Bay Area gardening: Time to plant cool season crops

There’s no denying it now. Fall is on its way, meaning it’s time to bid farewell to our summer gardens and start planting cool weather crops.

Janet Miller, manager of Our Garden, the Contra Costa Master Gardeners and Bay Area News Groups’ demonstration garden, offers her expert advice on what to plant now, later and even into next year.

• Before planting anything, Miller says, prepare your beds. She recommends cutting down your summer plants at the base, leaving the root bulb and roots in the ground. Chop the other material into small pieces and scatter them over the bed to compost in place. Loosen the soil down to 12 or 18 inches with a broad fork or garden fork, then top with a layer of fresh soil or compost.
• There are two planting seasons in the fall and winter: now through October and sometimes into November, and again in February through the end of April. December and January are too cold and wet to worry about planting.

You’ll need to make room for your cool season crops, but that doesn’t mean you need to pull out your warm season crops all at once. Here’s a guide for what to do when:

• August-September: Remove squash and beans; plant broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, kale and chard seedlings. Sow peas, beets and carrots from seed.
• September-October: Remove eggplant and peppers; plant leafy greens such as lettuce, arugula, spinach, radishes, bok choy, garlic and leeks.

• October-November: Remove tomatoes; plant cover crops such as fava beans, cow peas, field peas and phacelia. It’s important that you don’t leave beds empty. A lot of microbial life is in the soil and it needs the plants to survive and make your beds more fertile for next garden season.
• November-December: Remove spent broccoli and cauliflower; plant fava beans
• Late February-March: Harvest cover crops, compost in place; plant onions and another round of broccoli, cauliflower, kale, chard, carrots, beets, lettuce and arugula.