#11: Tips for Year-Round Success in Your Zone 9 California Garden

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If you are a California gardener in Zone 9, you live in an incredible growing zone. In today’s show, I’m going to share some tips that will help you have success year-round in your garden, some common struggles that you might face, and what sets us apart from other areas of the United States.

Intro to Gardening in California

I’m a gardener in the Central Valley of California, in Zone 9b, and I’ve been here my entire life. I come from multiple generations of family farmers and over the years I’ve learned so much valuable information from other great gardeners in my life as well as from my own trial and error, and my passion is sharing that with you.

How Growing in California is Different from Other States

Of course, I want to help all gardeners, but the real way that I can help is by talking to those who are close to me in a similar climate because gardening is localized. What works for us here in California does not necessarily work in Florida, Texas, or Arizona. 

Many things are similar. But it is very localized when it comes to the nitty-gritty details, exact planting times, and crops that thrive. And so the best way to help is to point out that I’m talking specifically to you, California gardeners, today. I want to mention that California is different from other areas of the world. 

I know that’s not new news. But California is so different from Florida; we don’t have high humidity, and we don’t typically have lots of summer rain. And, of course, this will also vary throughout the state.

But here in the Central Valley, for the most part, we don’t get rain during the summer; we don’t usually have high humidity; we just have hot, dry weather. It’s relatively easy to grow in, which is why the Central Valley produces so much of the world’s food; we have one of the largest farming areas in the entire world!

Start Adding More Variety to Your Garden

If you also live in the Central Valley of California, there are endless possibilities of things that you can grow. And I want you to realize what a blessing that is. You can grow so much; you have the ideal growing climate to grow basically anything you want. That is your real advantage as a gardener here in California!

What I want to encourage you to do is to start adding more things to your garden. No matter how much space you have, there are lots of things that you can grow. 

You can grow 

• Fruit trees
• Fruiting vines
• Herbs
• Flowers
• Vegetables

The possibilities are truly endless.

What’s Growing in My Garden

I know for myself that this year, we added eight fruit trees to my garden area: pears, apples, peaches, and nectarines. My family also farms walnuts commercially. But as far as my backyard orchard garden area, I have eight fruit trees, and then I have raised beds and long in-ground rows with lots of vegetables, herbs, and flowers. 

Getting that great mix of diversity out in the garden is excellent. And it’s really great to have so many different things that you can harvest. Even if it’s just a couple of fruit trees in your backyard, one raised bed, and maybe a couple of herbs on the patio, there are just a lot of things that you can grow. 

Why It’s Beneficial to Have a Diverse Mix of Plants

I know we often think of our vegetable garden as just a place for vegetables. But by bringing in flowers and herbs, you bring in the pollinators needed to pollinate your vegetables. And you bring in those beneficial insects that help keep all the bad bugs in check.

And you never want to stop at one type of plant; you want to bring in many different things. However, we have an advantage over many other areas in the United States because we can grow pretty much every fruit. 

Some tropical fruits can’t be grown in every area of California. Although, with the proper techniques and special care, you can grow anything. But there are many fruits we can grow that other areas of the world just can’t. 

If you have kids and you’re constantly buying fruit at the grocery store, consider adding an apple tree, a peach tree, or maybe an orange tree to your backyard. 

Fresh fruit, first of all, just tastes so much better than store-bought. But there are just so many options for things we can grow. So keep that in mind as you go forward this year.

An Overview of the Entire Growing Season in California

Some things make us different from other areas. I don’t have to tell you this, but we have hot summers here in the Central Valley of California. Our summers are typically pretty hot and our winters are fairly mild.

Our summer garden thrives in the heat and continues growing all the way up until that first frost. If you don’t have a frost, the end of November or the beginning of December is still a general timeframe for the end of your summer crops.

In some areas of the world, Florida, for example, there are lots of gardeners who stop gardening in the middle of summer because their summer never really ends. They don’t have a winter season like us, so they don’t necessarily garden in the middle of July and August.

But for us here, we can continue growing up until that first frost hits or when a first frost should arrive. For example, I don’t ever stop growing in the middle of summer but you have the option to if you want. It’s just a very productive time here.

When I Plant My Summer Garden

I plant my summer garden, which is all of your warm-season crops, in usually mid to late April. Those crops continue growing throughout the summer. I typically replant a few different times, so I have staggered harvests. Those plants continue growing all the way up until about mid-November, or early December.

When I Plant Our Winter Garden

Our fall garden starts even when it still feels like summer. When it comes to planting cool-season crops like your lettuce, broccoli, and kale, things like that should be planted in the fall. Even if you don’t get a harvest before winter, those crops will overwinter.

They’ll survive through the winter months. Then they’ll start growing again in late winter as the weather starts warming up a little bit as we head into spring. 

