The Best Spring Garden Seed Crops To Plant Early – Get Growing Now!

Welcome to the Simple Garden Life podcast, a program dedicated to keeping the yard
of gardening simple, fun and always rewarding. Now Here are your hosts,
Jim and Mary Competiti. Hello and welcome everybody to Simple Garden Life. I'm
your host, Jim Competti, along with my wife Mary. And Mary the
garden season has begun, because we're talking today about starting early spring crops.
That's always like one of our favorite times. 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 you live, and get growing fast. Anytime
I can get in the garden, I'm happy. That's right. That's right.
Well, you know, gardening is really more seasonal than anything. I
mean, you know, we talk about the short window of time that you
have to grow your plants, and it's so good in the early spring to
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 them in the ground early. We'll get to
that in a second, but I think Mary, most of the sugar snappis
you plant for the first round don't even make it out of the garden.
Now we eat them straight out of the garden. I just pick an eat
as we go, and then we eventually get some crops exactly. So hey,
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
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our videos. We put little step shops of helpful tips in our garden and
things that we do throughout the week. All right, so let's get into
this today. We're going to cover six 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 the thread of frost is over. For us
here in Ohio that's really around May twenty fifth in our zone. Sometimes we
can get away a little bit earlier, a little bit later, or you
want warm soil to really help those crops. But today, what we're talking
about our seed crops that can go in the ground while there's still a thread
of frost because they're going to come up through and they can handle a little
cold and you can get them in depending 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, those sea crops that you can put in
the ground once the soil is able to be worked, it's no longer frozen,
it's warm enough that you can raak back 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 kind of talked about the first one we're going
to go to, so we'll get right to that, and sugar snap peas
one of my favorite, whether there's snow peas or sugar snap peas, the
crispy crunch you get. But it's a crop that you really do need to
plan early because it's gonna bolt once that heat comes. Right. It's not
one that likes the sun like most of us. It likes the cooler weather.
So you can plant it in early spring, or you can plant it
in late summer for a fall crop. Yeah, your soil really needs to
be around, you know, forty five to fifty degrees to be able to
handle sugar snappiece for them to germinate, and you can get out there.
Once it gets above that eighty degree mark, you'll see those peas start to
fall off and you have to wait again 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 when you can get them in the ground right.
And the best thing about planting sugar snap piece is that this actual seed
is a shriveled up pea, so they're easy to handle. They're easy to
plant, yeah, and they'll usually come 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 week or two later plant a couple more.
A little bit of succession, you can get a little bit more from your
spring crop. But Mary, I think the most thing to tell people is
you have to have some type of a support system for this crop. Right,
there are ones that grow up and tall, so I would say they'd
get about four feet tall. So you 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 tea steaks, almost the same thing for our
steak at cage, but we just drive 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 on either side of that. It really is
an easy way. They trail us right up. They have the tendles that
come out right and grab that and they're going to go right up it.
So, Mary, let's talk about how you plant this. It's a pretty
easy crop, right. You just want 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 three inches, space your seeds and make
you can play them a little closer and then if you want to. But
they're pretty good germaning, we like to do about I'd say two inches is
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 finally put 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 weeds from 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
mulch so that the ceilings can pop through the ground. But it's important to
get that ground covered so that way they don't get the weeds coming through.
And then you don't know what is a weed and what is a sugar snap
pea. Yeah, and look, they need some moisture, so that mulch
helps keep the moisture in, so water them. If you're not getting water,
springtime's usually not an issue. You're getting enough rain to to really work.
So that's number one. Number two on the list is another one of
my favorites, and that's radishes. Oh, there's so many kinds of great
radish you can grow. Don't don't just think of that simple red radish,
which, hey, that's pretty darn good. But you have watermelon rashes,
all kinds, if you have French breakfast, from mild to extra spicy.
So you know, get out there and get some different seeds and plant them.
They're a super fast crop. We actually plant our radish seeds right in
the same bed as we plant our sugar 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're going to grow fast. Some radishes,
you know, they can be harvested in as little as twenty eight to thirty
five days as baby radishes. They're fast growing, and you don't want to
let them get too big anyway because then they get kind of woody. Yeah,
exactly, and they're not that good. So when it comes to radishes,
you know, they're a thin crop about 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 is like perfect right now, they're going to
come up. Spacing is always difficult with radishes because there's such a tiny seed.
They are a tiny seed, and you'll plant a bunch and they'll all
gather together in certain areas. And this is a crop that you really do
need to thin. And as much as I hate thinning crops and throwing throwing
seedlings away, this is one that you 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 I would say, hey, have you thin
those? I can't, and then we would end up with tangled carrots.
