09/02/2026
September in the Western Washington Garden: Spiders, Fall Crops & One Hell of an El Niño. LET'S GET DOWN TO WORK!
September has arrived, which means Western Washington gardeners have entered that weird little overlap where it's definitely becoming fall, the tomatoes are taking their sweet-ass time to ripen, zucchini are continuing to threaten my HOA, and every path through the garden is a spider obstacle course.
If you're like me, short, you'll be fine if you send a tall person out in front of you. Let them walk face-first into a web, throw both arms into the air, spin around several times to escape, slap themselves repeatedly to extricate the spiders in their hair while losing their remaining dignity in front of the neighbors.
But September 2026 has something else worth talking about, because what is happening thousands of miles away in the tropical Pacific could have some very real consequences for our gardens here in Western Washington.
# # 🌊 El Niño Has Entered the Chat
You may have already heard people throwing around the term **“Super El Niño.”**
That's not an official scientific classification, but this isn't just weather-internet hysteria, either.
As of NOAA's August update, **El Niño is strengthening and there is greater than a 90% chance it becomes a very strong El Niño during fall and winter 2026–27.**
Even more remarkable: NOAA currently gives the October–December period a **69% chance of reaching a level that would exceed previous El Niño events in the historical record going back to 1950.**
That forecast will continue changing as new observations come in, so don't tattoo it on your arm just yet.
But this is absolutely something Western Washington gardeners should be paying attention to. Keep on reading dear growers, I have tips, tricks and hacks for what comes next.
# # # So what the hell does El Niño actually mean for us?
El Niño changes large-scale atmospheric circulation across the Pacific.
Historically, El Niño tends to tilt the Pacific Northwest toward **warmer and often drier winter conditions**.
Notice the words *tends to.*
This is climate, similar to negotiating with a two year old terrorist, you can't win unless you're prepared.
It doesn't mean every day will be warm.
It doesn't mean it won't rain.
It definitely doesn't mean we can't have freezes, snow, windstorms or an atmospheric river dropping an entire ocean onto the yard over a weekend.
It changes the **odds**.
And gardening is basically one giant exercise in playing the odds.
# # 🌱 Why Gardeners Should Care NOW
What happens this winter affects what happens next spring and summer.
One of our biggest concerns isn't necessarily whether rain falls on your garden in December.
It's **snowpack**.
Our mountains are giant seasonal water-storage systems. Snow accumulates during winter and slowly melts through spring and summer, feeding streams, reservoirs and watersheds when rainfall becomes scarce.
A warmer winter can mean more precipitation falling as **rain instead of snow**, particularly at lower and middle elevations.
So even if winter doesn't feel particularly “dry,” reduced snowpack or earlier snowmelt can contribute to water problems later.
And Western Washington gardeners already learned this lesson recently:
**Cool weather does not automatically mean wet soil.**
If you haven't considered rain catchment, this is a perfect year to incorporate that to support next year's efforts.
We can have gray skies, chilly mornings and months where everything looks damp while receiving almost zero measurable/ useful rain.
Then add our spring winds. Trees will fall. You will lose power. The pages will keep you informed of places affected most.
# # 💧 Your 2027 Garden Starts This Fall
If this El Niño behaves anything like the historical pattern, I would prepare my garden for the possibility of a **warmer winter, earlier spring development and greater moisture stress heading toward summer.**
Western Washington tends to stay slightly below average temps during these oscillations while the rest of the country struggles with massive flooding, mud slides, and big temperature swings. We tend to have it easy, lacking all of the extremes that happen globally.
DO Not Panic. The news makes it sound scary and it is, just not so much here.
**Prepare.**
Those are very different things.
# # # MULCH. MULCH. MULCH.
Yes, I'm yelling.
Bare soil isn't doing you favors. If you have bare soil exposed, plant radish, carrots, beets, celery, parsley, dill, cilantro, lettuces, kale, cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower. If you don't plant food on exposed soil, expect to remove w**ds from it constantly.
