Each week, this newsletter will contain three sections:
How things are going
I will share an update on my garden as a point of reference for how my weekly tasks are adding up and looking.
What to do this week
Here I will present the 3 - 5 things I am planning or doing this week.
Resources
A deeper dive into information and perspectives that are inspiring or informing my gardening.
If you are coming to this newsletter mid-season, please take a look at the posts from the past few weeks to get a sense of context for where we are at this week!
Week 6: 2/5/2023 - 2/11/2023
What I am doing:
February is when I seriously start thinking about starting seedlings indoors for some early spring planting. I use season extensions (pvc hoops supporting greenhouse plastic that covers the beds) on my garden to safely plant cold hardy crops (lettuces, kale, spinach, peas, radish, cabbage) outside in mid-March. I want to get those seedlings started indoors 4 - 6 weeks ahead of mid-March to accelerate the season!
My goal is to use succession planting to maximize the amount of plants I can grow in my limited bed space. There are two important ideas with succession planting:
Scheduling, using plants’ days to maturity
Having seedlings (not seeds) ready to fill gaps created from harvesting
Scheduling
This doesn’t have to be too complicated. You need to know what vegetables will need to be replaced, when they’ll need to be replaced, and what you want to replace them with.
I am going to use three versions of my bed maps to note what plants will need to be replaced roughly at three times during the season - late spring, mid summer, late summer.
Because I am mapping things out using the square foot approach, I know that when a plant is harvested, I’ll have an empty square foot to fill in with something new. That means I’ll need to backwards plan from the harvest date to have new seedlings ready to go into the emptied space. I’ll know how many seedlings to grow, because I know how many of any variety can fit into a square foot space.
So, looking at my three maps, each displaying a different point in the season, I can make a list of all the seedlings I need to start, and plan to start them 4 - 6 weeks ahead of the harvest dates of the plants they are replacing.
For example, here is Bed 1 mapped for early spring (March 1st - May 15th) and the summer (May 15th - September 1st). Many of the vegetables I’ll plant in early spring will remain in the bed through the summer. Their cells in this sheet are unchanged between the two maps. However, you’ll see that some cells are different.
The bottom row in early spring is full of bok choi and marigolds, but in early summer, the bottom row is now basil (and marigolds). So, I know that I’ll need to start enough basil to fill three square feet in my garden and have it ready by May 15th. I’ll add basil to my list of seedlings to start 4 - 6 weeks out from May 15th. You’ll also note the row of lettuce that is now “lettuce 2” in my early summer bed. That’s because I’ll have replaced the lettuces I started in early spring with fresh seedlings. So, add some lettuce seedlings to my list of things to grow. The peas are also harvested and gone, making room for the potatoes to really flourish.
Comparing these two maps will allow me to generate a list of plants that I’ll start growing on April 3rd (6 weeks before May 15th). I’ll do the same process with my third set of maps that show what I’ll be growing in late summer, starting around September 1st.
Seedlings
Once I have my list generated, I need to plan to start seedlings indoors. The advantage of doing this is that the plants have time to grow while they are waiting for space to free up in the garden bed. This allows you to have plants mature much faster once they are planted in the bed. If you replaced harvested crops with seeds, you’d wait an extra 4 - 6 weeks to harvest that second succession of vegetables.
I have a simple setup using seed trays, shop lights from home depot, a heating mat, and an oscillating fan. I use this set up to keep a continual reserve of seedlings ready to go to fill in gaps in the garden.
It doesn’t take too much time to do this, and the payoff is huge. I get a lot more out of my limited space by always having the next round of plants well on their way to maturity as I plant them in the ground. You can also buy seedlings from garden centers well into early summer. That is another way to have them ready to replace plants in your garden.
This week, I am getting my seedling space ready and starting to grow these plants this week to have the plants that I’ll need ready by March 1st.
Garden Infrastructure Planning
Finally, I’m also starting to seriously look into where I am going to get the materials I need to build my garden trellises. This is my major garden project for this spring, and I want to start gathering materials well ahead of a late spring build.
Now is a great time to firm up your plans as well. Are you going to add some more square footage to your garden space? Are you going to install some drip irrigation? Are you going to build season extending hoops with covers? Maybe you just want to create a more organized space for your tools. Gathering materials in February means you’ll have plenty of time to get these non-growing projects done and out of the way before the start of the season.
What to do this week:
The succession planting I described above may seem complicated and a lot of work. It certainly is more work than just planting once at the start of the season and harvesting without replacement.
However, I’d encourage you to at least entertain the idea of trying this approach out with some of your garden, especially with lettuces. They have a relatively quick life cycle (mature in 50 - 70 days), and your spring lettuces will bolt in the summer heat and need to be replaced. You could make a simple plan to just have new lettuces ready to replace the ones you planted in the spring.
Here’s what to do:
Consider making two or three different versions of your garden map, reflecting different points in the season. This will help you understand what opportunities you have to replace old vegetables with new ones.
Do some research on days until your plants are mature. Think about what point in the season your vegetables will be harvested and whether you want to have new plants ready to replace them. This is a useful list of when different vegetables are mature.
Start to seriously think about the plans you have for your garden infrastructure this year. Now is the time to start looking at where you will source materials and making plans about when you will get them.
There’s still time to order seedlings from me for the spring. Put in some orders for varieties that you won’t be able to find at your local garden centers! I am happy to talk with you about different varieties, so please feel free to reach out!
Next week:
How to propagate your own seedlings.
Resources:
Resource 1
The chart below (specific to Colorado) is a quick reference for thinking about when you need to start growing plants (indoors and outdoors), as well as when you’ll harvest them.
https://www.ufseeds.com/colorado-vegetable-planting-calendar.html