Hello,Z-5'ers,
Have any of you stared lettuce, chards, radish or carrots yet? DH just gave me another new bed that I can start this weekend with those items. What a weird season so far!!!! This is my first year trying these crops, so I don't know what to expect, but I'll keep you posted on my progress... thanks in advance for sharing any thoughts.
Megan
Zone 5'ers
So far i have only planted peas, but i have volunteer arugula coming up. I plan on planting many of what you mentioned as soon as i have a chance. If they get a hard frost, i'll just replant.
It has been really warm here, but we are supposed to get a cold snap soon,
Melissa
Hi Megan, I had 15+ inches of snow last week and it hasn't gone yet, so I doubt if my soil has even thawed out. I do have a bed next to the house where I planted peas too, like Melissa.
The rule of thumb ( and it depends on warmer weather) is you can plant lettuce 3-4 weeks before your last frost date and carrots 1-2 weeks prior to the last frost date. Mine here is May 10th. BUT the ground needs to be uncovered from the snow first. LOL. Besides, what are a few seeds if you are too early? If I had bare ground I would go for it. Cyndie
I got really excited when it warmed up last month, and planted all sorts of things... I've got some radish and turnips under a row cover which are up - but we just got about 6 inches of snow dumped on us, so we'll see if they survive!
I've found lettuce and carrots and chard to be a little more tender than the radish and peas, personally. I have some lettuce seedlings growing in a cold frame now, along with some cabbage, broccoli, bok choi, etc.
But it should be warming up soon, so I bet you'll be able plant outside any day now... if you don't have any snow that is!
I'm in zone 4-5. I planted onions and peas. I will do carrots sometime this week.
Thanks for the answers folks, good info. I appreciate your time.
I've not planted anything yet, and I'm glad I didn't with it getting down into the 20's at night for almost 2 weeks. Last year at this time I did have a lot of things in. I'm hoping this weekend to start hardening off my lettuce, broccoli, kohlrabi, and cauliflower plants for possible planting sometime next week - IF mother nature cooperates this time around!
Update: the deep snow that we had here has melted, and the radish, turnips, and pea seedlings that were under it appear to be fine! This is the first year I've planted so early, so I wasn't sure if they'd survive. Those little dudes are pretty impressive!
Lettuce, cabbage, broccoli and so on are in a cold frame and are going out soon. I'll also be direct seeding more lettuce, beets, carrots, etc. in the next few days. So Megan if you haven't planted yet, now is definitely a good time - it looks like the weather is warming up here.
Two days ago I planted seeds: lettuce, carrots and radishes in my 1 of my 3 lagazna beds. Today I will be planting seeds: beets, spinach, onion sets, and marigolds. Two days ago I planted red potatoes and yukon gold in plastic garbage cans (cut in half with holes on bottom and lower sides. After the next cold snap I'll plant the pole beans, baby Lima beans, Blue Lake Bush Beans and cukes. The Peaches N Cream corn will be the last of the seeds then comes the plants: tomatoes, herbs, strawberries, brocoli and squash. That should keep me plenty busy. I will can some of the veggies, dehyderate the herbs and tomatoes and freeze the rest. I will also make sun dried tomatoes on my homemade outdoor drying racks. I also have a large Excalibur dehydrator with the rear fan. There is an nteresting homemade outdoor dehydrator at:
http://www.parowanprophet.com/god_has_power.htm
I have lettuce ( several varieties) with radish seed scattered among the lettuce seed, Planted in one of my 4 foot raised beds. The seeds were planted about a month ago and last week covered the whole bed with Remay cloth to keep the devil bunnies and quail from eating all the nicely growing small plants. Also the white crowned sparrows like to nibble/peck on the lettuce. Spinach is just getting first true leaves. Garden peas are coming up nicely and will have to cover them with bird netting. I already sprayed the peas with Plantskydd to keep the rabbits from eating them like they did last year.
