Crops You Can Direct Sow Before Your Last Frost

what is going on everyone welcome to another very exciting episode right here on the mi gardener channel it is a beautiful day in the garden today and i hope it's a beautiful day in your garden wherever you are at if it's not don't worry still have faith spring is right around the corner and uh it just feels good to be out in the garden today despite the fact that it is uh i mean it's probably close to freezing today i think it's about maybe 35 degrees or so the sun is out full blast it just feels so unbelievably nice and the fact that i can see the garden and there's no snow tells me that spring is coming uh probably faster than i want it to in fact i have a lot that i still have to do a lot of cleanup that uh i've kind of been turning a blind eye to but we're gonna get that done uh later but what we're talking about today is actually seeds that you can be starting right now despite the fact that it's not your last frost date there's quite a few seeds at our disposal that we can actually start that even if they do germinate they're going to be fine and i love to focus early season on these plants now sometimes i might start them indoors if i have the resources to do so time being a precious resource and space being the other precious resource if i have both of those if i have time and space i will start these indoors to kind of give them an additional head start but these are crops that if you don't have time or you don't have space you can start them directly in the ground and they're going to be just fine some of them that i'm going to show you even need to be planted they are required to be planted directly in the ground right now so they're actually going to benefit from being planted early oh my gosh well this is pretty embarrassing so when i put my mulch down in the fall i told you guys that i only planted about half of my garlic bed out and so i only mulched half the bed well this just kind of goes to show you that we're all human we all can make mistakes and even when you make mistakes things can kind of turn out fine the other half of my bed was planted out and they're all popping up we have just about 100 success rate with our garlic that we planted even though we didn't mulch them but i am going to go back and mulch them because having mulch on your garlic is really critical to making sure that they hold that moisture near the roots not what i was talking about but when i sat down to do this shot i looked down i thought oh there's garlic sprouting duh okay so with that being said let's talk about the first thing that you can plant right now despite the fact that it's not your last frost date so the first thing that i wanted to show you guys was parsnips parsnips can be planted right now despite the fact that we're probably about six weeks before our last frost date um actually probably more like six to eight weeks um parsnips can be planted right now parsnips are a really really long grow they take about 110 days to fully mature and so getting them in the ground now is great but also parsnips need that cool soil to germinate if your soil gets too dry or too too warm they won't germinate well at all and so parsips love that cool damp soil parsnips are also notorious for having really low germination rates and so what i like to do is i like to sew heavily and then that way if there is any gaps i can go back and i do have time left in my season when i can reseed because if you wait until basically your last frost date you know six to eight weeks from now you throw your parsnips in the ground you're gonna have a window of maybe two to three weeks where the conditions are ideal for them to germinate and then if things don't germinate well then by the time you reseed by the time you actually wait you know the one to two weeks for them to actually germinate now you're already three to four weeks after your last frost date and the soil is already starting to warm up and they're out of that really good germination window so throw some persnips in the ground get them in the ground early and that way you have time to spare in case things don't happen according to plan parsnips are a great one the next one are beets beets beets do so well when planted in early season because the fact that they not only prefer the colder temperatures but they're also going to grow slower meaning that um when they grow slower they're actually going to generate uh you know more leaves than they are the actual uh root itself and for me i like to grow multi-purpose crops crops that have a variety of different uses and beets are no exception i love eating the actual beet root itself but one of the things is that when you plant a beet seed one seed equals one beet root but if you harvest for the greens you might have you know uh five or ten beet plants but you have enough leaves to you know to feed yourself for weeks and weeks and weeks by just doing cut and come again uh style cutting where you just kind of leave some of the leave some of the inner leaves and harvest those outer leaves on the beets you can actually grow the leaves and then as the season warms up it's going to start to grow the actual root with almost no damage to the crop whatsoever so start them early because beets are one that are really going to benefit from the nice cool weather and if you do happen to get them up and growing and you happen to get a frost or a freeze they're going to be totally fine the next one that you can grow are radishes now radishes i don't think anybody i don't think this is any surprise to anybody but radishes are some of the first crops we put in the garden because they are the first crops out of the garden they're about 25 to 35 days to fully mature and so the sooner you can get them in the garden with the super nice cool weather cold weather and damp soil that's another key thing for growing radishes is that you're able to grow multiple successions of radishes before it becomes too hot for them to for them to to really survive because radishes their their range of survival is actually really low if it gets above 70 to 75 degrees they start to go to seed and so you don't want to basically plant seed and then have them go to seed because that's you're not going to get anything so start them super early and then every two weeks we do what's called succession planting and then that way as they're maturing we're harvesting the whole season and as we're harvesting there's more coming to maturity ready to be harvested so throw some radishes in the ground they can be grown before your last frost date the next one is spinach spinach is so much it's very similar to radishes in that it's such a cold hardy green it needs the cold weather to do well anything above 65 to 70 degrees it's gonna start going to seed or bolting and so you gotta get your spinach in the ground i will regularly start spinach in succession much like i do radishes right now a lot of people are probably just barely getting their garden um you know unwinterized but if you can take soil like see how i just grab soil right if you can work the top one inch of your soil you can be planting some seeds and if you can work the top one into soil any seed that i'm mentioning right now you can start so just because your soil might still be frozen a little bit further down that does not mean you can't get some stuff started uh and and growing so i will start spinach just like i do radishes every two weeks i will throw a couple rows of spinach in there and that way as some is just starting to mature i have some that's just getting ready to mature and that way i have a consecutive harvest all season long or as long as the weather will allow the next crop that you can be growing is kale kale is such a delicious green it's something that is super cold hardy in fact we've been able to overwinter kale