What Should I Plant Right Now?
Yesterday I was working outside in a t-shirt. It was sunny, not a cloud in the sky, and I could actually feel the warmth of the sun on my face and arms. Today, the temperature will barely crawl above zero, and we had a hard frost last night. For the next several days it is supposed to go down several degrees below zero. This time of year we often get these “extremes”. I like to think that Winter and Spring are battling over who gets control of the weather. Not being a winter person I cheer wholeheartedly for Spring and revel in the warm days and curse when I have to wear layers of clothes to keep warm when I’m working outside.
So in answer to the question of what to plant right now, the answer is not much… unless you have an indoor heated space to start seedlings. Then you can get going with some early stuff. Most market growers will have started their earliest plantings of things like onions, leeks, lettuce greens, and other greens— mostly brassicas like Kale, or any of the mustards. There are a couple of other greens that you can plant early as well. Claytonia, also know as Miner’s Lettuce is great, Corn Salad, and of course, Spinach.
When you start your seedlings inside you also need lights or they will get leggy and fall over from not enough light. I just updated my indoor lighting setup a couple of weeks ago and am so stoked because it was simple and relatively cheap. For too many years I have used fluorescent lights to grow my seedlings, and while it works, I have found them awkward because they have to be placed close to the plants to provide enough light, which makes it difficult to water them properly. Plus, the cost of replacement bulbs has gotten out of control. This year I decided to check out LED lights as they have come down in price so much, and they are cheaper to run than flourescents.
A friend showed me his set up and I was sold (shout out to Grahame W.!). One of these grow lights is enough for a few seedling trays and can be placed high enough over the plants to make for easy watering. In fact, I have placed a layer of plastic down on the table and put a raised ring of wood around the edges of the table so I can bottom water. I recommend this once the seeds have germinated as its quick and the seedlings like it. I don’t need a huge, intensive space to get a head start on everything. Enough to get a dozen trays going is good for me. Then I transfer the cold hardy veg starts to an outdoor greenhouse to harden off until they go into the ground or into another greenhouse for early selling.
If I wasn’t a market grower, trying to be first to have that salad mix ready, or trying to have the biggest sweet onions I wouldn’t be so quick to start things. As a home grower there is not much advantage in being the first in your hood to have lettuce. It is a lot of extra effort and if you wait just a few weeks you can have greens almost as early.
I will say that an early start is almost essential for onions and leeks though. They grow slow and steady all through the cold wet spring and really appreciate the long growing period. After the summer Solstice they stop putting out leaves so much and concentrate on bulbing, so the bigger the plant by then, the bigger the bulb. Leeks just keep slowly growing all season long.
If you haven’t started your onions yet, for sure get them going. Even without indoor lights, you can put them on a bright windowsill until they can be transplanted outside. You will be rewarded with bigger bulbs come August.