So she has done a really good job. I would try to replant them
exactly so she's right though, Plan them about a half inch to an inch,
but you gotta let them have the room 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 I said, they'll germinate fast three to four
days and then after a few inches tall, that's when you can start thinning
and really you can harvest any time you want after that twenty five to twenty
eight days because they're just gonna be baby. They'll be tender. But you
know, the more you let in the ground, the longer they're going to
grow. And with all of our seedling crops, you always want to cover
the ground after you plan them in with a light layer of multure stroll or
something so that way the weed seeds can't get in. Yep, another cool
weather crops. So we've talked about sugar snappeas and snowpeas, and we've talked
about radishes, and now it's spinach. Something as a child I absolutely despise
and as an adult I absolutely love. Can't figure that I just like fresh.
I'm still going to say it's probably the Popeye can got fetish that we
didn't like. We absolutely love spinach now. Yeah, so it thrives in
cool weather thirty five to seventy degrees. As soon as the soil can be
worked, you can really get spinach in. It can even go in earlier
than some of these other ones. We put ours in all about the same
time, just because it's really the first time we can work their garden when
you get into April. But this is another great plant to do succession planning
with. So I you know I have a tennessee, I'll plant two rows
of spinach. I write down the date. I go back two weeks later
plant another row of spinach. So that way we have a fresh supply of
Spanish all the time. Absolutely, so to plant this, you just want
to do some long trenches or some short trenches, however you want to do
it, but short and thin. I mean a half inch to a quarter
inch deep. We like to put a little compost in that in that row,
and then put the seeds down in it your row. For spacing,
you want about a foot apart, you know, if you're doing rows there,
put it into the trench, cover with soil and water. Well,
I mean spinach is going to germinate fast five to ten days, and once
they've grown to a few inches tall again, 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 them as baby you know Spanish, because that
I keep them close right. If there's baby spinash, I really don't think
them a whole lot. But if you're really harvesting for larger leaves. You
do want to thin so they have an extra room to grow. Yeah,
spinish can be harvested four to six weeks after planning, and you want to
start with those outer leaves first because they're going to be the oldest leaves and
I gotta tall. Spinach is one thing you really do need to harvest it
at the younger side. It just it 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. Spinach leaves do not like summer, so they're
going to bolt quickly, if you know. That's why it's important to get
in the ground now so you can't harvest it in you know, late spring,
early summer, and then again you can 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 gonna be like, yep, it's it's done,
and you take it out. We put it, we used to feed
it to our chickens. Sometimes we'll put it in our compost flowers developing and
that's the time, you know, that's over. That's right. That's right.
So okay, I'll tell you what we've done three. We're gonna take
a break right now and we're gonna be back with the question of the week
and we'll finish with our other three crops 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 spring seed crops that you can get in the
ground early. And what is our question this week? I gotta tell you
did this one so I don't even know 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 in the 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 at night. Should I plant my seed crops
or wait until the temperature is guaranteed to be above forty degrees every night?
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 ten minutes. 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 York as well. But here's the thing.
It's really about the soil and the warmth of the soil. If you've
just come off a sixteen inch snowfall and 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 to affect them that much. You just want
to be in a pattern where it's okay, it's going to happen. Okay,
I can tell you just this past week, we had some incredible early
spring weather and within two hours the temperature drop thirty five to forty degrees and
I'm back in sweatshirts and sweats I think 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 slow to heat or to freeze, So I
mean, there's no guarantees, But what what you really want to do is
just wait until that temperature is warmed up a little bit. I always like
to see a week of fifties sixties, you know, and then you think,
okay, the soil is warmed a little bit, we can start getting
these seed crops in. Hello. The crops can handle some frost. Not
all of them, but some of them can. It's just the hard freezes
that really hurt and hinder these these crops that we're talking about today. Yeah,
absolutely, great question, Nina. So let's get to it. We've
got three, la. Let's start with spring onions. Ah. They're one
of my favorites. I used to sneak into my parents' garden as a kid
and pull them out and take them in and wash them off and eat them.
Probably rotting myself out right now about that, But it's okay. They
are so easy exactly. They're so easy to plant. You can do them
from little balls, or you can do them from seeds. I'm a big
ball guy. Seeds. It's just my hands are too big. I have
to struggle and they take so hard to thin. But you know you're gonna
be pulling these up early for green onions, right, and you know I
prefer the seed at this point, because you know, I'm basically using the
spring onions, and sometimes we call them green onions. I use them for
cooking all the time, and honestly I use more of the green part than
I do the white part of my cooking. Yeah, that's true. Well,
you want to sow these seeds a few weeks before your last frost,
kind of like the others here quarter inch apart. You want to thin the
seedlings to about three quarters of inch if you're going to be harvesting him as
green onions. Now, if you're gonna 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 I like keeping them close and you can harvest
them, you know, regularly. Again, another great crop to secession plant.
