It’s about 2 weeks until I start germinating some of my plants to go outside. They go out the last week of May, there’s usually a frost near the end of May. Squashes and other long plants don’t do so well here.
So what’s in everyone minds to get going this year? I usually try to get some cucumbers if they can finish in time, as well as tomatoes, peppers, peas, carrots and lettuce.
An early unexpected frost took my peppers and tomatoes last year unfortunately.
What zone are you in? The USDA just bumped us from 6B to 6A (yay global warming?). I just started all the things that can reasonably be started indoors without having a super over the top setup. This year that includes a few verities of tomatoes and peppers, artichokes, bok choi, egg plant (two verities again), and brussel sprouts.
I found that starting earlier indoors results in earlier yeilds. I use solo cups with holes in the bottom as my pots. I also have decent sized grow lights under a very makeshift mylar (space blanket) canopy to help the plants not get leggy.
Thankfully, we have a long enough grow season to be able to start things like cucumber and squash outdoors. I might start them inside this year to get a jump on the growing season, but it’s way too early to start them right now. Those things get… unwieldy fast. Carrots and shallots are also a bit of a pain to transplant in the quantities I like to grow them in, so I’ll start those outdoors.
I’m planning a bit ambitiously in terms of garden real estate this year. Last year we had some volunteer pie pumpkins grow in our compost pile and grow up the side of the deer fence we have around the garden. If the deer didn’t eat them last year, I figure I can try intentionally planting some squash and goards along the fence this year to conserve space in my raised beds.
3a/b-4a and to make matters more interesting, there is even microclimates where some people have great luck with gourds. I’m personally down in a valley, so wider fluctuations.
I’ve got 2 4’x12’ raised beds currently, health issues stopped my garden expansion last year. Hoping to get back this year, but likely it will be next.
Yields for sure, here you barely get 90 days of growing season, so you have to start indoors and early or your options are limited. I use solo cups myself, I also made my own aeroponics chamber to use as well (meant for propagation), but I’ve had great luck with a heat mat and humidity domes with starter plugs too.
I grow cannabis inside as well, so I just use those lights and materials for my garden starters haha, I had some peppers going in one of the tents, the squashes just took the fuck off, so had to remove them. I did start some tomatoes last week to try again, and move outdoors if needed.
Radishes, lettuces, carrots, I’ve had great luck just seed to ground and the end of may. I’ve also had bad luck trying some broccoli and it bolting, as well as some of the lettuces too.
What does this mean?
Recently the USDA updated their plant handiness zones.
https://www.ars.usda.gov/news-events/news/research-news/2023/usda-unveils-updated-plant-hardiness-zone-map/
The USDA updates their grow zones every couple of years (?). Their last update had my town moved from 6B to 6A due to warming temperatures. The plants don’t understand the rating, but what it means is that my area has been trending toward having a longer grow season (time between frosts) for a while now.
For more reading, see: https://planthardiness.ars.usda.gov/
I believe it also has to do with frost depth and coldest temperature, that’s more for trees and flowers over typical “garden” stuff though.
Lots of flower bulbs to remove every year here.
Ah, I see. That would make sense. It seems that people always want to try to push the boundary of what they can grow in their region. A neighbor digs up a ton of canna lilies each fall. A friend has a lemon tree in a pot that they bring in at the end of the season. Heck, we have a pretty big jade that we have outside for about half they year…
It would be pretty cool to be able to have some more exotic flowers on our lot, but I guess that wouldn’t make them exotic anymore.