tell you the truth, for vegetable gardening frost/freeze is the main factor and then heat. For so cal where it is not desert or mountain, a veggie is a veggie and they can all be planted more or less at the same times. Heat may shorten the spring veggies of the inland valley and let the coast extend that season, but it is a small consideration. Microclimate in veg gardening is a small consideration. Summer veggies like heat, winter veggies like cool. And as long as you don't have a big freeze, you plant one or the other.

The garden coordinator was by yesterday to see if we flooded (more like "pooled"). We didn't...or if we did the mulch covered it and the it was soaked in.

He told me if the snow had gone to 1800ft we would have had a hard frost...is that true?

Stunning thought...I picked 10 strawberries and filled a gallon bag of lettuce after he left!

Nothing would surprise me this year. That is another reason why garden guides are best guess anyway, with some likely scenarios built in. For the three seasons I have been gardening they have all been different. But we still ain't Maine.

@ Linda...do you have any problem growing salad makings in the heat? Do you shade them?

@ Everyone...I went looking my zone, and found the most curious info...

2012 Hardiness Zone	Zone 10b: 35F to 40F
1990 Hardiness Zone	Zone 10b: 35F to 40F
Ecoregion
Average First Frost	January 11 - 20
Average Last Frost	January 1 - 10

Seriously? We have "first" and "last" frost dates?

Looks like we can never plant! LOL. I think maybe they use a calendar that runs fall to summer - Like Sept to Aug. That is all I can think of. So the bottom line is, if you are going to have frost, it will likely be in January. Funny.

AvaDGardner wrote:@ Linda...do you have any problem growing salad makings in the heat? Do you shade them?

@ Everyone...I went looking my zone, and found the most curious info...

2012 Hardiness Zone	Zone 10b: 35F to 40F
1990 Hardiness Zone	Zone 10b: 35F to 40F
Ecoregion
Average First Frost	January 11 - 20
Average Last Frost	January 1 - 10

Seriously? We have "first" and "last" frost dates?

Here is my info from Daves Garden:

Each winter, on average, your risk of frost is from December 21 through January 19.

Almost certainly, however, you will receive frost from March 28 through March 28. (this is laways to & from whatever the current date is - very strange)

You are almost guaranteed that you will not get frost from March 5 through December 3.
Your frost-free growing season is around 336 days.

I am zone 9b.

Last year was my first year and the lettuce did go bitter in the summer heat even though the bed had trellis on both the west & north(with tomatoes, cucumbers, pole beens) and for part of the summer corn was in the south part of the bed. I am thinking of trying some lettuce in movable beds (maybe the cement mixing tubs) and placing them under my table tops. But right now they are going in the table tops.

With lettuce all the shade in the world will not help if it is actually hot. A cooled greenhouse would do it!

Not sure about that one. Ive grown lettuce for years right on through the dead heat of summer. I do shade it which is why you can do it. You'll need to water more as well but it certainly can be done with shade.

snibb wrote:Not sure about that one. Ive grown lettuce for years right on through the dead heat of summer. I do shade it which is why you can do it. You'll need to water more as well but it certainly can be done with shade.

Really? Well that is good news and sounds like the beginning of an experiment...

Chopper...it's a true story. I think they say you can't start lettuce and expect it to germinate if it's over 85 degrees. Knowing that I just put shade cloth over an entire 4X4 box, watered it in, covered it with the cloth and then just made sure to keep the top moist. If it dries out it won't germinate. But if you keep it moist I think you'll find that you can do it.

The other sure-fire method is to start them indoors and then to set out as transplants-again keeping a good amount of water on them. Give it a try...it's a desert here in Utah-believe it or not-and we do get hot. We're usually around the 95 degree mark for 4 weeks of the summer, maybe a little hotter some years for a couple of weeks....you can do it...Jim

Chopper wrote:

snibb wrote:Not sure about that one. Ive grown lettuce for years right on through the dead heat of summer. I do shade it which is why you can do it. You'll need to water more as well but it certainly can be done with shade.

Really? Well that is good news and sounds like the beginning of an experiment...

Mine grew fine but once it got hot, it tasted bad. But I also did not try starting any seeds from mid june thru august as there are several periods where I am gone for a week at a time and can't be messing with seeds at that time.

Might try some this year if I can get it set up with drip watering like most of my beds are.

Chopper...water, water, water and cover. I can promise you that if you do that your lettuce wont get bitter. Hot sun does bad things to lettuce..good luck though-I think you'll be happy with the results...Jim