April 18, 2023 • 19 mins
Listen in as Jim and Mary walk you through getting your garden growing early in the season with seed crops! From sugar snap peas, to spinach, radishes and more, they cover some of the best crops that can handle cooler season temperatures with ease. Don't wait for late spring and summer to plant, get growing now!
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(00:02):
Welcome to the Simple Garden Life podcast, a program dedicated to keeping the yard
of gardening simple, fun and alwaysrewarding. Now Here are your hosts,
Jim and Mary Competiti. Hello andwelcome everybody to Simple Garden Life. I'm
your host, Jim Competti, alongwith my wife Mary. And Mary the
garden season has begun, because we'retalking today about starting early spring crops.
(00:24):
That's always like one of our favoritetimes. You can get out there.
You're not planting those tomatoes yet,but you can certainly plant a lot of
things early on depending on where youlive, and get growing fast. Anytime
I can get in the garden,I'm happy. That's right. That's right.
Well, you know, gardening isreally more seasonal than anything. I
mean, you know, we talkabout the short window of time that you
have to grow your plants, andit's so good in the early spring to
(00:48):
get started. I think for me, I always think of one crop and
we're going to cover that today,which is sugar Snappie's my absolute favorite,
and really you need to get themin the ground early. We'll get to
that in a second, but Ithink Mary, most of the sugar snappis
you plant for the first round don'teven make it out of the garden.
Now we eat them straight out ofthe garden. I just pick an eat
as we go, and then weeventually get some crops exactly. So hey,
(01:11):
let's talk about a few things.If you have any questions, we
want to have some topics for us. You can reach us always at the
farm at Owgarden dot com. Youcan sign up to follow us at Simple
gardenlife dot com and follow along onFacebook or your favorite podcast app. You
know. You can also follow uson Instagram. Now we're starting to get
much more active on Instagram, postinga lot from the new farm and what
(01:32):
we're doing here. And it's reallyan exciting year for us. We got
the test garden almost complete, alot of videos now on our YouTube channel
as well at Old World Garden Farm, and I'll tell you it's really going
to be a fun year, rightAnd if you want to follow us on
Instagram, look up Old World Gardenyou'll find us there. You'll find us
our videos. We put little stepshops of helpful tips in our garden and
(01:53):
things that we do throughout the week. All right, so let's get into
this today. We're going to coversix crops that you can get started early,
and by early, we're saying that, you know, a lot of
times we can't plant things until thethread of frost is over. For us
here in Ohio that's really around Maytwenty fifth in our zone. Sometimes we
(02:14):
can get away a little bit earlier, a little bit later, or you
want warm soil to really help thosecrops. But today, what we're talking
about our seed crops that can goin the ground while there's still a thread
of frost because they're going to comeup through and they can handle a little
cold and you can get them independing on where you live, like for
us now we're talking mid April,we can start to plant now, right,
we're talking about you know, thosesea crops that you can put in
(02:35):
the ground once the soil is ableto be worked, it's no longer frozen,
it's warm enough that you can raakback the soil, raak back your
cover crop if you used one.It's one of those things. We're not
talking transplants, we're talking seed crops. Yeah, absolutely, So let's get
right into it. I've already kindof talked about the first one we're going
to go to, so we'll getright to that, and sugar snap peas
one of my favorite, whether there'ssnow peas or sugar snap peas, the
(02:58):
crispy crunch you get. But it'sa crop that you really do need to
plan early because it's gonna bolt oncethat heat comes. Right. It's not
one that likes the sun like mostof us. It likes the cooler weather.
So you can plant it in earlyspring, or you can plant it
in late summer for a fall crop. Yeah, your soil really needs to
be around, you know, fortyfive to fifty degrees to be able to
handle sugar snappiece for them to germinate, and you can get out there.
(03:22):
Once it gets above that eighty degreemark, you'll see those peas start to
fall off and you have to waitagain until fall to plant them again.
But such an easy crop to plant. You know what about two to three
weeks really before your last frost whenyou can get them in the ground right.
And the best thing about planting sugarsnap piece is that this actual seed
is a shriveled up pea, sothey're easy to handle. They're easy to
(03:44):
plant, yeah, and they'll usuallycome up if the soil is decent enough
in about seven to ten days.You know, we like to plant a
couple rows and then about a weekor two later plant a couple more.
A little bit of succession, youcan get a little bit more from your
spring crop. But Mary, Ithink the most thing to tell people is
you have to have some type ofa support system for this crop. Right,
there are ones that grow up andtall, so I would say they'd
(04:06):
get about four feet tall. Soyou need to have a trellis or a
fence or something that they can climb. Yeah, so what we use.
We use a couple of metal teasteaks, almost the same thing for our
steak at cage, but we justdrive them in the ground deep and then
we take a big long cattle panel, put it between them, cut them
to size, and we grow oneither side of that. It really is
an easy way. They trail usright up. They have the tendles that
(04:28):
come out right and grab that andthey're going to go right up it.
So, Mary, let's talk abouthow you plant this. It's a pretty
easy crop, right. You justwant to plant the seeds about one inch
deep, cover them with soil,leave about eighteen inches between the rows,
and then water them. Well,if you don't get enough rain. Yeah,
and about what every two to threeinches, space your seeds and make
you can play them a little closerand then if you want to. But
they're pretty good germaning, we liketo do about I'd say two inches is
(04:51):
what we probably use. Yeah,i'd say between one and two inches.