Cover your beds with:
🍂 Fallen leaves
🌲 Arborist wood chips
🌱 Grass clippings
♻️ Compost
🌾 Clean straw
🍃 Chopped garden debris where appropriate
Mulch reduces ev***ration, buffers soil temperatures, feeds soil organisms and protects soil structure from our winter rains.
You aren't just putting your garden to bed.
You're building its **water-storage system for next year.**
# # 🌧️ But Don't Forget Drainage
You can prepare for drought **and flooding at the same time.**
Even individual storms can dump enormous amounts of water.
Before winter:
Clear drainage channels.
Make sure raised beds aren't sitting in standing water.
Redirect downspouts appropriately.
Check low spots where water collects. Add lots of mulch to puddling areas, consider planting for a rain garden with willow, lupine,
Don't fight the puddle, plant the puddle!
For the wettest center where water actually stands, I love slough sedge (Carex obnupta), small-fruited bulrush, common rush (Juncus patens), Douglas iris, and Pacific waterleaf. These can tolerate the periodically saturated conditions that make a lot of conventional landscaping plants miserable.
For the edges that get soggy but aren't continuously underwater, you've got even more options: red-osier dogwood, Pacific ninebark, Douglas spirea, salmonberry, osoberry, western sword fern, lady fern, fringecup, goatsbeard, camas and checkermallow. Red-osier dogwood is especially useful if you want something that gives you winter structure and color instead of having the wet spot look abandoned from November through February.
For a food garden, I'd also consider elderberry, currants and some berry species around the higher margins, rather than putting annual vegetables directly into the puddling zone. I'd keep blueberries on the edge rather than in standing water—they appreciate moisture and acidic soil but don't want chronically oxygen-starved roots.
Keep mulch away from the crowns and trunks of plants prone to rot.
Improve compacted soil with organic matter rather than repeatedly tilling it.
If you've been thinking about adding rain barrels or another legal rainwater-storage system, this is a fantastic time to start planning.
**Capture winter water when we have it. Use it when we don't.**
# # 🍅 What Could This Mean for Specific Crops?
This is where things get interesting for NEXT YEAR'S GARDEN PLANNING.
A warmer growing season isn't automatically a better growing season.
Every plant has preferences.
# # # 🍅 Tomatoes
Tomatoes could be one of our winners **if** we get an earlier warm spring and sufficiently warm summer.
More heat can mean:
• Faster growth
• Earlier fruit set
• Better ripening of larger varieties
• A longer harvest window
That's especially exciting in Western Washington, where every gardener has stared at hundreds of green tomatoes in September and attempted to ripen them through sheer force. The easier trick is to stop watering them to encourage ripening.
WATER DEMANDS & STRATEGIES
Heat increases water demand.
Irregular watering also increases problems like cracking and blossom-end rot.
**2027 strategy:** mulch deeply, water consistently and consider drip/soaker irrigation rather than frequent shallow watering.
# # # 🌶️ Peppers & Eggplants
These heat-loving queens may finally receive the climate they deserve in 2027.
A warmer spring and summer could improve establishment, flowering and ripening.
But don't confuse a warm winter with an early planting date.
**Our soils will still be cold in spring.**
Putting peppers into 48-degree mud because we had three gorgeous days in April remains an excellent way to make a pepper plant sit there begging for a trip to the compost pile.
# # # 🌽 Corn
Corn loves warmth.
It also loves **water**.
A warmer growing season could be fantastic for corn development, particularly varieties that sometimes struggle to mature here. Look for varieties like EARLY SUNGLOW & YUKON CHIEF; you can plant the seeds as early as April!
But drought during tasseling, silking and kernel development can hammer yields.
If next summer becomes dry, corn should be one of the crops receiving priority irrigation during reproduction.
# # # 🥒 Cucumbers
Potential winner—with an asterisk.
Warm soil and warm weather make cucumbers very happy.
Hot, dry soil does not.
Mulch them.
Water deeply.
Consistent moisture becomes especially important while they're producing heavily.
# # # 🎃 Squash & Pumpkins
Potentially another big winner.
Longer warmth can give winter squash more time to mature and cure properly.
