Homegrown: Cool crop vegetables

With another round of cold weather in the forecast, Lisa Slattery, Linn County Extension Master Gardener, provided the following timely tips:

Ladies and Gentlemen, start your tillers!  It's time to plant cool crop vegetables.  So what exactly is a cool crop vegetable?  It's a vegetable that prefers growing in cooler weather and performs best in either spring or fall garden conditions.  Most cool season crops can withstand light frosts and cool soil temperatures, but suffer in Iowa's high summer temps.  Cool season crops also allow you to harvest something yummy well before the tomatoes are ripe.

According to the Iowa State University Extension gardening calendar, the first week of April is a great time to sow pea, lettuce, spinach, carrot and beet seeds.  By now, you also can go ahead and put in your onion sets and potatoes.  When selecting seeds a good rule of thumb is to choose disease-resistant varieties - you'll just have fewer problems in the garden.

Always plant vegetables you like and ones that your family will eat.  We love radishes, whole or sliced thinly in salads.  Radishes can be planted now and will mature in about 20 to 30 days.  For a continuous harvest, sow seeds every 7 to 10 days until late spring.  Carrots are similar to radishes in that they can be sown in intervals for a continuous harvest from early spring to early August.

Leafy greens include lettuce, spinach, collards, and kale.  All of these plants tend to become bitter with the onset of hot weather and their quality diminishes quickly.  For lettuce try “Black Seeded Simpson” or “Salad Bowl.”

Peas are great to plant with kids since they're also fun to pick.  Garden, Snow, and Snap peas should be planted as soon as the ground can be worked in spring.  These typically mature in about 60 to 70 days.  Beets should also be sown now and there are several nice varieties to choose from.  Don't forget that beet greens are also delicious to eat as well.

Vegetable crops should be rotated from year to year.  Many disease organisms are soil-borne and can stay in the soil for several years.  By moving vegetables around in the garden on an annual basis you can reduce the severity of diseases and cut down on insect infestations, which can become a real problem when the same vegetable crop is planted in the same spot year after year.  When rotating keep in mind that you should avoid planting vegetables belonging to the same plant family in the same location for two or three years – this can be a challenge in a small home garden so do the best you can with your space.  

When you're out and about tilling you garden and sowing your cool crop seeds, take some time to also pot up some pansies for a splash of early spring color – these little lovelies can even withstand late season frosts!  Isn't it great that the time to dig in the garden has finally arrived? Happy planting - Lisa Slattery, Linn County Extension, Master Gardener