You know, we're always stingy.You want to get the most fur our
buck that's right. And then finallyput a little multi on right away.
You know, just about an inch. You can use straw, some clippings,
but that's going to keep any weedsfrom coming out. It'll still come
through a small layer of mulch.And then once they start to grow,
we thicken our mulch up underneath.Yeah, you want a thin layer of
(05:12):
mulch so that the ceilings can popthrough the ground. But it's important to
get that ground covered so that waythey don't get the weeds coming through.
And then you don't know what isa weed and what is a sugar snap
pea. Yeah, and look,they need some moisture, so that mulch
helps keep the moisture in, sowater them. If you're not getting water,
springtime's usually not an issue. You'regetting enough rain to to really work.
So that's number one. Number twoon the list is another one of
(05:33):
my favorites, and that's radishes.Oh, there's so many kinds of great
radish you can grow. Don't don'tjust think of that simple red radish,
which, hey, that's pretty darngood. But you have watermelon rashes,
all kinds, if you have Frenchbreakfast, from mild to extra spicy.
So you know, get out thereand get some different seeds and plant them.
They're a super fast crop. Weactually plant our radish seeds right in
(05:56):
the same bed as we plant oursugar snap peas. Yeah, they're great
companions. They're absolutely great companions.And you know, again you can plant
them early in the year. They'regoing to grow fast. Some radishes,
you know, they can be harvestedin as little as twenty eight to thirty
five days as baby radishes. They'refast growing, and you don't want to
let them get too big anyway becausethen they get kind of woody. Yeah,
exactly, and they're not that good. So when it comes to radishes,
(06:18):
you know, they're a thin cropabout a half inch deep is what
you're looking to plant for Again,about four to six weeks before your last
spring spring frost date, which islike perfect right now, they're going to
come up. Spacing is always difficultwith radishes because there's such a tiny seed.
They are a tiny seed, andyou'll plant a bunch and they'll all
gather together in certain areas. Andthis is a crop that you really do
(06:39):
need to thin. And as muchas I hate thinning crops and throwing throwing
seedlings away, this is one thatyou have to do otherwise the radishes will
wrap around each other, won't produce. Yeah, I laugh at this because
Mary cannot kill any seed seeds.She hates doing it. Early on,
we would plant carrot seeds and Iwould say, hey, have you thin
those? I can't, and thenwe would end up with tangled carrots.
So she has done a really goodjob. I would try to replant them
(07:02):
exactly so she's right though, Planthem about a half inch to an inch,
but you gotta let them have theroom depending on the variety. If
it's a larger radish, you know, plan them a little bit separate or
thin separately to that um As Isaid, they'll germinate fast three to four
days and then after a few inchestall, that's when you can start thinning
and really you can harvest any timeyou want after that twenty five to twenty
(07:23):
eight days because they're just gonna bebaby. They'll be tender. But you
know, the more you let inthe ground, the longer they're going to
grow. And with all of ourseedling crops, you always want to cover
the ground after you plan them inwith a light layer of multure stroll or
something so that way the weed seedscan't get in. Yep, another cool
weather crops. So we've talked aboutsugar snappeas and snowpeas, and we've talked
about radishes, and now it's spinach. Something as a child I absolutely despise
(07:45):
and as an adult I absolutely love. Can't figure that I just like fresh.
I'm still going to say it's probablythe Popeye can got fetish that we
didn't like. We absolutely love spinachnow. Yeah, so it thrives in
cool weather thirty five to seventy degrees. As soon as the soil can be
worked, you can really get spinachin. It can even go in earlier
than some of these other ones.We put ours in all about the same
(08:05):
time, just because it's really thefirst time we can work their garden when
you get into April. But thisis another great plant to do succession planning
with. So I you know Ihave a tennessee, I'll plant two rows
of spinach. I write down thedate. I go back two weeks later
plant another row of spinach. Sothat way we have a fresh supply of
Spanish all the time. Absolutely,so to plant this, you just want
(08:26):
to do some long trenches or someshort trenches, however you want to do
it, but short and thin.I mean a half inch to a quarter
inch deep. We like to puta little compost in that in that row,
and then put the seeds down init your row. For spacing,
you want about a foot apart,you know, if you're doing rows there,
put it into the trench, coverwith soil and water. Well,
I mean spinach is going to germinatefast five to ten days, and once
(08:48):
they've grown to a few inches tallagain, you're gonna thin to you know,
I say three to five inches,it can be four to six just
depends are you going to have themas baby you know Spanish, because that
I keep them close right. Ifthere's baby spinash, I really don't think
them a whole lot. But ifyou're really harvesting for larger leaves. You
do want to thin so they havean extra room to grow. Yeah,
(09:09):
spinish can be harvested four to sixweeks after planning, and you want to
start with those outer leaves first becausethey're going to be the oldest leaves and
I gotta tall. Spinach is onething you really do need to harvest it
at the younger side. It justit doesn't have the same flavor when it
gets more tender. And you know, the big thing about spinach is that
again they don't like summer. Spinachleaves do not like summer, so they're
going to bolt quickly, if youknow. That's why it's important to get
(09:31):
in the ground now so you can'tharvest it in you know, late spring,
early summer, and then again youcan plant another crop in late summer
for a fall harvest. Yeah,and you're gonna know when it bowls because
you're gonna taste it and you're gonnabe like, yep, it's it's done,
and you take it out. Weput it, we used to feed
it to our chickens. Sometimes we'llput it in our compost flowers developing and
that's the time, you know,that's over. That's right. That's right.
