Spring Vegetable Garden – When and What to Plant

By Dave Donovan

Springtime is the season that everyone looks forward to every year because this is the time when trees and flowers comes back to life and gardens are planted with the hopes of a bountiful summer. Well, why wait for summer when you can plant a spring vegetable garden and start enjoying the fruits of your labors earlier in the year?

A spring vegetable garden is one that produces delicious vegetables before the hot months of summer. Planting cool-season vegetables is a great way to maximize your harvesting efforts, and when planted along with traditional summer-yielding crops and autumn veggies, your garden can provide nearly a full calendar year of nutritious and tasty food for your family. If you want to enjoy fresh, truly organic vegetables from your own garden this spring, here’s what to plant and when.

Before You Start

The first step to a successful spring garden is finding out when the final frost of the winter/spring is expected in your part of the country. For most of the United States, this will be somewhere around the middle to end of May, but for southern and western states, it could be as early as the end of February.

If you are going to plant from seeds, you can start growing your seedlings indoors roughly six to eight weeks before the last frost is expected in your area. This will allow the plants to be strong enough for transplanting once the threat of frost has passed.

About three weeks before the last frost, start tilling the soil and mix in compost and organic matter to help prepare the ground for planting.

Planting the Spring Garden

If you are bypassing the indoor growing phase but are still planning on growing from seeds, then you can plant any deeply-planted seeds, like carrots, Swiss chard and turnips, about two weeks before the final frost. But, if you are transplanting them from indoors, then you will have to wait until after the last frost has passed to plant them.

Immediately after the last frost has passed and the soil is workable, you can start planting vegetables like broccoli, beets, arugula and asparagus. You can also transplant your cabbage plants from their indoor containers at this time as well.

Three to Six Weeks After Last Frost

Three weeks after final frost, it will be safe to start planting kale and about a week later, you can start planting peas, radishes, kohlrabi, collard greens and spinach. The peas and radishes should be grown straight from seeds, but the others should be plant transplants.

About five to six weeks after the last frost or a little earlier if the soil is easily workable, you can start planting lettuce and onions. You should wait to start planting potatoes until you notice the grass in the yard starting to brighten and grow.