Time to Plant Garlic, Onions, and ... Strawberries

In our Southern California garden, this week (the first week in November) is the time to plant garlic, onions, and strawberries for best results in the spring and summer. (See what else to plant in November.)

These three garden favorites may not seem to go together, but when it comes to planting time, they are a perfect match. We're not talking about companion planting--the idea that some plants do better when planted near certain other plants (Carrots Love Tomatoes: Secrets of Companion Planting for Successful Gardening by Louise Riotte is the book to read if you want to know all about it.). We're talking about timing.

Research and testing at the University of California Agricultural Extension show that "strawberries planted between November 1 and 10 get winter chill at the precise moment in their growing schedule to trigger fruit production rather than foliage" (Pat Welsh's Southern California Gardening: A Month-by-Month Guide, pg. 285).

It doesn't pay to order strawberries from catalogs. Strawberries are a regional crop. Just a few miles north of here, different varieties of strawberries flourish that would languish here and vice versa. Plant runners from your own strawberry patch or purchase plants (bare root if possible) that are adapted to your area.  We're planting "Sequoia" this week. The varieties available in local nurseries will be successful in your area.

This is the perfect time to plant onion seeds because onions are sensitive to day length and to temperature--in a word, they are photothermoperiodic. (Your sesquipedalian for today. Unless of course you are hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobic!)

Each variety of onion is stimulated to begin bulb growth and slow top growth when the hours of daylight reach a certain length--a number which varies greatly, depending on the variety. Long-day onions do well in northern latitudes, while short-day onions, do well in the south. According to long-time onion grower Dixondale Farms "The short-day varieties start the bulbing process when daylight length reaches 10-12 hours. They take approximately 110 days to mature in the south and just 75 days in the north. The earlier you plant them, the larger they get, but they won't get very big in the northern states."

We're planting "Yellow Granex" onion seeds this week. Other short-day varieties that do well here in Southern California: "Grano," "Crystal Wax," "Red Creole," and any of the "Texas" varieties. (Check out Burpee's Short-Day Onion Collection .) There are also intermediate day-length onions that if planted here in February will make bulbs in the summer. (Try "San Felipe.")

We're planting lettuce, too!

We're also planting garlic now. Plant individual cloves about 4 inches apart and 2 inches deep with the points upward in soil rich with humus. You can purchase globes of garlic at the nursery or in the produce section of the supermarket.