When do i plant my vegetables

Scatter the fertilizer along the sides of a row of plants; turn it into the existing soil with a spading fork and rake it smooth. Inside: Start seeds of warm season crops such as tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, pumpkin, snap beans, squash, and sweet corn. At the end of the month, plant peas.

The bottom line: The weather can still work against you—keep those row covers handy in case of a nighttime cold snap—but otherwise you should be getting into full swing. Check soil temperature regularly with your thermometer. Begin setting out your early-season crops.

Try to pick an overcast day to minimize transplant shock—the stress that occurs when plants are moved from a cushy greenhouse environment to the harsh real world. Be sure to water well at planting time. When finished, add a two- to three-inch layer of mulch to suppress weeds and keep in moisture. Plant them in succession, every few weeks, for a continuous harvest through the season. And stay on top of weeds, catching them before they begin to spread.

The bottom line: Take advantage of warm temps, longer days, and moist soil to do the bulk of your remaining plantings. But resist the temptation to plant more than you can reasonably take care of as the season advances. Confirm that you have the gear you need to water the garden: As temperatures warm, consistent moisture will be of the utmost importance.

You can continue or start planting any early-season crops, plus tomatoes, squash, melons, eggplant, peppers, sweet corn, cucumbers, potatoes, and herbs. Water and mulch any new transplants with care. If choosing to sow directly in the garden, start your carrots, beets, and radishes. Follow packet instructions for proper spacing of the crops that were direct sown and thin the seedlings accordingly.

Watch for insect damage on leaves missing notches, holes, pits, or stripped stems. When you spy signs of trouble, control the situation by removing the affected leaves, employing a row cover to create a barrier, or spraying or dusting with an organic pesticide.

Consult a garden center or extension service for a recommendation of the best action. Cool-season plants like asparagus, peas, and spring greens will be getting ready for harvest.

The more you harvest, the more they produce! The bottom line: Full speed ahead! Through the next few months, your focus will be on maintenance and harvest. Early in the month, finish getting any warm-season vegetables into the ground. Direct sow the warm-season crops you plan to grow in place.

Continue to thin seedlings of direct-sown crops that were planted earlier. About one month after planting, side dress crops with organic compost. Harvest during the cooler times of day—early morning or evening—when plants are least stressed. Continue to pick greens, peas, beans, and herbs. Stop harvesting asparagus and rhubarb, which need to rebuild their food reserves in order to produce a good crop again next year.

Extend the season with a late harvest of beans, carrots, cucumbers, cauliflower, and other cold-season crops. Where you have room, cultivate and amend the soil with compost before direct sowing seeds or planting seedlings. Remove suckers—the growth between the main stem and the leaf—on tomato plants and pull out any finished early-season crops. Continue staking tomatoes and other plants as necessary. Water in the early morning, the best time to reduce evaporation.

Try to water the soil, not the leaves, to reduce fungal disease. Be sure to maintain consistent moisture so fruit develops successfully. Drought-stressed plants are more susceptible to fungi and insect trouble.

Check mulch, topping off areas that have thinned. And weed away! Weeds rob plants of water and nutrients. Harvest daily. Kick back and enjoy. Make some notes about your successes and failures.

Pick up and discard fallen or decaying fruit—leaving it encourages diseases and insects. The bottom line: With the weather getting less predictable, job one is to protect tender plants such as tomatoes from frost with sheets or covers to keep them ripening on the vine as long as possible.

As the weather cools, this is a good time to dig and prepare new beds for the spring or build additional raised beds and fill with amended soil. Pot up selections of your favorite, healthiest herbs in planters to bring inside for the winter. Planting vegetables in their right season will greatly enhance your harvest. Most vegetables belong to one of two seasonal groups: cool-season crops and warm-season crops. The planting date for each vegetable depends upon the weather that the vegetable can best tolerate.

Cool-season vegetables grow best in early spring or in late summer and autumn when the weather is cooler. Warm-season vegetables grow best during the late spring, summer, and early autumn when the weather is warm. Cool-season crops must mature while the weather is cool otherwise they will go to seed. That means they are usually planted at the end of the warm season or the start of the cool season.

