What is the best time to grow vegetables?
Mid-March to mid-April—early spring–for planting early, hardy crops. May 1 to June 1—late spring– for planting tender crops. Late June to late July—mid-summer–for planting succession crops warm weather crops and cool-season crops for fall and winter harvest. Planting in September provides you with an earlier crop in spring, makes use of otherwise empty soil and saves you time on spring planting.
Should I fertilize my vegetable garden before planting?
When to Fertilize Your Garden. For edible crops, fertilizer is usually applied in the spring and mixed into the garden soil before planting. If you’ve already sown your seeds or planted seedlings, you can still gently work in granular fertilizer (not liquid fertilizer, which can burn young roots) around the plants. Usually a balanced fertilizer is applied every three to four weeks throughout the growing season. Don’t stop applications when fruit appears—continue to apply fertilizer as needed to ensure continued production. Vegetables growing in clay soils will need less fertilizer than those in sandy soils.Most vegetables will do best with a balanced fertilizer—something like 6-6-6. But there are some exceptions. Leafy vegetables may need only nitrogen to grow large, tender foliage, and root crops such as sweet potatoes, potatoes, beets, carrots, and turnips often benefit from an extra dose of potassium.For annual vegetables, fertilize the soil just before planting. Once you see flowering and fruiting, stop with the nitrogen.
How often should I put fertilizer on my vegetable garden?
Usually a balanced fertilizer is applied every three to four weeks throughout the growing season. Don’t stop applications when fruit appears—continue to apply fertilizer as needed to ensure continued production. Vegetables growing in clay soils will need less fertilizer than those in sandy soils. Vegetables grown for their fruits, seeds, roots or bulbs will thrive on a pre-plant fertilization with a low N complete fertilizer such as 6-24-24, 6-12-18 or 8-16-16. For many plantssuch as beets,carrots, beansand peas, thissingle pre-plantfertilization willbe enough tocarry them through the growing season.
What is the best month to start a vegetable garden?
Generally March and April, when the soil begins to warm, are the best months to begin sowing many hardy annual vegetable seeds outdoors including broccoli, cabbage, chard, carrots, peas and parsnips. Mid-fall (September to early October): Plant root vegetables like carrots, turnips, and radishes. These need time to develop but grow quickly in cool weather. Late fall (October): Hardy greens like kale, winter lettuce, and chard can be planted closer to frost since they’re more cold-tolerant.Salad greens generally do well in cooler weather and they welcome some shade! It can be tricky to grow them during the hottest part of the summer because these veggies go to seed (also known as bolting) more quickly with too much heat or sun.Arugula, French breakfast radishes, mizuna, Bloomsdale spinach, and spring mix lettuce—these are my five favorite plants to grow when I know I’ve got a short season ahead of me or whenever I need almost-instant gratification.