Getting ready for the season

Yes it's freezing out there and there's still snow on the ground and more weeks of winter to come, but gardeners look at the calendar and think, "What should I be planting now?"

There are many gardening guides around that tell you when to start seeds to plant out in the spring. One great resources is the very extensive UW-Extension Horticulture Division website, their Vegetables site, and the many UW-Extension gardening publications you can download free. 

Vegetable Cultivars and Planting Guide for Wisconsin Gardents, #A1653, is great and includes a super handy planting chart that tells you when to start plants indoors, when to plant them out, when to plant seeds outdoors, how many to plant, average maturity dates, and more. Conveniently, if not alarmingly, the planting dates shown now match with our new 5a zone (previously 4b).

Here's a summary of indoor planting dates from that guide. If you would like to start plants for yourself, for a school sale, or for community gardens, consider checking out these resources and using the guides.

Feb. 15 = onions and leeks

March 15 = broccoli, early cabbage, cauliflower, celery, eggplant, head lettuce

April 1 = peppers

April 15 = okra and tomatoes (and we'll probably start outdoor planting around this date)

May 1 = pumpkins, fall squash 

We will only have two victory gardens this year, having lost the Hogan site to construction. Does anyone want to start a new one? We'll be happy to help. Contact us.

By the way, a super easy way to start and grow seedlings is to plant them in seet starting trays or homemade newspaper pots and put them into a large plastic storage bin, then clamp an LED grow light onto the works. It's very easy to keep plants safe from indoor critters and manage their water and light until it's time for them to go outside.