This Week in the Garden 6.16

     
  I’m beginning to think of Los Angeles’ weather in two halves–a colder, wetter season from January through mid-July, and a warmer, parchingly dry season that runs from August through December.  I’m always surprised when a pumpkin grows wide and heavy by early June, and then the vine dies away in July, but when I think about our growing term as starting in winter and then fading in the second half of the calendar year it doesn’t seem so odd.  In Southern California I used to hear that you should start squash in May, but this successful pumpkin started itself in February.  May, increasingly, seems too late.  Holding off on planting during the very dry season, and then returning to plant in October/November may be my new climate change strategy for maximizing production without excessive water waste.