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What to Sow in San Francisco in July

It's July, but the fog says otherwise. This is the month to start your fall and winter garden, and the month the fog belt gets a seven-crop head start on the rest of the city.

The SF Garden Guide·Updated August 5, 2026·10 min read

July is the month San Francisco gardeners most often waste. Everywhere else it's peak summer and the beds are coasting; here it's frequently the coldest, grayest stretch of the year, which makes it one of the most useful sowing months on the calendar. But what to sow in San Francisco in July depends on which side of the fog line your beds sit on. Fifteen crops are a July sowing anywhere in the city, and seven more go in on the foggy side while the sunny side waits a month.

Which side you're on

The Master Gardener planting calendar for this city comes in two editions, one for foggy ground and one for sunny, and July is a month where that split does real work. Broadly: the Sunset, the Richmond, Daly City and Pacifica are the foggy side; the Mission, SoMa, Bernal Heights and Potrero are the sunny one.

If you're not certain, or you're in the middle band around Glen Park and the Haight, work out your microclimate first. Everything below is split where the two editions genuinely disagree and left whole where they don't.

Sow these in July

Fifteen crops are a July sowing wherever you garden in the city. No microclimate asterisk needed.

Broccoli is the anchor. It's the brassica both editions agree on this month, and at 60 to 100 days a July transplant is heading in October. Start it in a cell tray rather than the bed, and cut the main head while it's still firm, before the buds open: the plant keeps throwing side sprouts for weeks afterward. Cabbage and Brussels sprouts go in the same way and take longer still, which is why they're a July job rather than a September one.

Beets and chard are the same species wearing different jobs, and July suits both because the fog holds soil moisture steady. Chard is the long play: at 60 to 80 days it's cutting by late September, and if you take the outer leaves above the growing point instead of pulling the plant, it keeps producing through winter and into next spring. Lettuce and spinach are year-round crops here, but July is the month they're least likely to bolt. Turnips and radishes are the impatient options at 30 and 20 days minimum, useful for filling gaps while the slower brassicas size up.

Bush beans and early corn are the surprise on the list, because July is the last month for both on the foggy side as well as the sunny one. Along with beets, spinach and kohlrabi they carry a half-month footnote rather than a split: beans and corn want the first two weeks of July in the fog and all of it in the sun, while beets, spinach and kohlrabi run the opposite way, all month in the fog and the back half in the sun.

Where the sides split

Seven crops part company this month, and they all part company the same way: each is a July sowing on the foggy side and a wait on the sunny side. Nothing runs in the other direction. That isn't the sunny side losing out so much as running on a different clock, which the next section gets to.

Peas are the widest gap of the group. A foggy block can seed them February through November, so July is unremarkable there; a sunny block gets February, then nothing until August, because summer warmth is what costs a pea its pods. The full pea guide covers the sowing and the trellis question.

Cauliflower is the slowest brassica in the city at 80 to 110 days, and that's exactly why the foggy side starts it in July rather than August: set out this month, it curds in late October, about as late as you want to ask a cauliflower to finish. Kale is quicker at 65 to 75 days and will feed you all winter once established. Celery wants the longest run of anything here, 90 days at the low end and up to 170, so a July transplant on a foggy block is really a late-winter harvest.

Carrots are the one most people misjudge, in two ways. The fog earns its keep first, because carrot seed has to stay consistently damp until it sprouts, which is far less work in a gray July than a bright one. Then there's the wait: at 120 to 150 days, a carrot sown now is a winter harvest rather than a fall one. Favas are the same shape, four to five months in the ground, sown now in the fog and held until September in the sun.

The warm-season question

Here is where advice written for this city most often goes wrong. "Skip the warm-season crops, the fog won't give them the heat they need" is sound counsel in the Sunset and simply false in the Mission. The sunny side of San Francisco has a workable, if short, warm season for tomatoes, peppers, squash and corn. Telling half the city to give up on it is bad advice dressed as local knowledge.

The catch is that the warm season is an April-through-June affair, so what's true in July is about the calendar rather than the climate. Tomatoes go out in April, with May added on a sunny block. Peppers go out in May and June. Summer squash and cucumbers run March through June. By July all of those windows have closed on both sides of the hill, and a plant set out now runs out of season before it can flower, set fruit and ripen. That's a missed window, not a verdict on your block: if you're on the sunny side, put April in the calendar for next year rather than writing the category off.

Two warm-season crops are still in play, and they're the same two wherever you are. Bush beans go in at 48 to 70 days, early corn at 65 to 100. On a foggy block both want the first two weeks of the month; on a sunny one you have all of July. That's the honest sunny-side answer for this month: not much heat-loving left to sow, but a real season behind you and another ahead.

And on the foggy side the honest version of the old advice still holds. A tomato out there often stays green into the fall, and that isn't your soil or your watering. It's the marine layer, and the fix is to grow what the fog is good at.

What July sets up

Nothing sown this month is for eating this month, and that's the whole point of it. A July bed is the one that produces through August and September, and the slower crops in it keep going well past that: broccoli heading in October, Brussels sprouts and parsnips sizing up for the winter, chard that settles in and doesn't stop. The August and September sowings then take over the beds the summer crops have finished with.

Sow nothing in July and the whole sequence loses a link. For the month-by-month picture once you know your side, the planting calendar takes it from there.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is it too late to plant tomatoes in San Francisco in July?

For this season, yes, on both sides of the city. Tomato plants go out in April here, plus May on a sunny block, so a July planting has run out of season before it can ripen anything. The reason differs by block, though: on the sunny side you've missed a real window that comes around again next April, while on a foggy block ripening is the harder problem in any year.

What can I sow in July in the Mission or Bernal Heights?

Broccoli, cabbage, Brussels sprouts, kohlrabi, collards, lettuce, chard, spinach, beets, turnips, radishes, parsnips, potatoes, bush beans and early corn. Hold peas, kale, cauliflower, celery, mustard and carrots until August, and favas until September. The back half of the month suits beets, spinach and kohlrabi best on the sunny side.

Can I direct-sow brassicas in July, or should I use trays?

Trays are safer. Snails and slugs are primarily pests of seedlings, they stay active year-round in mild coastal areas, and they feed hardest at night and on foggy days, which is a fair description of a San Francisco July. Starting broccoli, cauliflower and kale in cell trays and setting them out once established gets them past the stage where a single night does real damage.

Do I really need to know my microclimate to sow in July?

Less than you'd think. Fifteen of the crops here are a July sowing wherever you garden, so a bed of broccoli, cabbage, chard, lettuce and beets is safe without knowing. It matters for the other seven: peas, kale, cauliflower, celery, mustard, carrots or favas sown in a warm Mission July are the sowings most likely to disappoint you, and most of them would rather you waited for August.

Sources: the UC Master Gardeners of San Mateo & San Francisco planting calendars, published separately for foggy and sunny microclimates and the source of every sowing month here; Pam Peirce, Golden Gate Gardening, the book those calendars are adapted from and the origin of the split; the UC Master Gardeners of Sonoma County vegetable planting summary for days to maturity; UC IPM on snails and slugs; and Garden for the Environment on planting in San Francisco's microclimates.