Creating a Planting Calendar

Before we dig into the soil -- or, in this case, soilless mix! -- let’s create a calendar so we know when to plant what.

Planting times can be a little confusing at first. Let’s see, you should start broccoli seeds 6 weeks before transplanting, and you transplant them 2 weeks before the last frost date. You start pepper seedlings 8 weeks before transplanting time, and wait until a week after the last frost to set them out. It sounds like one of those high school word problems: "If a train is approaching at 60 mph, and you are traveling at 20 mph ...." Fortunately, this is all "open-book," or, in this case, open calendar!

The first question to ask is, "When does my last spring frost occur?" This varies greatly from region to region, so it is important to find this out for your garden. You can check with a neighbor or call your Cooperative Extension office. Since the last frost date varies from year to year, always be prepared to protect tender plants for a few weeks after this date has passed.

Now let’s begin our calendar. We’ll use April 30 as our average last frost date, and we’ll map out the months of March, April, and May. Let’s calculate some planting dates, and plot them on our calendar.