We don’t want to wait until spring to plant those crops like many other areas of the US do. For example, in places that have a really cold winter with lots of snow and hard freezes, if they plant in fall and don’t get a harvest before winter hits, it’s likely that many of those crops won’t survive their winter. So they wait until late winter and early spring to plant their cool-season crops. 

But for us, if we wait until late winter and early spring to plant the cool-season crops, it’s very likely that they’re just going to bolt and head to seed. It’s very likely for us to have a really warm day in early February, but then it might get really cold again for a spell, and then it might get warm for a couple of days, and then it might get cold again. 

But that mix of warm and cold weather is not ideal for cool-season crops, and it triggers them to bolt and head to seed.

So if you’ve ever grown cool-season crops like broccoli, for example, and you never got ahead of broccoli, but you just noticed that your broccoli quickly flowered and never formed a broccoli head, it was probably because you planted in late winter, early spring, and the season wasn’t cool for long enough for that crop to thrive and mature. 

You want to plant your cool-season crops, usually in late September or early October. And for some of them, you’ll get a harvest. And for some, they might just kind of go stagnant over the winter months. But then you’ll harvest, like I mentioned, in late winter or early spring.

Cool vs. Warm Season Crop Growing Conditions

We have what I call two seasons. We have a cool-season crop growing season and a warm-season crop growing season. The warm season always seems longer. Usually, it starts warming up as early as February. 

With the warm-season crops, you don’t want to worry about planting too soon. If the weather warms up, but then it gets cold again, those warm-season crops can get damaged, or if you have another frost it’s likely that they’ll die or have stunted growth.

I always like to wait to plant my warm-season crops until the weather has warmed up enough, there’s no more danger of frost, no more random cool days in the forecast, and when we have a consistent forecast of warm days ahead. 

I know warm season crops will thrive in warmer weather, so once that date occurs, which for us this year was in late April, I plant my warm-season garden. At the time of this episode of the Audrey’s Little Farm Show, we are in mid-June and everything is thriving! I’m starting to get a harvest from all of my crops.

I’m going to continue harvesting all throughout the summer. As I mentioned earlier, I’m going to continue replanting various crops so that I have staggered harvests. But even though the summer crops will continue producing until the first frost, I want to plan ahead and get my fall garden prepared.

How to Time Your Plantings

This is kind of a little bit counterintuitive because you’re going to be planning your fall garden, which consists of cool-season crops when the weather is still warm. It might even be 100 degrees outside, but you have to start planning ahead so that you can plant those crops on time. 

As I mentioned, even if you don’t get a harvest from them before winter, they’re going to survive our winter because we don’t get snow and we don’t typically get really hard freezes. We might get a freeze overnight, but then it’ll warm up a bit.

Then we might get another couple of days of freezing temperatures, but it’s usually not too bad. And so our crops will usually survive just fine throughout the winter no matter what the weather brings, and then they’re going to start taking off again as the weather starts warming up in spring.

But you can always cover your crops with a frost blanket and that’ll keep them protected when there is a freeze. 

The way that you plan out the timing of your plantings is to count backward from your estimated first frost and plan accordingly with each crops days to maturity. 

For example, some crops take 60 days from planting to maturity. So you need to make sure you have that crop in the ground 60 days before that first frost in order to mature. But it’s a bit tricky with cool-season crops because even if the crop doesn’t mature, it can survive and continue growing over the winter.

Join the Zone 9 Garden Club for a Month-by-Month Garden Plan

I realize that, as a beginner gardener, planning out your planting dates can be a little bit confusing, and I’m probably not even making things easier as I write this out for you or talk out loud in the audio version of this show.

Sometimes it’s hard to explain because you really get better at gardening by trial and error, you realize what works for you and your garden and what doesn’t. You don’t necessarily always look at the calendar; you just have habits and repeat these habits year and year again, and things start coming together and working for you.

But as you try to explain it to a new gardener, it can get a little bit tricky. I apologize if I’m not necessarily making it easier. But I have started to realize that no matter how often you describe or explain a topic or concept, it’s sometimes too difficult to understand.

You need to give someone an actual game plan, and I can’t give every gardener an exact game plan. Because as I mentioned, gardening is localized. It varies from state to state.

But I can give a game plan to those who are local to me. I have a membership called the Zone 9 Garden Club. Anyone can join. However, it’s going to best apply to somebody in California as well.

Here’s what members get,

• Monthly video garden tours and trainings
• Monthly growing calendars for zone 9
• Timely harvesting & planting tips
• Access to an active community off of social media
• A resource library full of gardening courses and guides
• And more!

It’s the step-by-step plan of what I’m doing year-round in the garden. So if you want to join, you can sign up for free for 14 days and test it out.

I would absolutely love for you to join. We have a really great community, you can ask questions in there anytime, plus you get access to all of my courses and guides. So, definitely check it out here.

