Plant cool weather veggies now for an early harvest

It’s often said the best garden nursery is the closest one to home, a maxim I happen to agree with, but with a caveat. One of the joys of gardening is crossing a river or two in search of a new gardening find, as each independent garden center offers something wonderful and unique.
It took a good hour to reach DJ’s Greenhouse in Transfer, Pa., Mercer County. After driving down a long gravel road near the banks of Shenango River Lake, visitors are greeted by an amazing landscape of spring blooming bulbs and perennials. They were all planted (with help) by owner Dennis James. “My idea is that people can come in and look at the gardens and say ‘I want that, I love that color,’ he says. I want them to see what it looks like growing in the garden, and where else are you going to go locally to see it?,” he wonders. When the 22,000 spring bulb blooms finish, the fading foliage will be hidden by emerging daylilies, hostas and other plants.

For 34 years, he’s also encouraged gardeners to extend the season in the vegetable garden by planting cool weather crops, something he’s been doing himself for much of his 57 years.
“Since I was a kid, we had a big vegetable garden and we always got the early lettuce, onions in,” says the owner of DJ’s Greenhouse in Transfer, Mercer County. “Back then, it was just mostly lettuce.”
These days his greenhouses are filled with a wide variety of greens and other early vegetables that laugh at the frost.
“A lot of people think you have to wait until traditional middle, end of May,” he says, “but we’re trying to show them that you can put them in as early as April.
“I love getting my hands dirty, seeing the plants grow and picking my first early produce,” James says.
There are flats filled with lettuce, mixed greens, Swiss chard, pak choi, arugula, spinach, cilantro, other cole crops like cabbage and broccoli and much more, including something called tatsoi.
“It’s a fantastic little green that I love,” James says. “You plant it and literally in four weeks you can harvest because it grows so quickly.”
Horticulturalist Matthew Hirsh at Trax Farms in Finleyville also recommends onion sets, potatoes, collards, kale and leeks for early planting.
There’s always concern though when planting this early, as the soil can be too wet to dig, especially during a rainy spring. He says when the soil is ready you should be able to grab it, but it shouldn’t be a muddy ball.
“It’s not going to be loose,” James says, “but you’re not going to be able to form cakes with it either.”
“If I dig up a clump and it sticks to the shovel, that’s definitely too wet,” Hirsh says.
These plants don’t just survive in cool weather, they require it to thrive. “If it gets above 85 degrees in late May, spinach (and many others like the tatsoi) bolt and go to seed,” he says. “Once greens like spinach and lettuce begin the process of bolting, it makes the leaves bitter and inedible. Starting early avoids the problem.”
He recommends getting a soil test, especially for a new garden. The Penn State Cooperative Extension offers soil tests via the mail for around $10. The resulting report is filled with useful information about the soil. If something is wrong or missing from the soil, the report tells gardeners what to add or fix.
“Good old-fashioned compost goes a long way to improving your soil,” James says of getting the garden ready to plant. “Get that worked into the soil. If your soil is decent with the compost, you don’t need to fertilize.”
He plants lettuce every few weeks to keep the harvests coming too. “Plant your second and third crops in an area that might get a little shaded.”
Even though these plants are resilient, if temperatures reach the 20s again, James will cover them with a floating row cover. The lightweight spun-bound translucent fabric gives the foliage added protection from the bitter cold.
When the weather gets cold, Hirsh gives them a little help too, especially when newly planted. “On the first few nights they are calling for a hard frost, I might cover the plants with cheese cloth or some newspaper,” he says. “Once they adapt to the temperatures they will be fine.”
When spacing things like broccoli and cauliflower, it’s important to give them room to mature.
“Imagine how big that head gets and figure you’re going to have some leaves sticking out on the sides,” Hirsh says.
For the greens, it’s up to the gardener when it comes to the distance between plants. “Things like lettuce and spinach they can be planted pretty close as long as you’re picking them,” he says. As gardeners thin, that leaves room for the remaining plants to reach their mature size.
Onions and leeks need proper spacing too and the right medium to thrive.
“The looser the soil, the better they are going to grow,” Hirsh says. “If it’s a nice soil with a lot of organic matter, the size is going to be much better. If it’s a clay soil or rocky, it’s going to hold them back.”
One garden bench at Trax is filled with leek plants, ready to go in the ground. “They are easy to grow, they do take a little longer than some of your other plants,” he adds.
It’s a great time to start seeds out in the garden, too. Lettuce, beets, radishes, spinach and many other seeds can be planted right now. Hirsh will start some things indoors and then throw some seeds onto some compost out in the garden, just to have plants in different stages.
“They actually grow faster in this weather,” he says. “The taste is even improved with cool weather.”
Details: DJ’s Greenhouse, 724-962-1230 or djsgreenhouse.com; Trax Farms, 412-835-3246 or traxfarms.com
Doug Oster is the Tribune-Review home and garden editor. Reach him at 412-965-3278 or doster@tribweb.com. See other stories, blogs, videos and more at everybodygardens.com.

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