(09:52):
So okay, I'll tell you whatwe've done three. We're gonna take
a break right now and we're gonnabe back with the question of the week
and we'll finish with our other threecrops that you can get growing early this
year. And we are back.Let's get right to the question of the
week. Mary. We're talking springseed crops that you can get in the
ground early. And what is ourquestion this week? I gotta tell you
(10:13):
did this one so I don't evenknow what the question is. You know,
we get a lot of questions,so this one was perfect. This
is from Nina Kirkpatrick from Rochester,New York. I live where the weather
can shift significantly day to day inthe spring. One day it'll be eighty
degrees in at the end of March, and by the first week of April
we're back in the mid thirties atnight. Should I plant my seed crops
or wait until the temperature is guaranteedto be above forty degrees every night?
(10:35):
Great questions? Ever guarantee? No, there's never a guarantee, And it's
a great question because it does happen. I mean, we joke about it
in Ohio, like, wait tenminutes. But as we've traveled, we
figured every state, wait ten minutes, the weather will change, and Nina,
it's probably that way in New Yorkas well. But here's the thing.
It's really about the soil and thewarmth of the soil. If you've
(10:56):
just come off a sixteen inch snowfalland it's bitter cold, I'd wait a
few days until that soil warms up. But once you get into those normal
days, look seeds in the ground. One thirty degree night or even one
twenty degree night is not going toaffect them that much. You just want
to be in a pattern where it'sokay, it's going to happen. Okay,
I can tell you just this pastweek, we had some incredible early
(11:18):
spring weather and within two hours thetemperature drop thirty five to forty degrees and
I'm back in sweatshirts and sweats Ithink we were in shorts and T shirts
this morning and now in sweatshirts.But it's not going to hurt sea crops
in the ground. Soil is slowto heat or to freeze, So I
mean, there's no guarantees, Butwhat what you really want to do is
just wait until that temperature is warmedup a little bit. I always like
(11:41):
to see a week of fifties sixties, you know, and then you think,
okay, the soil is warmed alittle bit, we can start getting
these seed crops in. Hello.The crops can handle some frost. Not
all of them, but some ofthem can. It's just the hard freezes
that really hurt and hinder these thesecrops that we're talking about today. Yeah,
absolutely, great question, Nina.So let's get to it. We've
got three, la. Let's startwith spring onions. Ah. They're one
(12:01):
of my favorites. I used tosneak into my parents' garden as a kid
and pull them out and take themin and wash them off and eat them.
Probably rotting myself out right now aboutthat, But it's okay. They
are so easy exactly. They're soeasy to plant. You can do them
from little balls, or you cando them from seeds. I'm a big
ball guy. Seeds. It's justmy hands are too big. I have
(12:22):
to struggle and they take so hardto thin. But you know you're gonna
be pulling these up early for greenonions, right, and you know I
prefer the seed at this point,because you know, I'm basically using the
spring onions, and sometimes we callthem green onions. I use them for
cooking all the time, and honestlyI use more of the green part than
I do the white part of mycooking. Yeah, that's true. Well,
(12:43):
you want to sow these seeds afew weeks before your last frost,
kind of like the others here quarterinch apart. You want to thin the
seedlings to about three quarters of inchif you're going to be harvesting him as
green onions. Now, if you'regonna let them in the ground to grow
as bigger onions about two inches apart, you're gonna thin two. But we're
talking spring onions here, So Ilike keeping them close and you can harvest
them, you know, regularly.Again, another great crop to secession plant.
(13:05):
If you're going to continue to getspring onions, absolutely, and you
can let your spring onions grow upto beat like you said, the larger
onions. Yes, when I'm growing, you know, for big onions to
cut and slice and put on hamburgers, definitely, for the sets are the
way to go in my opinion.However, the spring onions, the seeds,
they'll grow nice and thin, niceand tall. You can slice the
dice them and you don't have thebig bulb to worry about at the end.
(13:26):
It's very so nice. She saysthings like, in my opinion,
she is absolutely one correct. Ifyou're trying to grow bigger onions, there's
a couple secrets. Number one isalways start with sets, because you're going
to get a bigger onion. Andalways if you're in an environment where you
can try to get them in inthe fall and let them come back in
the spring because they're going to growto a bigger onion. Hey, seeds
(13:46):
are great. You can make setsfrom seeds. Seeds are great for the
spring onions. I agree with youthere. They are a nice choice.
