Goto Nursery promotes the idea of planting tomatoes!!! in late summer. Steve Goto goes around to lots of nurseries -- even here in Northern Calif., zone 15-17 -- and promotes short-season tomatoes he sells along with selected soil additives. Since we usually have a frost in early Dec., I haven't planted a new crop that late, but since you'll be starting anew that might be something exciting to try. I've seen articles on the web with more info.

Good winter crops here, in zones 15-17, are all the broccoli family (broccoli, kale, collards, radishes, mustard, kohlrabi, broccoli raab, etc.), greens (which prefer cooler weather or shade), carrots, beets, mache, onions, celery. Sometimes I plant peas in the fall (by Oct., here), but I need to keep them protected with row cover all winter or else the birds will eat them to bare stems (they did one year when I uncovered them too early). But I haven't gotten earlier crops than those planted in Feb. Garlic is easy and can be planted anytime in the fall, I usually wait until I've cleared out the tomatoes in December. I just got organic garlic from the farmers' market the first time I planted. I've also planted interesting varieties of potatoes from tiny farmers' market varieties, and yesterday harvested my first fingerlings! Celery is fun to grow, and I like harvesting a stalk now and then, but it tends to bolt all of a sudden for me, so it's not so useful. I planted walla walla onions from nursery starts in January and harvested a great crop in the past month -- one was huge! (I baked them, they were so sweet it was like eating a crunchy dessert.)

You probably know about the Sunset Garden Book -- if not, it's the one book you need. I don't have the latest version, so the format may have changed, but in the previous edition, there's a planting guide for vegs in the back, page 716-717, which is about as reliable as any other source I've found, excepting of course local experience.

Also, you are in prime grape growing country and late fall is a good time to plant them (although you may want to take your time to choose a variety).

I rarely bother to grow crops like broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, lettuce and other cool weather crops at any time but winter - it helps me avoid the aphids and keeps the crop from bolting. I also had good beet and potato harvests from planting in November. Artichokes can go in the ground in fall as well for a spring crop.

This month-by-month link is for San Diego, but I find it useful for LA and it's at least a good place to start for Santa Ynez.

Here is a link that might be useful: digitalseed

Thank you both for your replies. I've got a good idea now of what and when to plant. I'm very excited about our move, we are going to an absolutely bare plot of ground, and it will take awhile to get the hardscaping and landscaping in, but at the very least I will find a spot for some vegetables and a few annual flowers ASAP.

habitat gardener - interesting about the tomatoes. Aren't zones 15-17 a little warmer in the winter than 14? I need to dig out my Sunset Garden book, which I think I already packed, and look that up as well as the table in the back that you mention.

dicot - that's a great link, thank you! I assume it's for frostfree areas, since it's out of San Diego, but I can tailor it to my zone. I do want to grow grapes of some sort, but that comes after the garden gets planned!