Warm-season crops must be planted and begin to grow after the last frost or freeze of winter, and they must mature soon enough that they can be harvested before the first frost of the next cool season. Of course, if the weather in your region is cool year-round, cool-weather crops will be well suited most of the year.

And, if you live in tropical or subtropical region where the weather is seldom if ever cool, warm-weather crops are your best year-round choice. Cool-season vegetables should be planted so that they mature either in the spring or early summer before the heat of summer or later in autumn as the weather begins to cool. Cool-season vegetables that can tolerate frost and or short freezes are classified as hardy and half-hardy according to their tolerance.

Hardy vegetables can be planted two to four weeks before the last frost in spring. Their seeds will germinate in cold soil and their seedlings can endure short freezes. Half-hardy cool-weather vegetables are able to tolerate light freezes, just a few hours of freezing weather or frost. Half-hardy crops should be planted about the date of the last spring frost.

A subpar location can result in subpar veggies! Here are a few tips for choosing a good site:. One of the most common errors that beginners make is planting too much too soon—way more than anybody could ever eat or want! Unless you want to have zucchinis taking up residence in your attic, plan your garden with care. Start small, and only grow what you know you and your family will eat. As a beginner, start by choosing easy vegetables that are also productive. For example, if you live in an area with extremely hot weather, vegetables that prefer cooler temps may struggle.

Mix in flowers such as marigolds —which discourage pests, attracts pollinators, and adds some color! If you are simply growing two or three tomato plants, this process is easy. But if you plan to grow a full garden, you need to consider:. Every region has a different planting time based mainly on their weather, and every vegetable has its temperature preferences, too. Just enter your zip code or postal code in Canada!

For specific planting information, see our individual Grow Guides for over popular vegetables, herbs, and fruit. For each crop, we provide specific information about how to plant, grow, and harvest, including watering and fertilizing and pest control!

To help out beginners, we thought that it may be useful to see a garden design. Here is an example of a starter family garden using mainly of the common easy-to-grow vegetables listed above. It also features companion planting the practice of placing plants that thrive together next to each other. Frankly, if we had grown this garden in our very first year, we would be thrilled!

In planning the garden this way, we have made it so much easier for you to succeed with it. Click here to see the full plant list , number of plants, spacing, and spacing in rows. With this tool, draw your garden plan on the computer and drop in your preferred vegetables, and it automatically calculates the proper spacing for each type of crop!

The Garden Planner automatically pulls in the frost dates for your specific location, identifies easy vegetables, and even identifies companion plants. Then you can print out your plan and the tool reminds you of your seeding and harvesting dates for every vegetable! Photo: Almanac Garden Planner. Try it free for 7 days. Any questions or advice about starting your garden? Check out some of the comments below. Many of your questions may have been answered already by our Almanac community or you are welcome to add your own comment.

Happy gardening! I'm new in gardening but I was curious that how to do gardening but now after reading this beginner guide now i ready for gardening thanks for all this information. The garden planner is lovely, but i'm hoping that you'll have an update to the 'in ground dates' feature. Right now I can only select in-ground dates of complete months. I would like to plan for succession planting and dates other than the first of the month e.

Is this coming in the future? Hi Catherine! I absolutely loved this article on gardening. I love the art of gardening coz' it brings me so much peace.

And it is wonderful that you share your precious wisdom with us. Thank you so much for the insightful article :. Thank you for the blog. The blog is informative, I was planning for a long time to plant vegetables in my backyard but wondering how to start.

Thank you for the wonderful information on this site! My husband and I have been trying to start our first vegetable and herb and some fruit garden this year. Your informations are very helpful to us. I was looking at some figures earlier this year of daily hours of sunshine in the UK. In our main growing months, April, May, June, July, August, we got an average of just about 6 hours a day. The weather stations recording these figures would be on the top of tall buildings or in wide open spaces and get every minute of available sunshine every day.

Most home gardeners will have shadow to contend with as the sun moves behind buildings, trees and over the hill. I don't think we need 6 hours of sunshine each day to grow vegetables which is just as well because I don't think we get anything like that. One of our editors is from England. The number of sunlight hours by crop can vary but fruiting vegetables tomatoes, peppers, aubergine, cucumbers, squash, etc do indeed require 8 hours.