The Fall and Winter Vegetable Garden by Barbara Weiler, Vista Garden Club Although our weather often seems very summer like in September, it is time to start planting the fall and winter vegetable garden. If you still have some summer vegetables that are healthy and producing you can let them grow awhile longer, but if they are starting to show diseases like mildew, verticillium wilt or insect problems like whitefly or aphids, it is better to pull them all out to prevent cross infestation on your new crops. The first thing to do is add compost, worm castings or other organic matter to your soil, and work in some complete organic fertilizer, then water in well. I usually start to do this at the end of August, and then wait a few weeks to plant. Recently, I have started adding humic acid to the soil which is supposed to help create strong roots and abundant crops. Winter crops are my favorite and I have had success planting Swiss chard, kale, radishes, snap peas, snow peas, beets, turnips, kohlrabi, carrots, spinach, scallions parsley, cilantro and both leaf and head lettuce from seed. Plant a variety of red, green or speckled lettuce that will jazz up your winter salads. Some of my favorites are Black Seeded Simpson, Deer Tongue, Red Sails, Blush Batavian and Buttercrunch. I’m going to order Drunken Woman Frizzy Headed lettuce seed because I love the name. Add some interesting radishes like Watermelon, French Breakfast or Crimson Crunch to your garden. They grow very quickly, about 35 days, so I plant a few every other week to get a longer harvest. When planting peas, I coat them with an inoculant which helps the roots take up nitrogen so you don’t need to add nitrogen fertilizer, and I cover them with berry baskets to keep the birds away from the sprouts. Other crops that can go in now are the cole crops; broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cauliflower and cabbage. I have better luck putting these in by transplants, and usually wait until the end of September. I have a lot of problems with aphids on the cole crops and may use the space for spring flowers like sweet peas, Batchelor Buttons, poppies, linaria, snapdragons, larkspur, delphinium and foxgloves. Two of my favorite seed suppliers are renneesgarden.com (888-880-7228) and territorialseed.com (800-626-0866). Get started on your winter garden while the soil is still warm and youwill have a great harvest for months.