This is a public-interest archive. Personal data is pseudonymized and retained under GDPR Article 89.

Re: Mild-Winter Garden - What to plant now?

>Hello All,
>
>After moderate success adapting my north-American gardening patterns to
>my new digs (excuse the pun) on the Mediterranean, I would like to
>explore the possibilities for the winter vegetable garden. Since winter
>is the rainy season here, I have long realized that I was not exploiting
>the better part of the gardening year here.
>
>I am on a mountainside with a distant view of the Mediterranean coast.
>Winter here is basically like a long, wet North American spring. Our
>CURRENT nightime lows are 13-14 Centigrade (equals about 55 Farenheit).
>That's just the low point. Days are balmy - in the 25-28 range (equals
>77-82). It rains off and on - sometimes over several days at a time -
>for the entire winter. We wake up to frost crystals on the ground a few
>days a year - two weeks in January/Feb, maybe a light snow that doesn't
>stick.
>
>So? What can I plant now in the kitchen garden? What will happen if I
>plant onions?
>
>What cottage flowers can I start now? I am especially interested in
>dianthus, godetia, and perenials.
>
>If I install those plastic-sheet hoop tunnels over my beds, what can I
>grow?
>
>Thank you warm-climate gardeners.
>
>Joshua

Well, Joshua, you can have a great garden this winter with collard greens,
kale, lettuce, spinach, broccoli, cabbage, beets, onions (from starts, too
late for seeds), fava beans, carrots, radishes (if you have deep enough
soil for the root crops),mustard, pak choy, tatsoi, and herbs like chervil,
sorrel, fennel, dill, parsley and thymes. As for flowers, dianthus will do
well along with calendula, perennial salvias, petunias, pansies,
snapdragons. Also, you can seed things like poppies, larkspur, and lupines,
just to name a few.

You also could try bush snap beans and sqash, too. And, as for plastic
tunnels, they'll work great. Just make sure if your crop needs pollinating,
you either open the tunnel or hand pollinate.

Those are some of the things I grow in my winter South-Central Texas
garden, except for the beans and squash, it's too cool for those in our
winter.
Good luck,  Cindy in TX.
Other Mailing lists | Author Index | Date Index | Subject Index | Thread Index