5 Vegetable seeds to plant outside in early spring
It’s April and the nights are still cold and so are some of the daytime temperatures. But some vegetables thrive in this type of weather and should be planted now. Here are my top 5 seeds to plant outside now.
# 1 Peas Whether it is sugar snap peas or English peas with inedible pods, these plants are best sown outdoors in early spring. My seeds are sprouting already, less than 2 weeks after planting.
#2 Spinach These tiny seeds start sprouting 7-10 days after sowing. Like other tiny seeds that get sprinkled on the soil and lightly covered with 1/4 inch of dirt, spinach comes up all over. It will require thinning to 1/4-1/2 inch apart so the fragile seedlings can advance to the next stage of growth.
#3 Lettuce For lettuces the same thinning process applies. Above is a sample of the first round of thinning that I did for my lettuce. It will require even more thinning soon to ensure that the individual plants have enough room to grow.
#4 Kale Kale is also a great plant to grow from seeds in early spring. In past years some of my hearty kale plants survived the winter months and still produced leaves in early spring.
#5 Radishes Just like the lettuce seeds, radish seeds are very small and need to be thinned when they sprout. It is even more important to do this for radishes as they need room for the radish bulbs to grow under the ground. For this reason I prefer to grow radishes using growing tape. The seeds are imbedded in a biodegradable fabric that keeps them a good distance from each other in rows. They sprout within 5 days so this is a great vegetable to grow with kids, since they can see the results of their hard work very quickly.
Lastly, I want to share a tip with you about keeping the squirrels out of your garden beds and containers. It is so irritating to go outside and check on your vegetable seeds, only to see that the squirrels have dug up the beds! I use bamboo sticks (also a great support for your pea plants) as holders for netting to drape over my pots and beds while my seeds germinate. Regular office clips attach the netting to the sticks and this protects your seeds from being dug up. Score one for me over the squirrels!
Comments ( 2 )