In a normal year I sow seeds of cool-season vegetables no later than the vernal equinox, giving them sufficient time to ripen for summer’s heat arrives. This year’s good intentions were waylaid by uncooperative weather. At the appointed time the soil was frozen solid, making digging impossible. At any rate, seeds of even frost-resistant vegetables can rot if the ground is too cold. It’s more prudent to wait until the soil warms up a skosh.
Fortunately there’s some wiggle room when it comes to spring vegetables, even though most types must be ready for harvest before summer’s heat causes them to bolt (send up a seed stalk and stop producing foliage, as happens with lettuce), to stop adding bulk to their roots (think radishes and other root crops) or to become too bitter to eat. It’s generally toasty enough to cause problems by the third week in June.
Every package of vegetable seeds lists the number of days to harvest. The trick to getting vegetables to ripen in a short growing season like ours is to always choose the variety with the shortest possible days to harvest. This can vary by as much as a month within all the different sorts of peas, for example, so it helps to do the math.
Most lettuces and radishes are ready in about 30 days; spinach takes just a bit longer. A mid-April sowing allows plenty of time. Peas and broccoli need a couple of months to mature, and since they both detest heat, starting them mid-April is cutting it a little close. Beets germinate in cool weather but can take summer’s heat. A few varieties of other cool-season vegetables are labeled heat-tolerant.
You can also get a head start by purchasing vegetable plants. What you need to ask yourself is whether it’s worthwhile. If broccoli is a couple of dollars a plant and broccoli crowns are less than a dollar a pound at the grocers, it doesn’t make much sense to buy broccoli seedlings unless it’s for entertainment’s sake.
For convenience I do buy parsley plants. I need only a few to cover my household needs. I am also grateful for started tomato, peppers and eggplant since I grow only one each of several varieties. I’m not a walls-o-water kind of gardener (another good way to cheat Colorado’s short growing season is by starting warm-season crops in frost-protection devices long before warm weather sets in).
I do buy warm-season seedlings now, transplant them into larger recycled nursery pots and bring them in at night until the danger of frost is past. That way my $2 tomato plants grow into $10 tomato plants before they go into the garden.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. It’s too early to be thinking about tomatoes unless you plan to grow them from seed indoors, in which case you’d better get moving. But lettuce sown this week will be ready to eat in May. Even in this era of slow food that’s instant gratification we can all appreciate.
Marcia Tatroe’s most recent book is “Cutting Edge Gardening in the Intermountain West,” ($29.95, Johnson Books). E-mail her at mtatroe@q.com.
