Vegetable Gardening Tips, Advice and FAQ's

Time for Planting - Seeds and Seedlings

Q. I live in the southern tier of New York. When do I plant the seeds?

A. It depends on two things: 1) the type of plant you are planting, and 2) the frost dates where you live.

Plant Types - There are four types of plants insofar as planting times go: 1) Hardy (Brassica's, radish, etc.) - they can stand a little light frost, and will grow in weather too cold for most vegetables. 2) Semi-hardy (spinach, beets, lettuce, etc.) - these can handle cool weather, and won't freeze at 32, but anything lower will kill them. 3) Frost sensitive (tomatoes, eggplant, potatoes, etc.) - these must be protected against any frost, but can stay alive in cold weather. And 4) Frost intolerant (squash, cucumbers, melons, etc.) - these must have warm weather to germinate and grow and will hot handle cold weather.

A good listing of the various vegetable plants and where they fall in those four classifications is available in the Mittleider Gardening Course book, as well as the Garden Master CD and the Mittleider Gardening Library CD, both of which have the Mittleider Gardening Course included on the CD's. All are available at www.growfood.com.

Frost Dates - The Garden Master CD - in the Garden Designer section - has an excellent database of Average First and Last Frost Dates from more than 3,000 locations around the USA. That CD is a fine resource for most of what you need to know to grow a successful garden. You can also call your County Agriculture Extension Agent in the USA, or other government resources in other countries, to find out the last expected frost date in the Spring and the first expected frost date in the Fall.

The Mittleider Gardening books and Manuals teach all you need to know about this subject, and can be purchased in the Store section, or as digital downloads.

A digital copy costs 30-40% less, and is available instantly! I HIGHLY recommend you look here http://www.hightechhomestead.com/Products.htm for the best gardening books available anywhere! Get one NOW and be gardening TODAY!!

Last Modified: 2006-12-09 Number of views: 4916