About early spring planting

[Valerie in WA]

I know, it's a bit early to be thinking of this, but I'm craving fresh sweet peas and carrots and beans and spinach and lettuce.

Anyway, I've never planted before our 'last frost' date (May 15th) and I think I maybe should, but I'd like a little input from those of you with experience in this area.

I've seen instructions that say "Plant as soon as the soil is workable." What does that mean? Does is mean not frozen? We never get cold enough to freeze the ground after February, nor have I ever seen snow here after mid-March (and even that is rare). Or does 'workable' mean not-completely-sodden-with-winter-rains? Because if I go with that, I can't plant until July 1st!

It also seems that many seed packages offer an optimum soil temperature. Should that be my determination of when to plant (more so than the date on the calendar). Can I measure the temperature with a stem thermometer? What time of day should I check? And how far down? Just as far as the seed will be planted?

TIA to anyone who can explain this to me.

[hollyhill]

Hi Valerie

We live in the same region so I thought I would I jump in with what I do.
Soggy soil is definately a problem here because the seeds rot before they have a chance to sprout, but you can get around that by having raised beds for better drainage. Or just mounding the beds in your garden. I plant all the cool season crops in the beginning of April (some years if we have really nice weather end of March). Cool season veggies are potatoes, peas, lettuce, spinach, greens... The biggest problem is slugs in the early garden.

I also have veggies that grow through the winter in my garden. Corn salad, arugula, parsley, sometimes lettuce, kale are still growing and I can pick them now.
Late Feb. I always get self seeded greens beginning to grow for an early crop of salad greens (YUM). Also, my kale begins to go to flower and sprouting kale is delicious in salads. I pick the tender green kale leaves which grow along the flower stock, and the pretty flowers for a nice touch in may salads.

I also have Jerusalem artichokes to dig all through the winter mmm.

[forestdale]

Valerie, I'm not a cold climate gardener, as you well know, but I thought I'd jump in too. One of the most valuable things I've discovered in my years of gardening is to take little notice of seed packets and gardening books when it comes to climate information. You need to experiment with your conditions, even someone living closeby might have different conditions to yours because each garden is its own microclimate. For instance, if you have a brick wall or fence in your garden it will be a heat bank and protect plants near it from wind. Even shrubs and shed walls provide protection which might be enough of a difference to influence your plants and seeds.

If I were you, I'd plant a few seeds when you think they might sprout to see what happens. Seeds are cheap and it's a good experiment. I'd also be ready with my seedlings - grown indoors - so when the soil is ready, I'd be ready with my already sprouted and growing plants Don't plant carrots or any root vegetables indoors though, they need to be planted directly into the garden bed.

BTW, tomatoes grow much better if they are started of indoors and then potted on until they are fairly large. If you plant them out when they about 15 - 20 cm tall, you can plant more of the stem that you would normally do, this allows many more roots to develop and therefore much more fruit.

[Valerie in WA]

Holly, the cold season vegetables are all things I enjoy growing. As for slugs, the children are helpful at hand-picking them because they like to feed them to the ducks. Alternatively, I could release the ducks into the garden during the day (to hunt slugs), but I would need to find a way to protect the seedlings from nibbling bills. Ducks enjoy greens like lettuce and spinach.

The winter vegetables, I'm not too familiar with (well, except lettuce and parsely - I know what those are!). This winter I have lettuce and spinach (slowly) growing in a cold frame. I planted green onion, but they never sprouted. I LOVE green onion!

Rhonda, you're right that I should do some experimenting. I struggle with perfectionism. I'm not able to start plants in the house. My dumb cat eats anything green that comes through the door (and is left unattended). I do have a small fish tank (10 gallon - if that means anything to you metric folks) that dh fashioned a screen lid for. I can do a few starts in there. Right now, I'm considering growing some green onion in there! I also always buy tomato plants. Our growing season is pretty short and more warm than hot. I have to buy starts and buy early or very early maturing varieties.

I think I need to do two things differently in the garden this year. Okay maybe three...

1. Start earlier. Particularly for things that holly mentioned: potatoes, lettuce, peas, etc.

2. Go bigger. Last summer's potatoes only lasted three months. We need MORE!! I grew shelling peas for the first time. Did you know a square yard/meter only yeilds about 5 or 6 cups of shelled peas? We need MORE of those as well.

3. Not travel - at least not for more than a week. Last summer we were out of town for 19 days-consecutively. My mom watered, but nothing more. It was a bit of a jungle when we got back in mid-July.

4. Plan on doing some 'climate control' by covering certain bits on cool nights. I usually only cover my tomatoes in October (when I'm STILL waiting for red ones).

Oh, and here's another question - if I may: With my tomato plants, I'm thinking that next year I should pinch off any blossoms that come after a certain date. I've found that those late fruit never mature before the season ends. If I pinch them off, wouldn't it improve the quality/size/flavor of the other earlier fruit?

TIA!

[forestdale]

Push the boundaries, Valerie, it's the only way of really knowing what you can do - both in your garden and life in general.

Yes, picking of the flowers you know won't develop into tomatoes will allow the tomato bush to put its energy into maturing the tomatoes left.

Potatoes. Do you have enough space for more potatoes? I planted my potatoes in the ground and also in cages last year. It worked perfectly and I'm going to make more cages this year. I said I was going to write about tomato cages and didn't. If you need the info, let me know.

[Valerie in WA]

I have PLENTY of room. We live on a half acre (20,000 square feet) in a 1000 square foot house. My garden currently is about 15 feet by 17 feet, 255 square feet (...lemme think... about 5 meters by 6 meters). I am planning to increase that by at least half-again as much - or perhaps just double it - for this next planting season. There's still plenty of room.

This past season I did "square foot gardening" (without raised beds) and LOVED it. I had already been doing something similar on my own, but used the information in the book to expand on the idea. Point being that I planted my seed potatoes about 1 foot (1/3 of a meter) apart in all directions. The bed I used was 3 feet wide by 17 feet long (3x17=51 seed potatoes planted). I really can't do much wider than that and still be able to reach to weed. But next year I want four times the area of potatoes to give lots more spuds. As far as supporting them, I just gave them a shove every couple of days and they leaned against the whimpy chicken-wire fence that was on 3 sides (to keep out neighbor dogs). I have plenty of metal fence stakes and chicken wire - even some plastic 'wire' that is shaped like chicken wire. I also have a few tomato cages, but my plants always need more support than the cage can provide.