Is it too early to plant for lettuce, peas, etc. for fall harvest. My area is zone 5 but we're right off the Shiawassee Wildlife refuge and have a tendency for early frost. I'm thinking I should be planting now, LOML says I'm early-- who's right?
Jim
planting times for fall harvest of leafy vegetables?
stoppy, I'm not really sure about the timing, but last fall I planted some Cherokee Red lettuce in early Aug. The seedlings came up quite small by frost time so I decided to cover them up with a very thick cover of leaf mulch.
This past April, I noticed the seedlings were doing very well so I watched them closely and they all produced quite abundantly. We ate from late April until 2 weeks ago whereas; they had gotten to large and bitter through the season so I pulled them up for the compost pile.
As for me, I am planting snow peas (again this season), radishes, collards, more chards, lettuce (Nevada) and whatever else I can find locally.
I do not think it is too early to plant several kinds of veggies for the fall: not for me anyway.
Lowell
Jim,
Look at your seed packages. Somewhere it should state the number of days to harvest. If you know when your first frost usually hits count back those many days and then plan to plant your seeds maybe a week or two sooner than that. I actually have an old double galvanized laundry tub I fill with good soil. I keep it by my back door and sow my lettuce seeds in it along with a few other veggies like radish. It's handy for when I want to cut some for supper. It's on wheels so I could easily roll it into the garage and keep it from frost a while longer. Maybe a container kitchen garden would work for you ??
Good luck and good eating!
Brenda
To improve germination of summer sown crops, I keep the seeds in the fridge. Believe it or not, it made a big diffrence for me.