When to Plant Your Seeds

Yesterday the weather was nice, again, so I decided to take advantage of it and do some more garden prep, and plant some cold crops. But the first thing I had to do was go through my seed packets to see what I needed, and what I already had.

I needed to go to the feed store anyway, our local Thrifty Feed and Garden, as our dog was low on food and the chickens were out of grit, so I perused the seed section for a few things I knew would be able to be planted now. Peas are the obvious, and so are lettuces, but carrots and radishes are also good cold crops which can stand a few frosts. I also got spinach seeds, an heirloom variety that is not only cold hardy but heat tolerant too. As I was checking out, I noticed they had onions, both yellow and red, and I knew I had half a box to play with, so I picked up some of those as well to fit into that spot.

With my arsenal in hand, I headed home to start gardening. Okay, so I went to Fred Meyer’s to get a Garden Weasel and then went to the repair shop to pick up my sewing machine, but then changed into some old pants and foam clogs and started attacking a new section of the yard we plan on planting sunflowers, beans and various squash in late spring. After tilling and aerating the soil, I threw down quite a bit of compost and let the chickens work it into the ground while I started on the garden boxes. I had already put compost in the boxes a few weeks earlier, both to let the nutrients spread throughout the soil, and to break down anything that hadn’t broken down completely in the composter. This turned out perfect, because as I was loosening up the soil I noticed that it was a nice, dark, almost black and clump free. By the way, we had the soil for the garden boxes brought in a couple years ago, and it is an equal part mixture of sand, peat moss, chicken manure compost and steer manure compost, and contains no dirt. This keeps the soil light and airy and is perfect for container gardening, and allows tighter plantings than you would be able to do in the ground.

Soil prepped, arms tired, and a cough that won’t seem to quit, I hoed out some shallow trenches and started planting some peas in one box. I did plant them a little closer than the package said, but I figured if they get too cramped, I’ll just pluck a few out. I put one seed every three inches down the row, and planted the rows six inches apart going north to south. This isn’t necessary when clump planting, but if the rows were a foot or two apart, the space you’d want if you were planting in a field so you could get between the rows for harvesting, this method ensures that each plant gets the maximum amount of sun.

As I was planting the spinach, I got tired of the chickens getting in the way, so I put them back into their coop. Dawn was not happy. She cackled and cawed loudly as if cursing me for putting them into the run so early. Anyway, so when I planted the spinach, I spaced the rows four inches apart, and planted seeds three inches apart in every other row. After these sprout and start forming leaves, I will plant between the rows for a later harvest. Usually I just pull the baby leaves off and let them keep growing back, but I think this year I am going to do that with the first set, and then harvest everything at once, blanch, freeze, and use it as needed for Shrimp Pesto Pizza.

For the third box, the box I plan on putting our tomatoes in, I decided to put radishes and lettuces, both a spring mesclun mix and romaine, each utilizing about a third of the box. I put the radish seeds in the same as the spinach, and plan on planting between the rows for a second harvest of radishes since they grow so quickly. The Pink Beauty’s I planted mature in 27 days, while the lettuces are double that, so a second planting would be beneficial for salads. Of course, I so rarely pull up our lettuces, and prefer to pick the young tender leaves instead, especially on the arugula as it gets a little too peppery and bitter as it matures. However, once it is time to plant tomatoes in the box, I’m pulling up everything except maybe a few head of romaine until the tomatoes get a little bigger and need the space.

And in the last box, where I currently have leeks growing like crazy and in desperate need of harvesting since they’ve been in the ground nearly a year, and fennel bulbs I’m waiting to see if they’ll return, I planted the red and yellow onions. The boxes are four feet by four feet, and I planted one row of red onions and two rows of yellows each with eight bulbs. I still had a small space left in which to plant carrots, so I went ahead and put some in, leaving space between the rows for a second planting next month.

The crops I planted are all cold crops, which should be planted in later winter to early spring, and because of our unseasonably warm weather here in the northwest due to it being an El Niño year, I was able to plant a couple weeks earlier than usual. Of course, if your soil feels too cold and you’re afraid winter isn’t over, you may want to hold off. The thing about vegetables is that they don’t necessarily need warm weather, just warm soil, to do well. They can be covered if a freeze or heavy frost is in the forecast, either with plastic sheeting, a blanket or milk jugs with the bottoms cut out over individual plants. Your soil should be between 55ºF to 80ºF, with the ideal at 70ºF. One easy way to test your soil’s temperature is with an electric thermometer or meat thermometer. Plunge the tip about halfway into the soil and take its temperature, and if the results come back positive, go ahead and plant. If however it comes back below 50ºF, you will want to hold off. You may want to put black plastic sheeting over where you plan on planting, which will significantly raise the soil temperature, if you are too impatient for Mother Nature. Or, if you are feeling adventurous, go ahead and plant a third to half what you would normally want to, and then when the time comes, plant the rest. Who knows, you may be rewarded with an early crop after all!