Next year's gardening plan

Ate all the scallions and the last of the spinach this morning. The frost has arrived and they wouldn't have grown any more, as far as I could tell.

Speaking of frost, some of my succulents are struggling with it. I made a tiny greenhouse out of a translucent plastic tub for this one and a couple of other small guys. Crossing my fingers for them.

The pea plants should survive the winter fine and start growing pods next year. The parsley and dill should also survive, though I have been wittling them down stem by stem. Yum!

I spent yesterday planning my garden for next year. It was my first time making a formal plan, yet it was easier than I'd expected because my picky eating limits the variety of plants I want to grow, and I have even fewer containers to house them all. (I'm growing solely in containers because the soil here is poor and compacted, and I don't know when I'll move and would be sad to leave my plants behind.)

I live in USDA zone 9b. The first frost date is roughly December 15th (though it came a week early this year), and the last is about February 15th. This means that I have a very short winter to deal with and will be able to resume vegetable gardening in just a couple of months!

I am setting aside my largest container for a good crop of scallions, with successions planted every two weeks. I adore scallions, and even with the largest tub devoted to them, I know that I'll still be buying more from the store.

The rest of the containers are much smaller. The one that was sharing space between spinach and scallions will be in partial shade and grow successions of spinach only (seeds planted every 2 weeks in the spring and fall, since summer will be too hot). I will retry a couple of cucumber starts in the round pots. The dill and parsley and pea plants will be replanted in the same pots as needed.

I would like to add carrots, radishes, and potatoes to my garden, but I need more containers for them. (In particular, deep containers for the carrots and potatoes.) I'm in a serious money crunch right now and can't afford to buy more.

On the bright side, I found a giant plastic tub abandoned in a park and it will be a perfect new home for many of my succulents in small individual pots. That will make it easier to water them and move them when I eventually move to a new place. Plus, many of them are currently living in soil that's 1-2 years old and they need a nutrient boost. I'll do this transplanting next time there's a warm afternoon...