What to Plant Now in Your Spring Vegetable Garden
EducationWhat to Plant Now in Your Spring Vegetable Garden
The first hints of spring are in the air. You spent some time preparing your vegetable garden for the coming season. You are itching to get started planting but know that your frost date is still weeks away. There are vegetables to grow now.
Perennial Vegetables
Perennial vegetables can be planted anytime you can work the soil. If you can dig a hole, you can plant something in it. These vegetables will be a permanent fixture in your garden so plan their placement with care. You want to allow plenty of room for them to grow and multiply. Research their growing needs and spacing. Although it may take a 1-3 years to become established, the rewards are well worth the wait. Anyone who likes asparagus knows that when it is available in the markets the price is high. Same goes for rhubarb. A lesser known and many times unavailable in local markets is the Jerusalem artichoke. It is grown for its edible tubers that can be prepared any way that potatoes are with a taste that is reminiscent of artichoke hearts. It also produces sunflower like flowers and can be found in many flower beds.
Root Vegetables
As the days grow warmer the soil retains much of the heat. Planting root vegetables takes advantage of the warmer soil by giving them time to develop a solid root structure before sending up shoots into the air. Frosty nights will not deter them. If crocuses or daffodils have poked up their heads, you can begin planting carrots, radishes, beets, onions, turnips, and potatoes. This will give you several extra harvests of successive plantings of carrots and radishes.
Bushel baskets lined with heavy duty trash bags with drainage holes in the bottom will work as containers for root vegetables. These can be moved to a sheltered area during an unseasonable hard freeze. In the garden you can make row covers.
Cole Vegetables
Cole vegetables are those in the cabbage family and thrive in cool and cold weather. The earlier you plant them the better your chances of getting a harvest before the onset of summer heat. When hot weather sets in, these vegetables cease to grow or bolt (go to seed). If they haven't bolted, growth will resume as temperatures drop. Crops in this family include Brussels sprouts, cabbage, broccoli, kale, collard greens, and kohlrabi. If you elect to start these indoors make sure you harden them off before planting in the garden. If you buy them as plants, you may need to again provide row covers if the temperatures dip.
Salad Greens
Many of your favorite salad fixings like leaf lettuces, spinach, and Swiss chard start growing as the soil starts warming. Preferring cooler temperatures as their growing season and as long as the day temperatures rise above freezing for several hours, you will have ample opportunities for fresh salads long before summer.
Berry Plants
If you can work the soil you can plant a wide variety of berry plants. They are perennial and prefer planting, division, or transplanting before they awaken from their winter dormancy. Blueberries, strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, gooseberries, loganberries are amongst the varieties that you can plant now for years of fresh seasonal fruit.