But if you're trying to grow bigonions, yeah, bulbs are the way
to go. So that's actually ournumber seven plant to crop in the spring
or actually this yeah, there yougo, there you go. So okay,
So we've done spring onions. We'vetalked about spinach, we've talked about
radishes, and we've talked about sugarsnappeas let's get into the next one,
(14:09):
which, boy, it covers alot here. But we're talking about lettuce
and you can talk about, youknow, bib lettuce, leaf lettuce,
lettuce. Yeah, but it's sucha great thing to get in seeds early
in the year because lettuce is anothercrop that once it gets hot, you're
gonna have trouble growing it. Thisis a tricky one though. Lettuce is
one that sometimes needs warmer weather toget started. But you're right, it's
(14:31):
a very short period of If itgets too hot, they won't grow at
all. But if it's not coolenough, they won't grow either. So
it's a little tricky one. Welike to put them in early. You
know, there's one that you justkeep putting in the ground so you can
see what happens. Yeah, andyou can cover it. That's it's an
easy thing to cover if you're goingto have an especially cold night. A
quarter inch deep is all you gotto play in them. The big thing
with lettuces, make sure that soilis really rich and loose. Add lots
(14:56):
of compost, you know, reallymix the soil up. That's what it's
going to help let us grow.And again you want to cover that if
it's going to have a really coldnight. Lettuce is not like spinach.
You can't handle the cold cold.But it's an easy crop to start early,
and you can usually get it prettyquickly and you can harvest it very
early. The thing I love aboutplanning lettuce is that once you harvest it,
(15:18):
you can cut it off. Itactually regrows, so you can harvest
it several a lot of varieties.You can harvest several times over and over
again. Yeah, and you'll againkind of like we talked about earlier,
you'll know when it gets too bitterlater on. But Mary's right, you
can get a good at least twousually three to four before it starts to
go a little bit bad. Butjust get started with It's just so fun.
And you know what, if youdon't have garden space right now,
(15:39):
lettuce is one you can grow inpots. We take some of your pots
that you're going to plant in afew weeks or a month or so and
fill them with lettuce at any pointwhere you can roll them inside if it's
gonna get cold. But there's nothinglike harvest in that first salad from your
own growing right And you know,one another thing I like about let us
is it I don't have to thinthe lettuce. I plan them in bunches
and then that way they can growand they grow together, and I can
(16:00):
cut and I don't have to worryabout thinning them out and throwing them away.
Yeah, that's true. That's verytrue. So okay, final one,
unless you count the bonus onion sets, We're going to talk about the
one crop that absolutely loves cold weatherand you can get it in and it's
going to be able to handle somecold weather. And that's kale. Kale
as a monster when it comes in. Fact, cold weather actually improves its
(16:22):
flavor, right, it does.And you know, Kale's one of those
crops for us that it lasts allseason long. It never bolts if we
cut it. It lasts all seasonhere in Ohio, and I don't I'm
not sure why either, but itdoes. You're absolutely right. But you
can sew it about four weeks beforeyour area's last frost date. It's gonna
come up. We've we've grown thewhite Russian variety. I like that a
lot. There's so many varieties ofgreat tasting kale. It's a fast grower.
(16:45):
That's what I like about white Russianwith you know, it's got the
baby leaves that are ready for harvesting. Gosh, twenty five days, right,
they grow quickly, and you know, you can harvest the big leaves
to do other things with and youknow, remove the stem to cook with.
But those baby leaves, there's nothingmore tender than baby kale. No,
it really is. And for biggerleaves, you're talking about the fifty
day mark, so still under twomonths, and you're beating that summer if
(17:07):
you use a lot of kale asanother succession plant. I always like.
Also, fall kale is wonderful becauseyou plant it, it comes up fast,
it grows, and then you getthat cold snap of weather that just
improves that flavor, makes it reallyreally good. And kales really, you
know, it's a very tolerant tocold weather. So in the fall it's
it's a really good crop to plantbecause it does last. Yeah. So
there we got there, We haveit. We covered our six crops with
(17:30):
the bonus onion sets. But Ido want to go into one more thing
is we talk about this sometimes onthe show before, but don't be taken
when you go out. Now.I went out today and we saw all
of these annuals out and all ofthese vegetable plants out ready, those are
not what we're talking about. Ifyou have frost dates that are not past.
(17:51):
You do not behind them unless you'regoing to keep them in your house.
And that's a great thing to getgood selection. But they should not
be planted right now. It's somethingstore have done more and more in the
last ten years. It's probably apet peeve of mine. But those are
not what we're talking about today.You've got to wait until that soil worms
for tomatoes and cucumbers and peppers godown the list. You can't be putting
(18:12):
those in the ground yet unless youlive in an area where your temperatures are
already past the frostede. I guessthe big point here is just because they're
out in the stores doesn't mean thatyou can plant them. That's right,
That's right, So just remember that. But hey, get those seeds,
get out there, get these sixcrops in and start enjoying gardening. It
really garden season. Yeah it is. It's garden season and gets you going.
(18:32):
So I think that about doesn't Marry, I'm ready for the big line
here. All right, Here wego, and remember whatever you do,
find the fun and gardening and growsomething beautiful. All right, everybody,
have a wonderful day and happy gardening. We hope you've enjoyed this episode.