If you're going to continue to get spring onions, absolutely, and you
can let your spring onions grow up to 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, nice and tall. You can slice the
dice them and you don't have the big bulb to worry about at the end.
It's very so nice. She says things like, in my opinion,
she is absolutely one correct. If you're trying to grow bigger onions, there's
a couple secrets. Number one is always start with sets, because you're going
to get a bigger onion. And always if you're in an environment where you
can try to get them in in the fall and let them come back in
the spring because they're going to grow to a bigger onion. Hey, seeds
are great. You can make sets from seeds. Seeds are great for the
spring onions. I agree with you there. They are a nice choice.
But if you're trying to grow big onions, yeah, bulbs are the way
to go. So that's actually our number seven plant to crop in the spring
or actually this yeah, there you go, there you go. So okay,
So we've done spring onions. We've talked about spinach, we've talked about
radishes, and we've talked about sugar snappeas let's get into the next one,
which, boy, it covers a lot here. But we're talking about lettuce
and you can talk about, you know, bib lettuce, leaf lettuce,
lettuce. Yeah, but it's such a great thing to get in seeds early
in the year because lettuce is another crop that once it gets hot, you're
gonna have trouble growing it. This is a tricky one though. Lettuce is
one that sometimes needs warmer weather to get started. But you're right, it's
a very short period of If it gets too hot, they won't grow at
all. But if it's not cool enough, they won't grow either. So
it's a little tricky one. We like to put them in early. You
know, there's one that you just keep putting in the ground so you can
see what happens. Yeah, and you can cover it. That's it's an
easy thing to cover if you're going to have an especially cold night. A
quarter inch deep is all you got to play in them. The big thing
with lettuces, make sure that soil is really rich and loose. Add lots
of compost, you know, really mix 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 cold night. 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 pretty quickly and you can harvest it very
early. The thing I love about planning lettuce is that once you harvest it,
you can cut it off. It actually regrows, so you can harvest
it several a lot of varieties. You can harvest several times over and over
again. Yeah, and you'll again kind of like we talked about earlier,
you'll know when it gets too bitter later on. But Mary's right, you
can get a good at least two usually three to four before it starts to
go a little bit bad. But just get started with It's just so fun.
And you know what, if you don't have garden space right now,
lettuce is one you can grow in pots. We take some of your pots
that you're going to plant in a few weeks or a month or so and
fill them with lettuce at any point where you can roll them inside if it's
gonna get cold. But there's nothing like 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 thin the lettuce. I plan them in bunches
and then that way they can grow and they grow together, and I can
cut and I don't have to worry about thinning them out and throwing them away.
Yeah, that's true. That's very true. So okay, final one,
unless you count the bonus onion sets, We're going to talk about the
one crop that absolutely loves cold weather and you can get it in and it's
going to be able to handle some cold weather. And that's kale. Kale
as a monster when it comes in. Fact, cold weather actually improves its
flavor, right, it does. And you know, Kale's one of those
crops for us that it lasts all season long. It never bolts if we
cut it. It lasts all season here in Ohio, and I don't I'm
not sure why either, but it does. You're absolutely right. But you
can sew it about four weeks before your area's last frost date. It's gonna
come up. We've we've grown the white Russian variety. I like that a
lot. There's so many varieties of great tasting kale. It's a fast grower.
That's what I like about white Russian with 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 you know, remove the stem to cook with.
But those baby leaves, there's nothing more tender than baby kale. No,
it really is. And for bigger leaves, you're talking about the fifty
day mark, so still under two months, and you're beating that summer if
you use a lot of kale as another succession plant. I always like.
Also, fall kale is wonderful because you plant it, it comes up fast,
it grows, and then you get that cold snap of weather that just
improves that flavor, makes it really really good. And kales really, you
know, it's a very tolerant to cold weather. So in the fall it's
it's a really good crop to plant because it does last. Yeah. So
there we got there, We have it. We covered our six crops with
the bonus onion sets. But I do want to go into one more thing
is we talk about this sometimes on the 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 of these vegetable plants out ready, those are
not what we're talking about. If you have frost dates that are not past.
You do not behind them unless you're going to keep them in your house.
And that's a great thing to get good selection. But they should not
be planted right now. It's something store have done more and more in the
last ten years. It's probably a pet 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 go down the list. You can't be putting
those in the ground yet unless you live in an area where your temperatures are
already past the frostede. I guess the big point here is just because they're
out in the stores doesn't mean that you can plant them. That's right,
That's right, So just remember that. But hey, get those seeds,
get out there, get these six crops in and start enjoying gardening. It
really garden season. Yeah it is. It's garden season and gets you going.
So I think that about doesn't Marry, I'm ready for the big line
here. All right, Here we go, and remember whatever you do,
find the fun and gardening and grow something beautiful. All right, everybody,
have a wonderful day and happy gardening. We hope you've enjoyed this episode.
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