Fall planting schedule by Heirloom Seeds. Heavy Petal: Gardening: from a West Coast, urban, organic perspective. Lacinato kale, leeks, and cabbage: the makings of a great winter garden! One of the best ways to reap the most from a small-space food garden is to have something growing in your garden all year round. Don’t let plots or containers sit vacant after you harvest your tomatoes and squash! Make ‘em work by planting a winter garden (or let them rest and recuperate by sowing a cover crop). Planting hardy and fast-maturing crops in summer or early fall for fall-through-spring harvesting is often known as winter gardening. (It also has a close cousin, overwintering, which is defined as planting in summer for harvest the next spring.) For both, you’ll want to start now. ‘Sorrento’ broccoli raab In general, you’ll want to plant quick-maturing, cool-season crops that are tolerant of frosts. Surprisingly, there are quite a few edibles you can start from seed now. Great winter-garden edibles to start from seed: Arugula.
Asian and mustard greens. Broad beans. Broccoli raab. Carrots. Cilantro. Endive. Kale. How To Grow A Four-Season Garden - Part 1 | One Green Generation. Don’t Believe Everything You’re Told When I moved to Geyserville, California in May of last year, I was excited to grow my own food for the first time. But immediately my neighbors dashed my hopes. They told me that it was too late to grow much this year – that I’d have to wait until next year. Sure enough, I found a pamphlet put out by the local Master Gardeners, confirming that it was too late to plant most crops. Fortunately, I didn’t listen.
Matt and I first amended the soil. Then we made garden beds. What didn’t work? In September, our neighbors told us we would lose our garden to the rains any moment. We harvested 240 lbs. of tomatoes from 4 plants. We didn’t listen. All because we really wanted to do it and nothing was going to stop us. Ten Reasons To Grow A Four-Season Organic Garden Growing your own food reduces the distance your food travels from the farm to you (10 feet, say, versus 250-2,500 miles). When To Plant Fall and Winter Gardens Then find out your average frost date. The Ultimate When to Plant Guide. Pay attention. This may be the most valuable tidbit of gardening wisdom anyone ever hands you. Of course it also might not be.
When to plant – every seed packet you pick up has a little map on the back with 4 or 5 colored zones and planting dates for each zone. Or they have cryptic advice like “whenever soil can be worked”, “after soil has thoroughly warmed”, or “after all danger of frost.” Forget all that. As a general rule seeds that can germinate at a lower temperature are also more resistant to rot. If you study this table you will begin to understand why those melons never came up – too cool/wet and they rot, too warm – they just never germinate. If you are starting seeds indoors you can see why it’s so hard to get tomatoes to come up in that sunny (but cold at night) window – those little plugs of soil do cool off quickly unlike the soil in your garden. BTW, one of those digital kitchen thermometers works great for checking soil temp. Gardening Coaches - When to Plant Veggies. Garden calendar to keep your kitchen garden growing - vegetables and herbs to sow and plant right now.
Seed Calendar | What to Plant Now | When to Plant Vegetables. SpringPlanting - Calendar.