without any protection at all for many years it's basically a perennial here in michigan depending on the variety you grow things like the uh the blue curl scotch kale and the the scarlet kale are two varieties that pretty much do not die here and so if you're growing them for the first time get them in the ground early and that just means you're gonna have a longer season they can totally handle the cold weather just fine the next one that i don't hear enough people talking about that i absolutely love is mash or corn salad now this is actually more like a leafy green they need cold weather to uh to really grow well but also taste well if you grow mosh during hot weather they get super bitter really not that palatable and a lot of people don't like them because they get too bitter but the sad reality is they're not growing them in the right time if you grow mosh like right now basically through for us it would be about the beginning of june you're gonna have the most crisp sweet buttery soft leaves you've ever had in your salad and it's something that i highly recommend trying but it gets a bad rep because people just grow it during a bad time of the year so throw it in the ground now it can totally survive the next crop you can throw in the ground before your last frost date that a lot of people want to know when they can start is lettuce lettuce is a crop that i always say get it in the ground as soon as possible much like spinach and radishes cold weather is key because cold weather will allow you to grow it longer if you have hot weather above 75 80 degrees or so for a period of time probably longer than about two weeks so maybe like early june for us is kind of that that stopping point once we hit early june our lettuce is done and so anything we can grow pre-season like before the garden actually technically starts is just bonus lettuce in my opinion and it's more lettuce that i can put on my family's table so get it started early i will say also that germinating the lettuce does sometimes take more time when weather is cold because seeds do require different temperatures to germinate and lettuce is one that it does not love really cold temperatures it'll stay in the ground just fine so you don't need to worry about it if you plant the seed it's going to be fine but it's germinating it is the other question so sometimes it can take you know two to three weeks to actually germinate it can take a lot longer than some of the other seeds i'm talking about because sometimes the temperatures aren't ideal for it to start germinating but once it's up even if you have a freeze or a frost it's going to be just fine so don't worry about it but also don't panic if you plant your seeds and you don't see something germinating just give it some time it's probably just taking a little time for the for the weather to warm up so don't panic the next crop that i absolutely love to plant in early season is swiss chard much like kale swiss chard is a crop that grows all season long it does not have you know unlike lettuce and spinach and radishes it really doesn't have a season it pretty much just grows all season which is great spring summer fall and winter you can be growing swiss chard so the sooner you can grow it the sooner you can get it up and harvest it so i love to plant it early and i really don't find there's any ill effects with planting in early so it's kind of like why not right the next one which is another hidden secret kind of a hidden gem that a lot of people don't talk about i'm not quite sure why but i absolutely have fallen in love with in fact i'm gonna be planting out probably about seven to ten square feet of one of my raised beds this year with this crop right here red veined sorrel red vein sorrel much like claytonia or mosh or some other you know spinach and radish and things like that is a leafy green now it does not have a season it's probably more like swiss chard or kale in the sense that it's basically a perennial it does not have a season you can grow it any season spring summer winter fall but in the in the uh early spring season the flavor of red veined sorrel if you know you know in fact if you've tried red vein sorrel just tell me i'm not crazy in the comments box below it is truly an absolute gem in the garden the next one is celery celery uh is much like parsnips in that they take a long time to mature and so because they have such a long maturity time and because they can survive the cold weather just fine the sooner you can get them in the ground the better and so uh and you're also going to have better germination rates in cold weather or cool weather when the soil is damp and not as hot and dry and stuff like that than you would in the summer so start them early you're going to have good luck with that the next crop that a lot of people do not plant early enough and they always have problems with because they don't is carrots plant your carrots out early folks plant them on early because carrots have notoriously poor germination rates once the soil gets warm and dries out carrots like damp cool and dark soil and so what we'll do is in the early season we'll plant our carrots like right now and then what we'll do is in about two weeks we'll plant another succession of carrots and then in about two more weeks we'll plant our final succession of carrots so over the course of six weeks we'll plant three successions of carrots and that's when the soil is cool and damp you'll have the best luck and the best germination when the soil is cool and damp the next one is broccoli rabe now this is a type of broccoli it's known as sprouting broccoli or spring rapini and i absolutely love this because you can start it early unlike other broccoli a lot of people you'll notice i don't have like regular heading broccoli here and that's because heading broccoli does not do well in early season it gets warm too fast and then it goes to seed so by actually starting sprouting broccoli you can get all the harvest you want and basically keep cutting it's just perpetual harvest from broccoli they just produce smaller little heads than like a big heading broccoli does but they produce way more and they don't really care if it gets hot because they're already going to be basically creating side shoots as it is so this one i love to plant in early spring because it's going to be the best one of any of the broccolis you're going to plant and it's just super versatile so grow this one you're really going to love planting it in early season two seeds that i don't have represented here are onions and potatoes you can plant onion seeds right now much like uh you know celery and parsnips they take about 100 to 110 days to uh to fully mature so get them started now when you can they're gonna be totally fine and they're gonna be able to handle the cold weather no problem so those are all the seeds that i've got for you to start before your last frost date i hope you guys enjoyed i hope you learned something new if you did make sure to throw a like up there subscribe if you're not yet already we are on the road to a million subscribers we're so freaking close and so i just want to thank you all for your support i want to thank you all for like 10 amazing years of this and i cannot wait for so many more so thank you guys so much as always this is luke for the from the my gardener channel reminding you to grow big or go home and we'll catch you all later see ya bye

Channel: MIgardener

Views: 280,768

Keywords: Premiere_Elements_2018, beets, before last frost, carrots, celery, frost, garden, gardening tip, growing from seed, how to start seed, howto, kale, lettuce, migardener, potato, radish, seed starting, spinach, spring, starting seeds, swiss chard, winter, winter sowing

Id: cYr2hB-KfQM

Length: 14min 50sec (890 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 09 2022