Two Important Things to Learn When Gardening

Just remember that when you’re gardening, the two main things that will help you have the most success:

1. There are warm-season crops.
2. There are cool-season crops.

Warm-season crops thrive in warm temperatures. They need temperatures 70 degrees and above and nighttime temperatures consistently in the 50s and above. And if that’s the case, you want to just continue planting and harvesting from those warm-season crops. 

Cool-season crops are the opposite. They need cool temperatures to thrive. They ideally thrive in temperatures about 50 to 65 degrees; anything under 70 degrees. Above 70°F usually triggers those crops to bolt and head to seed.

You want to make sure that your daytime temperatures are ideally between the 50s and 60s, so those crops will continue thriving. Many of them can survive temperatures as low as 20 to 30 degrees Fahrenheit as well. You don’t have to worry so much about the cooler temperatures; you just want to make sure it’s not getting too warm.

Get Your Free Planting Schedule

I have a free vegetable planting schedule you can download that lists all of your cool and warm season crops, as well as the recommended planting times. 

Even if you’re not interested at this time in joining the Zone 9 Garden Club, definitely get your free vegetable planting schedule because it is going to set you up for success year-round. It lists all the crops and the basic info you need for a thriving garden year-round.

How We Can Grow Cool and Warm Season Crops Simultaneously

What’s cool is that we can be growing cool-season crops and warm-season crops kind of simultaneously, especially in the fall. So once the weather starts to cool off, we’re still going to have warm-season crops in the ground that are growing from summer. 

If you don’t have space, you may have to rip those crops out, and sometimes that can be discouraging, but you have to think ahead.

What do you want more? Do you want cool-season crops to be in the ground to start growing? Or do you want to continue harvesting more from your current warm-season crops?

Or if you have the space you can let them both keep growing. So it doesn’t have to be one or the other, but it might have to be if you don’t have room.

Crops That Grow Great All Winter Long

Once September rolls around it will be time to start preparing for fall planting. But if I still have squash and tomatoes thriving, I will have to make the choice. Or look and see if I have room for both.

For example, in my garden, I have room for both with many crops. There are lots of crops that I’ll keep in the ground, and I’m going to let them keep growing. Then I’m going to clear out other raised beds and plant my fall garden.

But for many things, especially those that are quick to mature, like lettuce, radishes, and beets, I’ll get a harvest before winter comes. 

There are other things that take longer to mature, like cabbage, cauliflower, and broccoli. Sometimes, I get a harvest before January; other times, the growth is just slow. The plants are kind of stagnant, and they just kind of sit in the garden. They don’t die; they’re just not really maturing. 

Then, as the weather starts changing in late winter, those crops finish developing. You don’t have to worry about them over the winter. If you expect a really hard freeze, you can protect your crops with frost cloth. That will ensure that they don’t get damaged by the frost. But for the most part, I don’t really do anything to the plants over the winter. 

There are some crops that you’ll just be able to continue getting harvest from all throughout the winter. For example, lots of loose-leaf lettuces, cilantro, parsley, and various herbs that are very cold tolerant.

This last year, I planted my cilantro in October. And I never quit harvesting until about mid-February. We had a few warm days and the cilantro started to bolt and head to seed. But before that, I had a nonstop harvests from just a few plants all the way from October to February.

Summary

• Intro to gardening in California
• How growing in CA is different from other states
• Start adding more variety to your garden
• What’s growing in my garden
• Why it’s beneficial to have a diverse mix of plants
• An overview of the entire growing season in CA
• When I plant my summer garden
• When I plant our winter garden
• Cool vs warm season crop growing conditions
• How to time your plantings
• Two important things to learn when gardening
• How we can grow cool and warm-season crops simultaneously
• Crops that grow great all winter long

If You’re Listening in Real-Time

A lot of gardeners in areas with harsh winters don’t have the possibility of growing anything during those months unless they have a really large greenhouse or they bring things indoors. But for us, we can grow things outdoors; we don’t have to have a large greenhouse or a high tunnel; we can just grow outdoors. 

You can alter the way things grow with those different things, you know, high tunnels and greenhouses, and set up frost cloth and structures like that. But for the most part, we can have success without those things, which is really cool.

Basically, right now, if you’re listening in real-time, your summer garden is starting to take off or may be in full production. 

If you are in mid-June and haven’t planted yet, Go ahead and get your warm-season crops in the ground. We have such a long season left of hot months ahead of us; you have plenty of time to keep on growing. 

As August starts approaching, start planning out what you want to plant in your fall garden, including all the cool-season crops that you love, whether it be lettuce or spinach, broccoli, cauliflower, or all those things. 

Start planning ahead to figure out what you want to grow. And don’t wait until spring to plant like many other areas do, get those cool season crops planted in the fall.

I hope this was helpful!

Learn more in our related blog post here, Best Tips for Zone 9 California Gardening!

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Podcast Episode Resources and Links Mentioned

• Zone 9 Garden Club – Start your 14-day free trial.
• Free Vegetable Planting Schedule

Tips for Year-Round Success in Your Zone 9 California Garden