Subscribe to the Simple Garden podcast oniTunes, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or
most of your favorite podcast apps.You can also head over to simple Garden
(18:53):
life dot com where you can listenand read all of the show notes to
every episode and if you have anyquestions, any ideas for show topics,
or if you want to share yourfavorite garden tip, email us at the
farm at owgarden dot com. Untilnext time, Thanks everyone,
Welcome to the Simple Garden Life podcast, a program dedicated to keeping the yard
of gardening simple, fun and alwaysrewarding. Now Here are your hosts,
Jim and Mary Competiti. Hello andwelcome everybody to Simple Garden Life. I'm
your host, Jim Competti, alongwith my wife Mary. And Mary the
garden season has begun, because we'retalking today about starting early spring crops.
(00:24):
That's always like one of our favoritetimes. You can get out there.
You're not planting those tomatoes yet,but you can certainly plant a lot of
things early on depending on where youlive, and get growing fast. Anytime
I can get in the garden,I'm happy. That's right. That's right.
Well, you know, gardening isreally more seasonal than anything. I
mean, you know, we talkabout the short window of time that you
have to grow your plants, andit's so good in the early spring to
(00:48):
get started. I think for me, I always think of one crop and
we're going to cover that today,which is sugar Snappie's my absolute favorite,
and really you need to get themin the ground early. We'll get to
that in a second, but Ithink Mary, most of the sugar snappis
you plant for the first round don'teven make it out of the garden.
Now we eat them straight out ofthe garden. I just pick an eat
as we go, and then weeventually get some crops exactly. So hey,
(01:11):
let's talk about a few things.If you have any questions, we
want to have some topics for us. You can reach us always at the
farm at Owgarden dot com. Youcan sign up to follow us at Simple
gardenlife dot com and follow along onFacebook or your favorite podcast app. You
know. You can also follow uson Instagram. Now we're starting to get
much more active on Instagram, postinga lot from the new farm and what
(01:32):
we're doing here. And it's reallyan exciting year for us. We got
the test garden almost complete, alot of videos now on our YouTube channel
as well at Old World Garden Farm, and I'll tell you it's really going
to be a fun year, rightAnd if you want to follow us on
Instagram, look up Old World Gardenyou'll find us there. You'll find us
our videos. We put little stepshops of helpful tips in our garden and
(01:53):
things that we do throughout the week. All right, so let's get into
this today. We're going to coversix crops that you can get started early,
and by early, we're saying that, you know, a lot of
times we can't plant things until thethread of frost is over. For us
here in Ohio that's really around Maytwenty fifth in our zone. Sometimes we
(02:14):
can get away a little bit earlier, a little bit later, or you
want warm soil to really help thosecrops. But today, what we're talking
about our seed crops that can goin the ground while there's still a thread
of frost because they're going to comeup through and they can handle a little
cold and you can get them independing on where you live, like for
us now we're talking mid April,we can start to plant now, right,
we're talking about you know, thosesea crops that you can put in
(02:35):
the ground once the soil is ableto be worked, it's no longer frozen,
it's warm enough that you can raakback the soil, raak back your
cover crop if you used one.It's one of those things. We're not
talking transplants, we're talking seed crops. Yeah, absolutely, So let's get
right into it. I've already kindof talked about the first one we're going
to go to, so we'll getright to that, and sugar snap peas
one of my favorite, whether there'ssnow peas or sugar snap peas, the
(02:58):
crispy crunch you get. But it'sa crop that you really do need to
plan early because it's gonna bolt oncethat heat comes. Right. It's not
one that likes the sun like mostof us. It likes the cooler weather.
So you can plant it in earlyspring, or you can plant it
in late summer for a fall crop. Yeah, your soil really needs to
be around, you know, fortyfive to fifty degrees to be able to
handle sugar snappiece for them to germinate, and you can get out there.
(03:22):
Once it gets above that eighty degreemark, you'll see those peas start to
fall off and you have to waitagain until fall to plant them again.
But such an easy crop to plant. You know what about two to three
weeks really before your last frost whenyou can get them in the ground right.
And the best thing about planting sugarsnap piece is that this actual seed
is a shriveled up pea, sothey're easy to handle. They're easy to
(03:44):
plant, yeah, and they'll usuallycome up if the soil is decent enough
in about seven to ten days.You know, we like to plant a
couple rows and then about a weekor two later plant a couple more.
A little bit of succession, youcan get a little bit more from your
spring crop. But Mary, Ithink the most thing to tell people is
you have to have some type ofa support system for this crop. Right,
there are ones that grow up andtall, so I would say they'd
(04:06):
get about four feet tall. Soyou need to have a trellis or a
fence or something that they can climb. Yeah, so what we use.
We use a couple of metal teasteaks, almost the same thing for our
steak at cage, but we justdrive them in the ground deep and then
we take a big long cattle panel, put it between them, cut them
to size, and we grow oneither side of that. It really is
an easy way. They trail usright up. They have the tendles that
(04:28):
come out right and grab that andthey're going to go right up it.
So, Mary, let's talk abouthow you plant this. It's a pretty
easy crop, right. You justwant to plant the seeds about one inch
deep, cover them with soil,leave about eighteen inches between the rows,
and then water them. Well,if you don't get enough rain. Yeah,
and about what every two to threeinches, space your seeds and make
you can play them a little closerand then if you want to. But
they're pretty good germaning, we liketo do about I'd say two inches is
(04:51):
what we probably use. Yeah,i'd say between one and two inches.
