Planting for a Four Season Harvest, Part 3
Peas First
Row Crop
Long before tomato seedlings get into the garden, I sow my first row crop --- peas. If ground has thawed by mid-March, peas go in. A few days before, winter mulch is raked aside temporarily to let soil warm up. From then on, I make sowings of peas every week until May first. The aim is: peas every day during June and the first week or so of July. The early sowings --- but not the earliest, for peas may rot in the cold, wet ground --- make the best crops.
April is a busy planting
month. The lettuce seedlings from the
house go outside first. Though not so hardy as the cabbage, they
are more expendable. I have lots of them and can tuck them in
many places. They are out of the way sooner; I use some when
half-mature. By mid-April, cabbage, broccoli, and/or cauliflower
seedlings are set in rows. It's a good idea to set out more than
you'll eventually want --- there are always surplus seedlings if you
raise them yourself. At the end of two weeks, pull up those that
are not thriving.
Many important sowings are
made at this time: beets, carrots,
chard. If started inside, leeks are set out now. More
lettuce --- just a short drill furnishes many seedlings --- and
parsley. Parsnips can wait a while; they won't be harvested until
after the frost the next fall. Radishes get very short plantings
every 10 days until hot weather. Turnips for greens and onion
sets go in now. Frost may still occur here but the above crops
are fairly hardy; most gardeners don't get them in soon enough.
"If the ground can be worked" is the rule to follow.
To be continued....
Tirrell, R. 1966, February. Planting for a 4-Season
Harvest. Organic Gardening and
Farming.
Reprinted by permission of Organic Gardening magazine. Copyright
Rodale, Inc., U.S.A. All rights reserved.
www.organicgardening.com.
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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.
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