Have You Decided What to Plant in Your Garden Yet?
The last couple weeks I have been getting seed catalogs in the mail. I really love looking through the seed catalogs at all the great varieties of vegetables. But how do I know which to ultimately plant in my garden?
This question inspired this week's blog post -
How to Choose the Right Vegetables to Plant in Your Garden.
Figuring out which vegetables to plant in your garden is key to getting abundant harvests. If you have been
gardening for years you likely already have a system in place to choose what to grow based on
experience, and observation - plus a bit of growing what you like to grow!
But if you are relatively new to
gardening you may struggle to decide which vegetables to grow and which to not - they all look so interesting! Plus there are always new varieties catching our attention!
This is where
my blog post comes in. I wrote it to serve as a guide for someone relatively new to gardening who is struggling to decide which vegetables to choose for their garden. If that sounds like you then this blog post can help get your garden going.
The blog post this week focuses on answering 3 guiding questions that will help you pick which vegetables to choose for your garden.
Blog Post Sections
- What Vegetables Do You and Your Family Eat?
- What Vegetables Grow Well in Your Area?
- The First Piece of the Puzzle – Eliminating Plants That Definitely Won’t Grow Well
- Making the calculations
- The Final Piece of the Puzzle – Identifying the Plants that Will Grow Well
- Understanding your Hot and Cool-Weather Plants
- What Vegetables Do You Like to Grow?
- Choosing the Right Vegetables to Plant in Your Garden
So, what are you going to grow this year in your garden? How did you decide which vegetables to grow? Please leave a comment and don't forget to check out my
blog post. If you are one of the first to leave a comment on here you might even get a surprise in the form of pie or apples
In the rest of this
thread I'm going to give an overview of the steps listed in this blog post for answering the second question - What vegetables grow well in your area?
Basic Steps to Determine Which Vegetables Grow Well in Your Area
Trying to figure out which vegetables grow well in your area can be a challenge - there are just so many types and varieties! To keep from having to look at all these various types of vegetables I recommend that you first list the vegetables that you and your family use on a regular basis.
This
should give you a manageable list of vegetables as a starting point.
Your list may include vegetables that don't grow in your area. For example there are hot peppers that just won't produce in my area. So the first step is to figure out which vegetables from your starting list won't grow or produce in your area.
Those can be crossed out.
In general I look at the days to maturity for the vegetables and see if my growing season is long
enough. Though there are a lot of warm weather loving vegetables like hot peppers that just don't do well despite my growing season technically being long enough.
My blog post expands on this basic calculation by taking into account the fact that some vegetables can be planted before the last frost date and some vegetables need to be planted after the last frost date. This is done by using some free
online tools and a spreadsheet based tool that I developed that will tell you if a vegetable will probably grow in your area or will not grow in your area.
Here are the basic steps outlined in the blog post:
Step 1: Determine your growing season and your first and last frost dates.
Step 2: Look up the recommended planting date for each vegetable that you like to cook or eat.
Step 3: While you’re at it, mark each of these vegetables as either hot weather or cool weather plants (You’ll need to know this for the next step).
Step 4: Look up the days to maturity (online or from a seed catalog) for each vegetable.
Step 5: Check to see if there are enough days starting on the recommended planting date (step 2) for each vegetable to reach maturity (step 4) before the first frost (step 1).
Once you go through these 5 steps you can cross off any vegetables from your list that won’t have enough time to reach maturity.
One Final Fuzzy Step to Determine Which Vegetables Grow Well in Your Area
I tried to figure out a nice logical and numerical approach to deciding which vegetables would grow well in your area. But nature tends to be a bit more messy than that.
You will need to take into account the fuzzy sides of your area's climate. What are your springs like? What about late summer?
In my area it can stay very wet and cloudy through May and even into June. September can also be very wet. Some years (like 2018) can be very dry during these times but often May, and September are wet months.
This means that warm weather vegetables like tomatoes can be a bit iffy. I still grow them but there is no guarantee that I will get a good harvest.
Because of this I tend to choose varieties that reach maturity quickly like cherry tomatoes.
What about your area? What is your May/September weather like and how does it impact your garden? Please leave a comment with your
answer to these questions.
If you are new to gardening I recommend crossing off any vegetables that seem questionable. Stick with the ones that are more likely to do well - this will help you stay motivated and excited about gardening.
Which Vegetables Are You Going to Grow?
What about you? Which vegetables are you going to grow?
I'm still figuring out my vegetable list for my garden but here are the ones I will most likely grow:
- Green beans (climbing type)
- Tomatoes
- Onions
- Greens (Swish chard, miners lettuce, lettuce, orach, kale, arugula)
- Zucchini
- Snap peas
- Broccoli
- Carrots
Plus a mix of
perennial vegetables - my goal is to grow more and more
perennial vegetables each year and steadily decrease my annual vegetables.
Please leave a comment in this thread and don't forget to
check out my blog post mentioned in this thread. If you are one of the first to leave a comment on here you might even get a surprise in the form of pie or apples
Thank you!