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Vegetable Planting Guide

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January:

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:

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:

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:

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:

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:

July:

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:

See our planting chart: Cool Season Vegetables in the Sacramento Valley and article Food We Plant In The Fall

September and October:

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:

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© 2008 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.

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