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If you live in California, cooler weather means leaves, roots, flower buds and pods in the vegetable garden.
There are many different vegetables that are at their best when temperatures are cool – and sometimes even cold – withstanding light to heavy frosts. The seed of these vegetables also germinate well in cool soils.
Our best time to sow seed or plant these vegetables in the Golden State is fall into winter. For those lucky California gardeners who don’t face an early summer, these vegetables can be planted into early spring as well.
Leaf vegetables include the commonly grown chard, all lettuces and spinach. If you want to get a little more ethnic, try planting collards, kale, mustard, endive and chicory. Leaf vegetables like water, so make sure you keep their soil almost constantly moist (drying only slightly between waterings).
Root vegetables include my favorites: beets, carrots and radishes. There’s also onion and its kin, leeks and garlic. Some old-fashioned root veggies that a seasoned gardener should try include parsnips, rutabagas, turnips and salsify. And some unusual roots – and root-like edibles – that I think are worth the growing effort are celeriac (celery root), fennel (a bulbous stem, often sold in supermarkets under the incorrect name of “anise”) and kohlrabi (another bulbous stem, a mild relative of cabbage). Root vegetables like deep, rich soil.
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