Hopefully I will be able to plant at least some tomato plants out in the garden around the first of May. They are hardening off now in the sheltered area in my passage way between house and garage. along with other plants that were started in my small gh.
So spring is here even tho the orchard frost fans have been running every early morning. It was 34 degrees here when I looked at the therm. and now is 35.
Donna in NW WA
My garden finally has some green in it! In the last 2 days I've transplanted several varieties of lettuce in addition to broccoli, cauliflower, spinach, and kohlrabi transplants. I also planted Cherry Belle & French Breakfast radish seeds, sugar snap peas, and carrot seeds in addition to Cippolini Borettana onion seeds, which had a very poor germination rate when I started them inside. I've got the rest of my onion seedlings starting to harden off, which will hopefully be planted later this week after the rain passes.
I'm hoping to get the rest of my seeds started Sunday, including basil, marigold, nasturtium, cilantro, chamomile, and brussel sprouts for the veggie garden along with some perennial seeds since I now have more room under the lights for more seeds.
In Feb while daydreaming about my garden--I realized that I had near perfect cold frames in my veg garden. Spring 2006 I created several raised beds out of joined together window wells. I like the look of galvanized metal for some reason. I seated the shells about 8" in the soil and then filled them with compost and topsoil. The center of the garden was made from 6 small wells that were joined together to make a what looks like a huge flower shaped cookie cutter. This is the largest and lowest bed. This spot is reserved for herbs and nasturtiums-the borage I planted at the center really attracted the pollinators. Oops, got side tracked.
Looking at the planters I realized that a sheet of glass or plexi would make instant cold frame. During the brief bit of warmth in March I planted chard, spinach, radish and lots of leaf lettuce. Much to my surprise the lettuce I sowed on Fri AM had broken the ground by Mon PM. Everything came through the freeze just fine. I am attaching a pix from last year.
Very impressive and interesting to the eyes. Also very fast germination for the lettuce seeds. Are you changing anything from last year. thanks for posting.
Donna
I have a few changes planned this year. I have a passion for Romano green beans (the flat ones). Since they are runner beans and need poles to climb--I will be putting them in a low bed instead of the higher bed. They turned out a bit tall even for me at 6'1". I am planting my bush squashes along the back fence in the very small planters. Haven't decided what to plant after the radishes come out. I can't make up my mind I will just plant more chard. The only veg that we eat more than chard is the lovely tomato. My faves are the brown/purple ones and the green stripey ones.
Attached is a closer shot of the herbs. I really do need to practice with the digi cam.
The lettuce has been a regular item at the table. I have been reseeding the area with oak leaf which is supposed to be heat resistant. Decided to replace the radishes with yellow squash--not sure how far the vines will travel. Tomatoes and romano beans are just going to town.
What is everyone else doing???????
Since I live in a garden apartment, I had to plant my veggies in containers. I planted only cukes and tomatoes in Earth Boxes and they are just going to town! A few tiny tomatoes, and my first cuke!
The cukes I planted are both bush varieties, one pickle and one "whopper"! The whopper already has its first cuke! It said 55 days on the tag, but this is after only 30 days. I don't see any other cukes yet, but there are lots of blossoms, and I am assuming (hoping!) many of those will turn into cukes!
I have 4 varieties of tomatoes, Sweet 100s, Better Boy, and something called "Health Kick" in the earth boxes, and a lone Beefsteak in a large pot. The Beefsteak was supposed to go to my niece, but I couldn't get it there, and it was getting too big in the tiny pot it came in, so I put it in a pot.
I planted a few tomato seeds the end of Jan. as an experiment. Pretty satisfied with the results. Kept repotting to larger pots and finger pollenizing. Put one SunGold out in the gardenin late April and was lucky no really hard frost. So had ripe Sun Golds before the first of June. The plant itself is not looking too happy but still has lots of green or ripening cherry toms. The other variety I tried to get to produce early was Mortgage Lifter (Not a success) has several small tomatoes and one ripe one. Next year I will try Stupice for forcing for early tom.
DonnaS