You know, we're always stingy.You want to get the most fur our
buck that's right. And then finallyput a little multi on right away.
You know, just about an inch. You can use straw, some clippings,
but that's going to keep any weedsfrom coming out. It'll still come
through a small layer of mulch.And then once they start to grow,
we thicken our mulch up underneath.Yeah, you want a thin layer of
(05:12):
mulch so that the ceilings can popthrough the ground. But it's important to
get that ground covered so that waythey don't get the weeds coming through.
And then you don't know what isa weed and what is a sugar snap
pea. Yeah, and look,they need some moisture, so that mulch
helps keep the moisture in, sowater them. If you're not getting water,
springtime's usually not an issue. You'regetting enough rain to to really work.
So that's number one. Number twoon the list is another one of
(05:33):
my favorites, and that's radishes.Oh, there's so many kinds of great
radish you can grow. Don't don'tjust think of that simple red radish,
which, hey, that's pretty darngood. But you have watermelon rashes,
all kinds, if you have Frenchbreakfast, from mild to extra spicy.
So you know, get out thereand get some different seeds and plant them.
They're a super fast crop. Weactually plant our radish seeds right in
(05:56):
the same bed as we plant oursugar snap peas. Yeah, they're great
companions. They're absolutely great companions.And you know, again you can plant
them early in the year. They'regoing to grow fast. Some radishes,
you know, they can be harvestedin as little as twenty eight to thirty
five days as baby radishes. They'refast growing, and you don't want to
let them get too big anyway becausethen they get kind of woody. Yeah,
exactly, and they're not that good. So when it comes to radishes,
(06:18):
you know, they're a thin cropabout a half inch deep is what
you're looking to plant for Again,about four to six weeks before your last
spring spring frost date, which islike perfect right now, they're going to
come up. Spacing is always difficultwith radishes because there's such a tiny seed.
They are a tiny seed, andyou'll plant a bunch and they'll all
gather together in certain areas. Andthis is a crop that you really do
(06:39):
need to thin. And as muchas I hate thinning crops and throwing throwing
seedlings away, this is one thatyou have to do otherwise the radishes will
wrap around each other, won't produce. Yeah, I laugh at this because
Mary cannot kill any seed seeds.She hates doing it. Early on,
we would plant carrot seeds and Iwould say, hey, have you thin
those? I can't, and thenwe would end up with tangled carrots.
So she has done a really goodjob. I would try to replant them
(07:02):
exactly so she's right though, Planthem about a half inch to an inch,
but you gotta let them have theroom depending on the variety. If
it's a larger radish, you know, plan them a little bit separate or
thin separately to that um As Isaid, they'll germinate fast three to four
days and then after a few inchestall, that's when you can start thinning
and really you can harvest any timeyou want after that twenty five to twenty
(07:23):
eight days because they're just gonna bebaby. They'll be tender. But you
know, the more you let inthe ground, the longer they're going to
grow. And with all of ourseedling crops, you always want to cover
the ground after you plan them inwith a light layer of multure stroll or
something so that way the weed seedscan't get in. Yep, another cool
weather crops. So we've talked aboutsugar snappeas and snowpeas, and we've talked
about radishes, and now it's spinach. Something as a child I absolutely despise
(07:45):
and as an adult I absolutely love. Can't figure that I just like fresh.
I'm still going to say it's probablythe Popeye can got fetish that we
didn't like. We absolutely love spinachnow. Yeah, so it thrives in
cool weather thirty five to seventy degrees. As soon as the soil can be
worked, you can really get spinachin. It can even go in earlier
than some of these other ones.We put ours in all about the same
(08:05):
time, just because it's really thefirst time we can work their garden when
you get into April. But thisis another great plant to do succession planning
with. So I you know Ihave a tennessee, I'll plant two rows
of spinach. I write down thedate. I go back two weeks later
plant another row of spinach. Sothat way we have a fresh supply of
Spanish all the time. Absolutely,so to plant this, you just want
(08:26):
to do some long trenches or someshort trenches, however you want to do
it, but short and thin.I mean a half inch to a quarter
inch deep. We like to puta little compost in that in that row,
and then put the seeds down init your row. For spacing,
you want about a foot apart,you know, if you're doing rows there,
put it into the trench, coverwith soil and water. Well,
I mean spinach is going to germinatefast five to ten days, and once
(08:48):
they've grown to a few inches tallagain, you're gonna thin to you know,
I say three to five inches,it can be four to six just
depends are you going to have themas baby you know Spanish, because that
I keep them close right. Ifthere's baby spinash, I really don't think
them a whole lot. But ifyou're really harvesting for larger leaves. You
do want to thin so they havean extra room to grow. Yeah,
(09:09):
spinish can be harvested four to sixweeks after planning, and you want to
start with those outer leaves first becausethey're going to be the oldest leaves and
I gotta tall. Spinach is onething you really do need to harvest it
at the younger side. It justit doesn't have the same flavor when it
gets more tender. And you know, the big thing about spinach is that
again they don't like summer. Spinachleaves do not like summer, so they're
going to bolt quickly, if youknow. That's why it's important to get
(09:31):
in the ground now so you can'tharvest it in you know, late spring,
early summer, and then again youcan plant another crop in late summer
for a fall harvest. Yeah,and you're gonna know when it bowls because
you're gonna taste it and you're gonnabe like, yep, it's it's done,
and you take it out. Weput it, we used to feed
it to our chickens. Sometimes we'llput it in our compost flowers developing and
that's the time, you know,that's over. That's right. That's right.
