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Vegetables

Growing Small Farms list of recommended vegetable varieties

• Transplant heat-loving vegetables like eggplant, pepper, tomato, and sweet potato. Plant seeds for beans, lima beans, cantaloupe, corn, cucumbers, okra, southern peas, pumpkin, squash, and watermelon. These need a warm soil temperature (about 70°) to grow. See the chart below for other vegetables.
• Wait until tomatoes have set the first hand of fruit before fertilizing with 10-10-10 or other balanced fertilizer. Repeat in three weeks.
• Spray if insects are observed, or grow under row covers:
  • cucumber: cucumber beetle
  • squash: squash borer, aphids
  • tomato, eggplant: flea beetle
  • broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower: worms

The chart below uses 10-day intervals based on our Orange County frost dates. We use conservative 10% frost date ranges of April 11–20 and October 11–20, meaning that there is only a ten percent likelihood of a later spring frost or earlier fall frost. Planting in the middle of a vegetable’s date range is the most reliable choice.

Fruits

• Fertilize blueberries, blackberries, and grapes.
• Harvest strawberries.
• Continue spraying tree fruits and bunch grapes with a fungicide.