Gardening: Use the cold weather to plan for gardening season

The holidays are over, winter is trying to settle in and that means garden planning season.
With our social lives taking a slower pace, it’s easier to hear the pile of garden and seed catalogs whispering gently, “Read me. I’m here, you can’t resist me.” Over the next few weeks, that whisper will only grow louder so just give in, fix a cup of tea, get a warm cat or dog for your lap, grab a pen and start marking up the catalogs.
The biggest advantage of ordering your own seeds is that you get a wider choice of varieties than you would buying plants at the nursery in the spring. Most of the gardeners I know welcome this opportunity to explore, experiment and push their limits as to what they can grow.
A trick I’ve learned is to order pelleted onion, carrot and lettuce seed. A layer of clay increases the size of the seeds, making them easier to plant.
My favorite seed catalogs are from companies that specialize in short-season varieties tested in northern climates. These include Territorial Seed in Cottage Grove, Oregon; Ed Hume Seed in Puyallup, Washington; Irish Eyes in Ellensburg; West Coast Seeds based in British Columbia; and Johnny’s Seeds in Maine. Baker Creek Seeds and Seed Savers Exchange are my favorite for heirloom varieties.
Once you’ve ordered seeds, it’s time to set up your starting schedule.
The key to your schedule will be either the last frost date for warm -season vegetables or the date your soil is dry enough to work for cool -season vegetables. Generally, our last frost date is between the middle and end of May while most soil can be worked here by early to mid-April.
Warm -season crops that are sensitive to frost include tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, melons, squash, cucumbers and most herbs. Cool -season vegetables that can grow in cold soil and take a few frosts include cabbage, spinach, onion, lettuce and Asian greens. Everyone’s favorite, basil, is an outlier. I have found it’s best to plant basil indoors in late May to plant outdoors in late June after the soil has warmed up.
My seeding schedule begins in mid-February when I plant onions and peppers. Onions because I want them to go into the garden in mid-April, especially if they take more than 90 days to mature. I start peppers now because they can take up to two to three weeks to germinate, especially the hotter varieties.
Around mid-March, I seed warm -season crops of tomatoes and eggplant, and cool-season varieties of Asian greens, cabbage, parsley and lettuce.
The last big seeding happens at the end of April when I plant melons, squash and cucumbers in plantable pots as they don’t like to have their roots disturbed when transplanted. These varieties can be directly seeded into the ground, but I like the three-week head start in my colder garden.
Next week I’ll talk about setting up a seed -starting area in the house.