I have been amazed at how well the super hot peppers are doing in the post-monsoon weather. Both in partial shade and in full sun they look like tended houseplants. When I plant for next year we will be sure to nurse these through the hard part of the summer so they'll be here in the Fall. Same for (Park's Contender) zucchini. Bullet proof and bug proof, just plant two-seeds-thinned-to-one every two weeks for nine months!

Both those are still "summer" plants, but we're planting three lettuces and two types of spinach to see what we can nurse into winter. Those and a tall Sugar Snap pea.

At least now we don't have to hide from the Sun.

Bok choy is really easy to grow, lettuces (Vilardi Gardens at the Roadrunner farmer's market has lots of nice starts. You can sprinkle in some seed so you'll have a rotation going), peas, radishes, carrots, beets (for the root and the leaves). Actually, I'll just link you to another site with a couple of great lists going. Onions!! plant some bulb onions soon.

Here is a link that might be useful: November Planting Tips

I grow a LOT of leaf lettuce in autumn, winter and spring. It's easy and it's something I actually use, plus if you do leaf lettuce instead of head lettuce there's no rush/deadline to harvest, hah. I plant some from seed and buy occasional transplants too. Another favorite of mine is Swiss Chard. So pretty, and so delicious. Like others have mentioned, some of the hot peppers do really well in autumn.

I keep trying zucchini from seed but I think I get it in just a bit late, it's always a race between fruit and mildew, hah. Leaf lettuce and swiss chard have been my easiest, most abundant autumn crops.

Let us know what you plant and how it works out. Happy gardening!

Grant

"it's always a race between fruit and mildew, hah."

Bigtime. It hits this zucchini late so succession planting works in this little pocket of dirt. This plant is still producing. Go figure.

I know what you mean about the peppers. I have 4 kinds that i thought were going to die in the summer that took off when it cooled down. Now I have lots of peppers and my tomatoes are also covered in fruit.

I picked up some bok choy to try.

The Swiss chard is planted as well as lots of various lettuces, various greens, sugar snap peas, carrots, turnips, broccoli, radishes, rat tail radishes, beets, Brussel sprouts, kale, kohlrabi, scorzonera, amaranth and artichokes.

I was going to order garlic but it seems to be out at a lot of the nurseries and seed catalogs so I bought garlic from the supermarket. Has anyone grown garlic like this before?
I won't get the variety but at least it's something.

Mary, where do you find bulb onions now? I haven't seen any. I would like the sweet type for the southern states like granex etc. I have seeds but they take forever.

Thanks everyone for your replies :)

Dixondale Farms for the onions. They just started taking orders. You've missed the window on planting garlic for this season. Absolute last day was Oct 30. If you want to try it anyway, I've had success with the garlic from CostCo. I have some notes about it from someone, brb........

Here's my notes, as I said, you've missed giving them a month or more in the fridge for chill hours. Planting individual cloves is a lot of work so you may just want to mark your calendar for next year and save yourself the heartache of a lot of work for a failed crop. ::

Dylan: who I bought the nice, fat heads from:

He purchased fresh garlic at either Trader JoeâÂÂs or CostCo. Comes in a 2.5# mesh bag, company is The Garlic Company.

Most garlic grown in China will have a flat base and the roots shaved off. It will also generally be very white with no color differences like purple or brown. California garlic will generally have roots still on the bottom and might occasionally have tinges of purple.

I chose the largest cloves to plant, planted on October 15th, they got decent sun exposure from OCT-NOV...DEC-FEB a tree actually shaded them for a number of hours a day but then MARCH-MAY they got full sun. I planted them in 2 different kinds of soil with basically equal results...1/2 in beds of 50/50 mix of topsoil and compost and 1/2 in beds of 50/50 mix of native clay/compost. The topsoil beds performed slightly better but they also got more sun so I can't say what the main factor was. I also fertilized twice with organic 5-2-2. Once at planting time, once in January.

Now, what I think is a huge reason for such a good harvest was the fact that i bought the garlic 4 weeks prior to planting and placed it in the fridge at 42 degrees. Garlic like all bulbs, has a chill requirement which encourages growth and bulbing..sometimes our winters are so mild our soil doesn't provide those temps.

I pretty much always plant spinach in the fall. It does so well here. It will bolt pretty quick in the spring if you keep it in a lot of sun though. I find that it doesn't need much sun here and the ones that are in more shade seem to get bigger. Also, there are different varieties that bolt slower.