We’re finally getting the last of the rainy season and the colder lows are hovering around the mid-40s, which means its finally time to start planting here in Southern California!  Over the weekend, we put in 9 tomato plants (with space for more!), three zucchini plants (although we agreed to only do two… oops!), and 11 cucumber plants that we started from seed about a month ago.  We also have tons of pepper plants that will be ready to go in soon, and will be starting a few new tomato plants and our winter squash seeds later today.  We have ordered our potatoes as well, so we’ll be putting those in when they arrive in early April!

We learned last year that our little Santa Barbara plot thrived during the spring months, then had a period of dying out around July.  Last year, we had a beautiful, sunny, hot spring which led to tremendous growth, and we’re hoping that trend continues this year as well.  Our tomatoes thrived all the way through October or November of last year, so we’re hoping to get a good, long growing season this year by starting everything earlier. 

In terms of our winter garden, we are currently harvesting a few lettuces, and will have a ton of fava beans coming in soon.  We had a pretty successful run of snap peas that we planted a couple of months ago, and our onion/garlic bed is coming along nicely.  We’ll need these beds for more summer plants soon, which makes me even more excited for our harvests!

Pictures below of our planting spree from the weekend, and I’ll post updates for how things are going throughout the season!  If you live in the Southern California area and are just starting your garden, feel free to grow along with us and see how you do!

Happy gardening, friends!

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