But giant squash leaves are basically solar-powered water pumps.
Expect substantially greater water demand during hot, windy stretches.
And remember that powdery mildew doesn't need permission from El Niño. With powdery mildew your best bet for management is to prune affected foliage. Don't come at me for telling you to compost it, powdery mildew is in our soil, it's not going away. Just compost the damn thing. It won't harm the food, just the leaves get blocked from photosynthesizing.
September will still September.
# # # 🫘 Beans
Warm conditions can extend production, but extreme heat during flowering can reduce pod set.
For dry beans and seed saving, however, a longer dry finish to summer can be extremely useful.
Those crispy brown pods that look like **garden garbage**?
Perfect.
That's exactly what we're waiting for.
# # # 🥬 Lettuce, Spinach & Peas, Ideal for planting now but if 2027 is a warm one....
Here are some potential losers.
Cool-season crops don't necessarily appreciate our increasingly enthusiastic summers.
Heat can cause:
• Bolting
• Bitter lettuce
• Poor pea flowering
• Faster drying
• Reduced germination
If warm springs become our reality, succession planting and shade become increasingly valuable.
Plant earlier, plant again later, and use taller crops to create afternoon shade. Example, if you're planting tomatoes, add in leafy greens and root veggies to fill in the empty spaces that get filled in by the tomato foliage. You're going to trim away the extra to increase air flow anyway so why not take advantage of that space.
# # # 🥦 Broccoli, Cabbage, Kale & Other Brassicas
These are another reason not to interpret “warmer” as universally “better.”
Brassicas generally prefer cool growing conditions. They thrive in temps of 45-55 degrees, above that and they tend to bolt, flower, and go to seed. But that's ok because all of that is still edible food! Eat it anyway.
Warm weather can encourage bolting and increase pest pressure.
But our long fall can also be an advantage.
**Fall and overwintering brassicas will become increasingly important crops for Western Washington food gardens and our cooler than average temps will help them thrive.**
# # # 🧄 Garlic
Still plant it.
Seriously.
Last possible day to plant garlic for a 2027 harvest is HALLOWEEN.
If you accomplish absolutely nothing else this fall:
**PUT GARLIC IN THE GROUND.**
Garlic benefits from establishing roots before winter and still needs its period of cold exposure.
A warmer winter doesn't mean our climate suddenly becomes Florida. Because we aren't warmer, we're slightly cooler than average unlike the rest of the world.
Garlic remains one of the easiest, most reliable and most space-efficient crops we can grow.
# # 🌱 September: Last Call for Fall Food
Right now, there is still time for quick-growing and overwintering crops.
Depending on variety and your exact microclimate, consider:
🥬 Lettuce and other leafy greens
🌱 Spinach
🥕 Radishes
🥕 Fast carrots
Turnips
🌱 Peas
🥬 Asian greens
🌿 Cilantro
🧅 Green onions
🥬 Chard
But September daylight is disappearing quickly.
That's the part people forget.
Temperature isn't the only clock controlling plant growth.
**Light is.** We are losing an additional 2 minutes of light every single day until the Winter Solstice.
By October, our days are dramatically shorter and growth slows even when temperatures remain relatively mild.
So we're approaching the final boarding call.
If you want food growing this fall, **plant it now.**
# # 🥕 KEEP HARVESTING
Don't evict summer just because the pumpkin-spice-industrial complex says it's fall.
Keep picking:
🍅 Tomatoes
🥒 Cucumbers
🫘 Beans
🥒 Zucchini
🌶️ Peppers
🌽 Corn
🫐 Late berries
🌿 Herbs
Picking beans, cucumbers and zucchini encourages continued production while the plants still have enough warmth and daylight to keep going.
Winter squash is different.
Let those babies mature.
You want stems becoming corky and skins hardening enough that a fingernail doesn't easily puncture them.
# # ✂️ Give Tomatoes & Squash a September Haircut
At this point in the season, we're no longer trying to build enormous plants.
We're trying to **finish food.**
Remove yellowing and diseased tomato leaves.
Thin excessive foliage to improve airflow and allow light around ripening fruit.
