sowing seed for my winter garden

Even though my last year's winter garden was eaten to the ground by voles, I'm planting another one this year. I'm planting all of the crops included in my Winter Planting Calendar App (part of my Full Season Calendar App). I'm using the dates recommended there. It'll be a good double check of the app.

The app requires an input of my "Limited Daylight Date", which is the date when my area falls to less than 10 hours of sunlight per day (also called the beginning of the Persephone Period). This is November 10 for me.

The week of September 1 (this week), I'm planting kale, bunching onion, collards and radicchio. Next week, I'll plant Swiss chard, cilantro, lettuce and turnip.  I'm planting indoors in pots as the weather is still so hot and I don't have a good watering system outside. I'll just baby the seedlings indoors for a couple weeks, and then set them out.

For cold protection, I'm planning to use greenhouse plastic over PVC hoops again. I plan to use double cold protection this year: I'll add a second layer of Agribon floating row cover over the plants. For vole protection, I'm planning to dig in a 6 inch deep layer of hardware cloth all around the edge of the bed (as soon as the weather cools down a bit). I'll attach it to the outside of the raised bed. I also plan to soak castor oil into the soil at the edge of the beds. I'm thinking I'll be bold and set up two raised beds for winter this year, rather than the single failed one I set up last year. Why not.

more garden calendars

We are working on several new garden calendar apps. I listed them at our new site: skippysgarden.com

new garden calendar app - beta testers needed

Note added 2-25-2015: Thanks so much to all who emailed me for Beta testing! I will not be taking any more testers. I hope the app will be available for sale by early next week. It will be either $0.99 or 1.99 USD at the Apple store. I'll post a link here too.

I've been working on an I-phone version of my planting calendar. It will be posted at the Apple Store soon and I'm looking for some beta testers. If you are a vegetable gardener who grows you own plants from seed and are interested in a free copy of the app and agree to provide me feedback, please email me at: kathy@skippysgarden.com

This app is similar to my on-line version (on the sidebar of this blog) but has more features. It includes transplanting and succession sowing dates, has more crops, allows crop selection and, of course, works on an I-phone. Once you set up your calendar based on your last spring frost date, the app will automatically open to the current date and show you what planting tasks need to be done that week.

updated planting calendars

I've just finished updated the planting calendars on my side bar. Its taken me a few weeks as I'm better with plants than HTML. I think the result is good, considering. The updated calendars have more vegetables and updated explanations. Also I've added dates for succession planting and dates for transplanting. I am looking forward to using them this year.

Tonight I printed out spring, fall and winter planting calendars for myself. My first planting date is Feb 22, the date to plant onions and celeriac. I don't know how I can wait that long. I usually can't and I end up planting these crops at the end of January. Once my first seeds are sown, I do better at waiting.

Yesterday I placed my seed orders. One at Johnny's and one at Territorial. After the seeds arrive, I'll organize the seed packets by planting date using my calendars.

new winter harvest calendar

To improve on my timing for winter harvest crops, I've added a Winter Planting Calendar to my online planting calendar. I added a link on the sidebar and here too: Winter Planting Calendar.

I was reading on the Johnny's Seeds website:

Winter harvest crops are planted in late summer or early fall for harvest throughout the winter. ... for harvest before and during the "Persephone Period," when day length is less than 10 hours and plant growth essentially reaches a standstill.

You can look up when daylight falls below 10 hours in your town using this site: USNO Duration of Daylight Calculator. For me, its November 10.

I've tried for many years to get a cold frame full of greens to eat all winter. One winter I was successful with a good crop of spinach. Usually I plant too late; the crop holds over the winter and begins to grow again in spring for a nice spring harvest. This is good too. Some winters, its just too cold and the crops are killed.

Using my new calendar I now know that its definitely too late to plant lettuce for winter harvesting. I have some seedlings I planted several weeks ago that should be good. But maybe I could get away with sowing some spinach and arugula seeds this weekend. I'm working on putting together a cold frame or some covered hoops in my garden.

my on-line planting calendar is fixed now

Stan and Jan reminded me that my On-line Planting Calendar link was broken. So I have just now fixed it. It is exciting that it is time to start thinking about planting!!!

If you haven't tried this calendar before, its a piece of code I wrote that lets you calculate when to plants all sorts of vegetable seeds based on your last frost date.

Here's the link: Calendar link.

The link is also near the top of my sidebar.

generate your own vegetable planting calendar on-line

I've put together a planting calendar that will calculate the planting dates for crops for whatever zone you're in. Just enter your last frost date, click the button and everything gets calculated. (magic!)

It's not quite done yet. I don't think the last few dates calculate yet. Check back to this page and I'll add fall planting too.

Please let me know if any planting dates don't seem right. Mostly, the dates are as recommended by Johnny's website and Botanical Interests seed packages. Each single date refers to 'the week of'.

Since I have two gardens with different frost dates, I'm planning to print out a calendar for each and then highlight the crops I'll plant in each garden.

I also started to add the culture information for specific crops at the bottom of the calendar, because I'm often looking these up at Johnny's website. They have great info. To find it however, I have to search for the vegetable, then click on 'more detail', then click on 'growing info'. I'd like to have it more accessible. I'll add more of these too. (And add links back to Johnny's - I hope they don't mind.)

I'm glad to get this chart done because I see that I need to plant my onions the week of February 12. That's next week! Yippy!

I have all my seeds, but don't have plant shelves and lights set up yet. Today I purchased lights and shelving. Maybe tomorrow I'll be able to assemble.

Other planting calendars:
Grow your own excel calendar
Better Homes and Gardens
Tim's Square Foot Gardening Page
Common Ground
Farmer's Almanac Calendar personalized by zip code
Farmer's Almanac Gardening by the Moon Calendar
Heirloom Seeds Spring Calendar
Heirloom Seeds Fall Calendar