4/19/12 Planning your vegetable garden early & Often
Even in northern Illinois, gardeners can plant and harvest from early April until the fall frosts by planning ahead. According to University of Illinois Extension horticulture educator Richard Hentschel, there are as many as six opportunities to plant vegetables during the growing season by taking advantage of the space where the early crops were and planting summer and fall crops.
How can gardening start in April when the weather is still cold?
“By carefully choosing which garden plants thrive in cold, wet soils and actually prefer those conditions,” Hentschel explained. “Onions and peas, for example, prefer cold weather as do greens such as mustards and leaf lettuces.
“Potatoes need to go in the ground very early as well. If you have tasted fresh asparagus, you can really appreciate the ability to go out in your own garden and harvest those spears,” he said.
Asparagus plantings are a perennial crop, taking a few years to begin to produce, but you have to plant them to get things going. Other very hardy crops include radishes, spinach, kohlrabi and turnips. These very early vegetables are planted during the early days from April 10 to 20.
“Our next best time to plant is when vegetables want cooler conditions, but not the cold conditions of just a couple of weeks or so earlier,” he said. “These vegetables are frost-tolerant and include beets, broccoli, carrots, parsnips, Swiss chard, radishes or New Zealand spinach and transplants of early cabbage and head lettuce. Gardeners can plan on getting these vegetables in between April 25 and May 5.”
By now, the weather is getting more comfortable, yet there is a risk of a frost. The list of tender vegetables is the shortest and includes snap beans, summer squash, and sweet corn, all grown from seed. The only transplant going in between May 10 and May 20 along with the seeds will be tomato plants.
“You will need to protect the tomatoes from any frosty nights,” Hentschel added.
By the fourth planting, which occurs from mid-May through the end of that month, you are close to having the garden completely planted.
“The last two plantings can run together, depending on the spring weather,” he said. “This last group is what we call the warm-loving vegetables, those that prefer the soil and the air temperatures to be warm. You can transplant cucumbers, peppers, eggplant, and the squashes, like the winter squashes, as well as beets, carrots, snap beans and lima beans from seed.
“If you have lots of space, watermelons and muskmelon transplants can be planted too. If space is limiting, consider the bush-type vine crops,” he said.
Finally the garden has been fully planted, Hentschel said. “Now you can just wait until the very early plantings are harvested before you sow more seed or set out transplants for the late-summer and fall gardens. This usually starts toward the end of June into early July. You can repeat beets, carrots, snap beans, fresh cabbage or summer squash transplants or plant different vegetables like endive, Italian broccoli or Chinese cabbage.”
In the weeks to follow in mid-July through mid-August, some of your spring crops can be repeated. Consider winter radishes, a late planting of snap beans, repeat plantings of leaf lettuces and mustards.
“Planning ahead so you can harvest several different vegetables at different times allows for enough variety to keep the dinner table from being boring,” he said.
NEED A DESIGN? Now is also a great time start the design process so that you are ready to go when Spring weather gets here.