Remove new tomato flowers if your plants are loaded with green fruit—September flowers aren't likely to become ripe tomatoes before cold weather arrives.
Tell the plant:
**Finish your homework.**
Squash gets similar treatment.
Remove dead, badly damaged or heavily diseased leaves.
But don't scalp the plant.
Healthy leaves are still the solar panels feeding those squash.
# # 🧹 CLEAN UP—BUT DON'T SANITIZE NATURE OUT OF YOUR GARDEN
This is where my advice differs from some traditional garden cleanup lists because while there are many ways to manage a growing space, my way takes WAY less effort and expense.
Your garden doesn't need to look like an operating room.
Leave healthy roots in the ground whenever practical. I'll cut the corn stalks, the sunflowers, the tomatoes, squash and beans to the ground while leaving the roots in the soil to add nutrients for next year.
Leave some hollow stems and seed heads for overwintering insects and birds. I leave behind dahlia stems, sunflower stalks, basically anything with a hollow like stem.
Let leaves become habitat.
Compost healthy plant material.
But remove plants heavily affected by disease like blight when appropriate so you're not deliberately carrying problems into next season.
We're trying to create an **ecosystem**, not an outdoor living room.
Messy has ecological value.
# # 🥊 SEPTEMBER W**D GLADIATOR SEASON
Now is an excellent time to go after:
Creeping buttercup.
Bindw**d.
Thistle.
Himalayan Blackberry volunteers.
If it offended you this year take one 12"x12" section and remove what bugs you. If you still have the energy and desire, take on another section. You don't need to burn yourself out.
Don't let perennial w**ds quietly establish giant root systems while you're distracted by tomatoes. Creeping buttercup tends to my personal nemesis but bind w**d is a real burden for many.
Future You does not want to fight Bigger Bindw**d in April.
Future You has enough problems. Pull it as you see it, colder months are great to slow down their growth and show you where the roots are when foliage grows slowly or falls away.
# # 🕷️ THE MOST IMPORTANT SEPTEMBER GARDEN PREPARATION:
# # # Spider Defense.
Your options include:
**1. Carry a stick.**
Hold it in front of you like a lightsaber.
You will look ridiculous.
This is irrelevant.
**2. Make a tall friend walk ahead of you.**
My personal strategy.
I'm short.
Nearly everyone I know is taller than me.
I invite people over frequently.
Coincidence?
You decide.
**3. Develop the Spider-Web Flail™.**
Once contact occurs:
Wave arms violently.
Slap hair.
Slap face.
Spin.
Remove imaginary spiders from clothing.
Continue feeling phantom webs for approximately 24 hours.
The actual spider left eleven minutes ago, however, your nervous system has not received this information and likely never will.
# # 🌎 The Bigger Picture
The possibility of an exceptionally strong El Niño is another reminder that gardening in Western Washington is changing.
That doesn't mean we can't grow food. It means we can grow more food than anyone else in warmer climates.
It means **resilience matters more than ever.**
Build organic matter.
Protect your soil.
Capture water.
Improve drainage.
Grow several varieties instead of betting everything on one.
Plant cool-season crops AND heat lovers.
Learn your microclimates.
Save seed from plants that perform particularly well in your garden.
Plant flowers for beneficial insects.
Create shade.
Create wind protection.
Grow vertically where space is limited.
And stop thinking of the garden as something that resets every spring.
**September isn't the end of this year's garden.**
It's the beginning of next year's.
The leaves you spread now become soil.
The water you capture becomes irrigation.
The garlic you plant becomes July's harvest.
The roots you leave become organic matter.
The seeds you save become next year's food.
And the things we learn from one strange growing season make us much better prepared for the next strange growing season.
Because if gardening teaches us anything, it's that we don't control the weather or really anything at all.
INSTEAD:
**We build systems that can roll with whatever ridiculous s**t the weather decides to do.**
Happy September. Dammit.
**Keep harvesting. Plant the garlic. Mulch your damn soil. And send the tall friend through the garden first.**
~Terry
**Down To Earth Community Gardens**
