Vegetable Planting Guide

    January:
    dot Plant seeds of peppers and eggplants indoors.
    • HINT: use a special seedling mix and find the sunniest room in your house for the seedling trays. Move them outside every possible sunny day, back in at night.
    February:
    dot Plant peas. Plant tomato seeds indoors.
    • HINT: pregerminate the pea seeds on moist paper towels in a warm room for 4 - 5 days before you sow the seeds.
    Our favorites!
    • Peas: Novella II, Sugar Snap, Oregon Sugar Pod II,Dwarf Grey Sugar
    March:
    dot Plant beans, beets, carrots, leeks, potatoes, radishes.
    • HINT: seeds planted in soggy or very cold soil will rot. Wait until the soil is workable.
    Our favorites!
    • Beans: Blue Lake, Royal Burgundy, Tendergreen, Improved Golden Wax, Romano (but kids won't eat 'em!)
    • Beets: Detroit Dark Red, Early Wonder, Chioggia, Lutz's Greenleaf
    • Carrots: Little Finger, Danvers Half-long
    • Potatoes: Yukon Gold, Yellow Finn, Red La Soda
    • Radishes: Champion is the best red radish! Daikon (Japanese white radish) is very easy to grow.
    April:
    dot Set out plants of tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, and tomatilloes mid to late month. Plant seeds of beans, corn, and sunflowers. Plant seeds or plants of squash and melons late in the month. Plant basil from seeds or plants.
    • HINT: Don't plant the heat-lovers too early! Tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, and okra don't like soil temperatures below 60F. You can increase soil temperatures by using Walls-O-Water or "seedling blankets." Super-sweet corns shouldn't be planted until May, but you can plant early favorites now.
    Our favorites!
    • Tomatoes and peppers: see our separate articles on these favorites: tomatoes and peppers
    • Corn: Silver Queen and Golden Jubilee are old standards. Try the supersweet or sugar-enhanced varieties as well.
    • Eggplants: Dusky (most heat-tolerant), Black Beauty, Ichiban(prolific); look at our heirloom varieties too!
    • Melons: Ambrosia is our all-time favorite. Burpee Hybrid is excellent. Sugar Baby watermelon is an excellent small-space watermelon; Charleston Grey is a huge fruit on a huge plant--fun to grow. Casaba is a good producer here.
    • Summer squash: Gold Rush , Ambassador , Sunburst, Summer crookneck, Cucuzzi.
    • Winter Squash: Sweet Meat, any of the Acorn varieties (Table Queen is very good), Spaghetti
    May:
    dot Plant tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, squash, melons, cucumbers, pumpkins. Plant corn, beans every few weeks.
    • HINT: This is really when peppers , eggplants, and okra should be planted!
    Our favorites!
    • Cucumbers: Burpless, Lemon, Armenian, Orient Express and many picklers.
    • Okra: Clemson Spineless is an old favorite. Let us know if you have another favorite!
    June:
    dot Continue successive plantings of corn and beans. Plant tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, melons, squash, pumpkins.
    July:
    dot Do your last plantings of corn and beans. Plant pumpkins on July 1 for Hallowe'en harvest. Harvest regularly to keep veg's producing. Plant Brussels sprouts and rutabagas this month! Plant Kentucky Wonder beans late in the month for a fall crop.
    Our favorites pumpkins!
      • Connecticut Field, Jack O' Lantern for carving;
      • Sugar or Pie for baking;
      • Jack Be Little, Cinderella, and Lumina for decorating;
      • Big Max for huge pumpkins!
    August:
    dot Plant seeds of fall and winter vegetables later in the month.
    • See our planting chart: Cool Season Vegetables in the Sacramento Valley and article Food We Plant In The Fall
    September and October:
    dot Plant beets, broccoli, carrots, cauliflower, chard, kale, leeks, lettuce, onions (from seed or seedlings), peas, radicchio.
    • HINT: sow seeds of cover crops where you aren't going to have a garden this winter. These will suppress weeds and build the soil, and many will make nitrogen. Fava beans, bell beans, vetch, clovers, and annual ryegrass are all good cover crops.
    Our favorites!
    • Lettuce: Bibb, Black-seeded Simpson, Lollo Rossa, Prizehead, Romaine
    • Onions: Stockton yellow, Stockton red, Early California red, Fresno White, Red Torpedo, Walla Walla.
    November and December:
    dot Broccoli, cabbage, chard, kale, lettuce; onions and garlic. Look for bundles of bareroot onions early November! Look for perennials: artichoke, asparagus, rhubarb; strawberry, blackberry plants.


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    © 2004 Don Shor, Redwood Barn Nursery, Inc., 1607 Fifth Street, Davis, Ca 95616
    www.redwoodbarn.com
    Feel free to copy and distribute this article with attribution to this author.
    Click here for Don's other Davis Enterprise articles