(09:52):
So okay, I'll tell you whatwe've done three. We're gonna take
a break right now and we're gonnabe back with the question of the week
and we'll finish with our other threecrops that you can get growing early this
year. And we are back.Let's get right to the question of the
week. Mary. We're talking springseed crops that you can get in the
ground early. And what is ourquestion this week? I gotta tell you
(10:13):
did this one so I don't evenknow what the question is. You know,
we get a lot of questions,so this one was perfect. This
is from Nina Kirkpatrick from Rochester,New York. I live where the weather
can shift significantly day to day inthe spring. One day it'll be eighty
degrees in at the end of March, and by the first week of April
we're back in the mid thirties atnight. Should I plant my seed crops
or wait until the temperature is guaranteedto be above forty degrees every night?
(10:35):
Great questions? Ever guarantee? No, there's never a guarantee, And it's
a great question because it does happen. I mean, we joke about it
in Ohio, like, wait tenminutes. But as we've traveled, we
figured every state, wait ten minutes, the weather will change, and Nina,
it's probably that way in New Yorkas well. But here's the thing.
It's really about the soil and thewarmth of the soil. If you've
(10:56):
just come off a sixteen inch snowfalland it's bitter cold, I'd wait a
few days until that soil warms up. But once you get into those normal
days, look seeds in the ground. One thirty degree night or even one
twenty degree night is not going toaffect them that much. You just want
to be in a pattern where it'sokay, it's going to happen. Okay,
I can tell you just this pastweek, we had some incredible early
(11:18):
spring weather and within two hours thetemperature drop thirty five to forty degrees and
I'm back in sweatshirts and sweats Ithink we were in shorts and T shirts
this morning and now in sweatshirts.But it's not going to hurt sea crops
in the ground. Soil is slowto heat or to freeze, So I
mean, there's no guarantees, Butwhat what you really want to do is
just wait until that temperature is warmedup a little bit. I always like
(11:41):
to see a week of fifties sixties, you know, and then you think,
okay, the soil is warmed alittle bit, we can start getting
these seed crops in. Hello.The crops can handle some frost. Not
all of them, but some ofthem can. It's just the hard freezes
that really hurt and hinder these thesecrops that we're talking about today. Yeah,
absolutely, great question, Nina.So let's get to it. We've
got three, la. Let's startwith spring onions. Ah. They're one
(12:01):
of my favorites. I used tosneak into my parents' garden as a kid
and pull them out and take themin and wash them off and eat them.
Probably rotting myself out right now aboutthat, But it's okay. They
are so easy exactly. They're soeasy to plant. You can do them
from little balls, or you cando them from seeds. I'm a big
ball guy. Seeds. It's justmy hands are too big. I have
(12:22):
to struggle and they take so hardto thin. But you know you're gonna
be pulling these up early for greenonions, right, and you know I
prefer the seed at this point,because you know, I'm basically using the
spring onions, and sometimes we callthem green onions. I use them for
cooking all the time, and honestlyI use more of the green part than
I do the white part of mycooking. Yeah, that's true. Well,
(12:43):
you want to sow these seeds afew weeks before your last frost,
kind of like the others here quarterinch apart. You want to thin the
seedlings to about three quarters of inchif you're going to be harvesting him as
green onions. Now, if you'regonna let them in the ground to grow
as bigger onions about two inches apart, you're gonna thin two. But we're
talking spring onions here, So Ilike keeping them close and you can harvest
them, you know, regularly.Again, another great crop to secession plant.
(13:05):
If you're going to continue to getspring onions, absolutely, and you
can let your spring onions grow upto beat like you said, the larger
onions. Yes, when I'm growing, you know, for big onions to
cut and slice and put on hamburgers, definitely, for the sets are the
way to go in my opinion.However, the spring onions, the seeds,
they'll grow nice and thin, niceand tall. You can slice the
dice them and you don't have thebig bulb to worry about at the end.
(13:26):
It's very so nice. She saysthings like, in my opinion,
she is absolutely one correct. Ifyou're trying to grow bigger onions, there's
a couple secrets. Number one isalways start with sets, because you're going
to get a bigger onion. Andalways if you're in an environment where you
can try to get them in inthe fall and let them come back in
the spring because they're going to growto a bigger onion. Hey, seeds
(13:46):
are great. You can make setsfrom seeds. Seeds are great for the
spring onions. I agree with youthere. They are a nice choice.
