Every spring, right around this time (spring equinox) we get out our big box of seed packages, sort them, map out our garden plan, and start our favourite varieties. For those of you who are local, if you need organic non-GMO seeds, please drop by Little City Farm to
check out our selection of seeds from High Mowing. Every Saturday from 10-1 pm through the spring. And consider taking our
Seedling Starting workshop on April 2, as local organic farmer Angie Koch (
Fertile Ground CSA) will be here to lead the class and answer all your seed-starting questions.
Here is the handy planting guide that we use each year - it's printed and up on our fridge for easy reference. Enjoy!
Seed
Planting Guide
From Little City
Farm
www.littlecityfarm.ca
For zone 5 to 6 in southern Ontario this is based
on frostfree date of May 24
FEBRUARY
(greens listed here can continue to be planted
throughout the growing season)
Start
lettuce, chard,
other greens in
greenhouse or in flats indoors (to be planted out to greenhouse).
Start selected
medicinal and culinary herbs
by middle of February. Some take 6-8 weeks to germinate!
10
WEEKS TO LAST FROST
(aprox. March 15)
Start
seeds of celery,
eggplant, leeks, onion, pepper
and flowers like impatiens,
lobelia, verbena and perennials
indoors.
8
WEEKS TO LAST FROST (aprox. March 29)
Start
seeds of early head
lettuce and flowers
like begonia,
coleus, nicotiana, petunia, salvia
indoors.
7
WEEKS TO LAST FROST (aprox. April 5)
Start
seeds of tomatoes,
hot peppers, and early basil
indoors.
6
WEEKS TO LAST FROST(aprox. April 12)
Start
seeds of early left
lettuce, early cabbages including cauliflower, broccoli, brussels
sprouts, kohlrabi and kale, and small seeded annuals
indoors. DIRECT SEED broad
beans, carrots, peas, spinach, leaf lettuce, turnips, dill, parsley,
and hardy flowers such as alyssum, candytuft, pansies, poppies,
snapdragons, stocks, sunflowers and sweet peas.
Plant onion sets
or transplant onion
seedlings
outdoors.
4
WEEKS TO LAST FROST (aprox. April 26)
Start
melon
seeds indoors. If desired, start seeds of late
basil, cucumber, squash, pumpkin, large-seeded annuals, and flowering
vines indoors in
peat pots. DIRECT SEED radishes,
beets, cabbages, chard, head lettuce, and flowers such as hollyhock,
and mallow. Plant
potato eyes
and transplant seedlings of early
cabbages, except
cauliflower.
2
WEEKS TO LAST FROST (aprox. May 10)
DIRECT
SEED corn, tender
bulbs such as glads, and annual vines such as morning glory.
Transplant early
lettuce
seedlings.
WEEK
OF LAST FROST (aprox. May 17-24)
Around
the last frost date you can finally direct seed beans,
cauliflower, cucumber, squashes, heat-loving flowers such as zinnias,
marigold, and lavatera.
Transplant your tomatoes.
If you've got them, transplant cauliflower,
squash and cucumber
seedlings.
1
to 2 WEEKS AFTER FROST (aprox. May 31-June
7)
Wait for a couple
of weeks after the last frost before direct seedling lima
beans, soybeans, melons and herbs such as basil, summer savory and
sweet marjoram.
Transplant celery,
melon, peppers, eggplant
seedlings when the night temperatures stay well above 10 degrees C.
Plant sweet potato
slips. Start second
crop of kale
seedlings, reseed
spinach
and peas
for second crop.
