Winter’s End
For those of us happy to do a bit of gardening in the wind and rain, the 2021 growing season has been underway for a while already. Actually, we’re still harvesting lettuce and kale from our “winter’s end garden,” left. But now, the overwintering plants are slowly being joined by new sprouts from the peas and salad greens we seeded a few weeks ago (note the tiny bits of green in the foreground).
The major recent activity, however, has been preparing a new garden bed and seeding it with radishes, arugula, spinach, and lettuces. With luck, we’ll be enjoying the radishes sometime in the second half of April, followed by the arugula and spinach, and then the lettuces by late May/early June.
If you’re willing to accept Sky Nursery’s “last frost date” estimate of April 15th, then a wide variety of vegetables can be safely direct-seeded outdoors at this point, as noted in our Union Gardens Calendar:
fava beans
peas
spinach
onions/scallions
arugula
collards
kale
leeks
lettuce
potatoes
radishes
turnips
cabbage
cauliflower
celery
kohlrabi
Coming Attractions
We’re anticipating rows of green to begin emerging in the “coming attractions” garden, left, within a week or two.
Might you be looking for a positive, hopeful activity—or even just sign of the warmer, sunnier weather to come? Consider planting some seeds in your garden, planter box, or a container on the windowsill!