Planting Dates 5B: What I can plant first

So to my understanding peas, lettuce and spinich are the first things in the garden in spring?

What else goes in first?

Here is a list of the things I THOUGHT could go in first?
Snow Peas
Radish
Brussel Sprouts
Lettuce
Spinach
Fennel
Kohlrabi
Celeriac

Then comes the big question....WHEN is 1st? Like February? March?

Beets can go in & onion sets, Brassicas too. I would guess end of march beginning of april. Are you truly in 5 b or 5 a? could make a difference. Click here for a pretty good planting by zone chart.

I can always count on you Camp! Thats a GREAT chart...

Thank you!

I have no idea if I am 5b...I get mixed results on different sites.

Somebody's getting anxious already!

The seed packages say to plant as soon as the ground is workable. That happens when it happens, regardless of what the charts and tables say. There is no harm in planting too early, in fact, I plant early intentionally when I can, just cause it makes me feel good. If it doesn't work there's plenty of time to re-plant.

But, I've planted stuff on the Ides of March that was ready for harvest before the stuff that I planted on Valentine's Day. Sometimes dirt under the nails is worth more than the harvest

Yes...anxious. VERY.

Camp this is where I found I was 5b http://www.garden.org/zipzone/index.php

Is this reliable?

True Boffer...true....

Last year I lost everything...I planted all my warm stuff...tomatoes, peppers, basil on Mother's Day...and we had 2 nights of a cold snap and I lost it all.

Didn't do any cool crops this past year so wanna get in on that.

Middlemamma, you and I are in a similar zone. I will probably start some of my seeds indoors the first week of March, my brassicas and perhaps onions & leeks. I will probably start tomatoes, eggplant, pepper, basil sometime near the Vernal Equinox. Until then, it is really too cold to grow much, for me at least. Just house plants for the next few months. I refuse to set up my grow station before March because it just wont work for my area to start before then.

Garden web has good info. I also just posted some frost/ freeze maps in another thread from NOAA

I should have emphasized it's OK to plant cool crops early. Warm crops are another issue.

The USDA hardiness zones are of little value to veggie gardeners. They are primarily to determine what ornamental plants can over-winter in what areas, ie survive the average minimum winter temperatures. Who's growing veggies outside in the winter?

What you really need to know is the average first and last frost/freeze dates for your area. There have been a couple good websites posted in the past where you plug in your zip code, but of course, I can't find them at the moment.

Have you gained enough experience to tell if you're in a micro-climate that might mess things up? Or is the temperature at your house similar to the greater region when it is reported? Does the wind at your place affect your temps differently than what the local weather stations might report?

A few months ago, someone posted this link that I like for computing GDDs. But there is a lot of other info if you look around, that helps to get a feel for the weather in one's area. 40 degrees is the magic number above which cool crops will grow. A lot of them will survive down into the 20's, but they just sit there. 50 is considered the baseline for warm season crops; below 50, they just sit there.

I saw on one map at that link, that your average lows are expected to be in the 20s this coming February, and the average highs in the 30's. Which is still too cold without protection. If you turned a box into a cold frame, which I think I read in another post that you're thinking of doing, you might be able to plant in February if you get some sunshine, but things will still grow slowly. But then we're back to the value of dirt under the fingernails!

Jennie, my Grandma's wisdom was to always plant some lettuce on Valentine's Day. She kept a piece of a row mulched over the winter just for that purpose. Sometimes the lettuce didn't even come up, but most times some of it would eventually come up and give her some early lettuce. In those years with a really early spring she got the full pay-off.

As Boffer said, there are no hard and fast rules as to what will survive in any given year. I say if your MM isn't frozen hard as a rock, sow a grid of early salad crops as early as you like. If you get the right kind of weather it might pay off. Otherwise all you've lost is a little bit of seed.

Regarding peas - smooth-seeded types like Alaska can take the cold better than wrinkle-seeded types (most of the remaining varieties).

Corn salad or mache is supposed to be one of most cold-hardy salad crops and cress is a close second. Spinach is also very hardy.

Although broccoli and cabbage are cool-tolerant, 28-degree temps will burn their leaves. Small leaves of any crop seem to make it through freezes better than large leaves. Collards and kale are the most cold-hardy greens. In this area they are usually planted as a fall crop. Turnips can take the cold, too.

Dill and parsley can go in early but basil is warm weather.

Potatoes must be grown in cool weather. Carrots take the cool weather, too.

Beans are warm weather, but they will tolerate temps a little cooler than melons, squash, sweet potatoes, and okra. Okra won't germinate in cool soil.

Pansies and violas love cool weather, too.

If you have something growing and then an unexpected cold snap is forecast you can read past threads on the forum to find things to do to get your growing veggies through a couple of days of cold weather.

Pace yourself and wait on the seasons. There are gardening things to enjoy now that you don't have time for when growing gets in full swing. Take time to really read the seed catalogs and choose your varieties well. Make a realistic list of how much food you need to grow to feed your family. Check out the seed exchange threads. Make grids on paper and fill in your three-season plan. I've found that to be an immense help. As soon as one crop comes out, I know exactly what I want to plant in its place. I've already thought through possible problems with the neighboring grids and I've got timing issues worked out. Sketch out future expansion plans. Scrounge for lumber to make more boxes. Study up on canning and preserving, and make a practice run or two with produce found on sale. (Cranberries are usually marked way down after the holidays, for example.) Start scrounging for fruit jars or freezer containers from family, at yard sales, and junk shops. Scrounge those same places for fabric to make row covers.

I remember seeing a Tom Selleck movie decades ago which had this line: "The Earth is slow, but the ox is patient." The older I get, the better I understand that, but I still throw out some lettuce seed on Valentine's Day.

I looked at the GDD calculator you posted. It's great, and I can see that our area was "above average" in early 2010. But I don't exactly know how to apply that information to gardening since I know our weather was very cold last winter.

Ander, I love the way you write!

This is great! Thanks for all the info and links everyone. "Santa" sent me some great seeds that I'm anxious to start as well. Needless to say, I'm trying to figure all of this out too and can't wait to get my hands dirty! I'll be putting together boxes in the garage after the holidays.

camprn wrote:Ander, I love the way you write!

Thank you.

(My kids say I have the annoying ability to turn a simple sentence into an essay. I'm afraid it's too true.)

Now...if we could just take Ander's experience and wisdom and cram them down the throat of every noobie with OCD who is going to master this gardening thing in their first year....by golly, we could save a lot of new gardeners from themselves.

Wax on, wax off. I think Ander has an understanding and an ability to share, that I'll never know.