But if you're trying to grow bigonions, yeah, bulbs are the way
to go. So that's actually ournumber seven plant to crop in the spring
or actually this yeah, there yougo, there you go. So okay,
So we've done spring onions. We'vetalked about spinach, we've talked about
radishes, and we've talked about sugarsnappeas let's get into the next one,
(14:09):
which, boy, it covers alot here. But we're talking about lettuce
and you can talk about, youknow, bib lettuce, leaf lettuce,
lettuce. Yeah, but it's sucha great thing to get in seeds early
in the year because lettuce is anothercrop that once it gets hot, you're
gonna have trouble growing it. Thisis a tricky one though. Lettuce is
one that sometimes needs warmer weather toget started. But you're right, it's
(14:31):
a very short period of If itgets too hot, they won't grow at
all. But if it's not coolenough, they won't grow either. So
it's a little tricky one. Welike to put them in early. You
know, there's one that you justkeep putting in the ground so you can
see what happens. Yeah, andyou can cover it. That's it's an
easy thing to cover if you're goingto have an especially cold night. A
quarter inch deep is all you gotto play in them. The big thing
with lettuces, make sure that soilis really rich and loose. Add lots
(14:56):
of compost, you know, reallymix the soil up. That's what it's
going to help let us grow.And again you want to cover that if
it's going to have a really coldnight. Lettuce is not like spinach.
You can't handle the cold cold.But it's an easy crop to start early,
and you can usually get it prettyquickly and you can harvest it very
early. The thing I love aboutplanning lettuce is that once you harvest it,
(15:18):
you can cut it off. Itactually regrows, so you can harvest
it several a lot of varieties.You can harvest several times over and over
again. Yeah, and you'll againkind of like we talked about earlier,
you'll know when it gets too bitterlater on. But Mary's right, you
can get a good at least twousually three to four before it starts to
go a little bit bad. Butjust get started with It's just so fun.
And you know what, if youdon't have garden space right now,
(15:39):
lettuce is one you can grow inpots. We take some of your pots
that you're going to plant in afew weeks or a month or so and
fill them with lettuce at any pointwhere you can roll them inside if it's
gonna get cold. But there's nothinglike harvest in that first salad from your
own growing right And you know,one another thing I like about let us
is it I don't have to thinthe lettuce. I plan them in bunches
and then that way they can growand they grow together, and I can
(16:00):
cut and I don't have to worryabout thinning them out and throwing them away.
Yeah, that's true. That's verytrue. So okay, final one,
unless you count the bonus onion sets, We're going to talk about the
one crop that absolutely loves cold weatherand you can get it in and it's
going to be able to handle somecold weather. And that's kale. Kale
as a monster when it comes in. Fact, cold weather actually improves its
(16:22):
flavor, right, it does.And you know, Kale's one of those
crops for us that it lasts allseason long. It never bolts if we
cut it. It lasts all seasonhere in Ohio, and I don't I'm
not sure why either, but itdoes. You're absolutely right. But you
can sew it about four weeks beforeyour area's last frost date. It's gonna
come up. We've we've grown thewhite Russian variety. I like that a
lot. There's so many varieties ofgreat tasting kale. It's a fast grower.
(16:45):
That's what I like about white Russianwith you know, it's got the
baby leaves that are ready for harvesting. Gosh, twenty five days, right,
they grow quickly, and you know, you can harvest the big leaves
to do other things with and youknow, remove the stem to cook with.
But those baby leaves, there's nothingmore tender than baby kale. No,
it really is. And for biggerleaves, you're talking about the fifty
day mark, so still under twomonths, and you're beating that summer if
(17:07):
you use a lot of kale asanother succession plant. I always like.
Also, fall kale is wonderful becauseyou plant it, it comes up fast,
it grows, and then you getthat cold snap of weather that just
improves that flavor, makes it reallyreally good. And kales really, you
know, it's a very tolerant tocold weather. So in the fall it's
it's a really good crop to plantbecause it does last. Yeah. So
there we got there, We haveit. We covered our six crops with
(17:30):
the bonus onion sets. But Ido want to go into one more thing
is we talk about this sometimes onthe show before, but don't be taken
when you go out. Now.I went out today and we saw all
of these annuals out and all ofthese vegetable plants out ready, those are
not what we're talking about. Ifyou have frost dates that are not past.
(17:51):
You do not behind them unless you'regoing to keep them in your house.
And that's a great thing to getgood selection. But they should not
be planted right now. It's somethingstore have done more and more in the
last ten years. It's probably apet peeve of mine. But those are
not what we're talking about today.You've got to wait until that soil worms
for tomatoes and cucumbers and peppers godown the list. You can't be putting
(18:12):
those in the ground yet unless youlive in an area where your temperatures are
already past the frostede. I guessthe big point here is just because they're
out in the stores doesn't mean thatyou can plant them. That's right,
That's right, So just remember that. But hey, get those seeds,
get out there, get these sixcrops in and start enjoying gardening. It
really garden season. Yeah it is. It's garden season and gets you going.
(18:32):
So I think that about doesn't Marry, I'm ready for the big line
here. All right, Here wego, and remember whatever you do,
find the fun and gardening and growsomething beautiful. All right, everybody,
have a wonderful day and happy gardening. We hope you've enjoyed this episode.
Subscribe to the Simple Garden podcast oniTunes, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or
most of your favorite podcast apps.You can also head over to simple Garden
(18:53):
life dot com where you can listenand read all of the show notes to
every episode and if you have anyquestions, any ideas for show topics,
or if you want to share yourfavorite garden tip, email us at the
farm at owgarden dot com. Untilnext time, Thanks everyone,
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