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Vegetables & Herbs

Draw up a layout for your vegetable garden keeping the sun’s pattern in mind. If the ground is flat, run rows north-south. Regardless, place taller plants on the north end so that they don’t shade out shorter ones (lettuces and other leafy greens may appreciate some afternoon shade). See Vegetables / Prep for detailed instructions.

Consider potential soil contaminants in the area chosen for your garden, as well as for additions like compost and manure. Composted municipal yard waste often contains heavy metals and other contaminants and recently, herbicide carryover in compost, manure and some materials commonly used to mulch vegetable gardens has become a problem.

• Minimizing Risks of Soil Contaminants in Urban Gardens
• Herbicide Carryover in Hay, Manure, Compost, and Grass Clippings
• Certified Compost

Planting

You can direct-seed many cool-season vegetables. See Chatham’s Growing Small Farms list of recommended varieties.

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 pecan trees at the rate of 4 pounds of 10-10-10 per inch of trunk diameter. Spread the fertilizer under the limbs of the tree to the full extent of the drip line. Fertilize fig trees when the buds swell.
• Spray all fruit trees with dormant oil to help eliminate some insects.