"As soon as soil can be worked"

[Nan6b]

Packets of peas, salad greens, and other cold weather veggies give the instructions to plant out "as soon as soil can be worked" in spring. I can usually work the soil here by the end of March. Our last frost date is mid-May. From end of March to mid-May, we have hard frosts and cold weather. If I plant out lettuce & peas the end of March, not much comes up. I don't know how long to wait, though. Lettuce doesn't seem to come up unless it's planted close to mid-May.

So how long before last frost date am I supposed to be planting lettuce, other greens, and peas outside from seed?

[pepperhead212]

It used to be aroundmid to late March here, but now, with the warmer weather, it's rare that we have to wait! With only a few days below freezing, and many very warm days (for winter), the ground has been workable all winter. This happens more often than not now, unlike when I was growing up.

[brownrexx]

I use a thermometer to check my soil temperature and inch or two below the surface for planting peas. I wait until the soil temperature is at least 60 degrees. Peas will germinate at a lower temperature but you will not get the high percentage of germination that you will at 60° so I just wait until the soil is 60°. I don't know the germination temperature for lettuce but I usually plant it at the same time as my peas.

[Nan6b]

That's a good idea, thanks!

[Growing Coastal]

Red Sails lettuce used to amaze me with how early it would come up in the spring after self-sowing itself. I don't know that it grew any faster than a later transplant or how many of the seeds survived the winter but I saw that it always came up much sooner than I would think of planting it.

[brownrexx]

[mention]Nan6b[/mention] I discovered that peas may take 20-30 days to germinate at 40° and the germination is always spotty because some of them must rot before sprouting. At 65-70° they will sprout in 7-14 days. It is not a benefit to get them in the ground sooner because they take longer to sprout anyway.

Another thing that I sometimes do is to soak my pea seeds overnight. This gets them to sprout a couple of days sooner too.

I pull the mulch back about 2 weeks before planting to allow the sun to warm the soil.

[bower]

Row cover is the answer to early planting for us. It makes a big difference not just to survival and sprouting of peas and early greens, but also how fast they grow. We can have a crop to harvest when those who don't use it are just getting sprouted.

[root_grow]

I always plant peas in mid-March, when the soil is around 45-50°, and never had a problem with poor germination. The plants are pretty frost hardy (my fall peas were fine until it went down to 20), it's the peas themselves that are more easily damaged.

The soil doesn't reach 60° here until late May. For lettuce, greens, carrots, beets, and early brassica transplants 50° seems to be the minimum for reasonable time to germination and availability of nutrients (some nutrients get locked up in cooler soil). I've found that some lettuce varieties are much better than others for getting started in cooler soil. Self-sown cilantro and spinach come up long before anything else, sometimes sprouting in February.

[brownrexx]

I think that I will try a row cover this year [mention]Bower[/mention]. I like to get them growing as quick as I can so that I get the biggest possible harvest before it gets too hot and kills the plants. I really like peas.

[Shule]

You should be able to plant peas anywhere between now and April or later, I'm guessing. Peas are one of the earliest things you can plant. The Old Farmer's Almanac says to plant lettuce two weeks before the last frost. I haven't grown a lot of lettuce, though, but I would have guessed later. I have grown snow peas a few times, however. Not sure about snap and garden peas.

[Shule]

Burpee says to plant peas a month before the last frost, but one can do it sooner, in my experience.

[kath]

Nan, I used to plant peas here no later than St. Patrick's Day without incident until one year we had a lot of rain and then a really hard freeze late and the tops of the plants got nipped. I think that set them back a bit and reduced production somewhat, so I started staggering my rows to see which sowing date was best. I found that there was no advantage in planting before April 1 and that waiting until after April 7 reduced the number of pods set when weather got too hot too early. Sowing earlier meant that the peas took longer to germinate but the seeds sown 2 weeks later were only 3-4 days later to harvest. Sowing too late also seemed to make my plants more prone to disease. So depending on weather any given year, that's my pea window, April 1-7. I'm in PA zone 6b - my safe date for tomatoes is usually about May 18, but they are happier if I can wait until at least the 24th, if that helps.

I also sow lettuce indoors to set out on April 7 and the plants have done well. I read that in New England some gardeners just threw lettuce seeds on top of the snow and let them germinate when they were ready! We don't have snow in the spring often here, so I've never tried that but I have found that if I direct sow spinach and lettuce in March, they eventually come up, but it's faster just to wait until April 1-7. I think that's when "the weather breaks" in my area.

[Shule]

kath, I definitely agree that if planted too early, they take longer to sprout, and there's no real advantage. It sounds like you know what you're talking about, not just with that, but the other stuff you said, too.

[Nan6b]

Kath, that's very clear & concise. Thanks! And thanks to all who answered.

[kath]

It sounds like you know what you're talking about, not just with that, but the other stuff you said, too.

Thank you, Shule, for your kind words, but you know how much things can vary from year to year, let alone from place to place. Trying different things in your own garden & taking notes year after year will eventually show you what usually works in your own spot, but that doesn't guarantee good results elsewhere.

[kath]

Kath, that's very clear & concise. Thanks! And thanks to all who answered.

You're welcome, Nan! Hope you have greater success this year with your peas and with the germination of lettuce, etc. The row cover definitely helps encourage quicker germination, can help retain moisture, and also will keep out the insects and critters who like to feast on these tender morsels in spring!

[brownrexx]

As I posted earlier, I don't go by the date, I go by the soil temperature since in lower temperature soil, the seeds take so much longer to germinate and may even rot. This has happened to my peas when I insisted on planting them by St. Pat's Day on March 17. It's a fun idea but I lost a lot of pea seeds to rot that way.

Today I went to the garden and checked the soil temperature with my digital thermometer and it was 59°. Still a little cool to plant seeds BUT I did dig up some soil and fill a window box shaped pot and planted 3 rows of radishes in it. I have never done this before but it is sunny on my front porch and I can bring the pot indoors if it gets too cold. I am hoping for some early radishes.

I also planted a pot of lettuce for the front porch. I did this last year and we got a few early salads out of it. I am priming some spinach seeds too and will add them to the lettuce pot in a few days.

This is from last year:


20190501_141738 by Brownrexx, on Flickr

[GoDawgs]

This is a chart I've used for a long time so I'm surprised to see it's still online. It shows the percentage of seedlings one can expect when seeds are planted at various temps. The numbers in parentheses show how many days at that temp it will take for germination. Red numbers are the optimum combo. This chart has been pretty accurate for me and I sometimes get in trouble if getting antsy nudges me to plant earlier than I should. LOL!

https://tomclothier.hort.net/page11.html

This year I won't have to worry about temps because by the time this rain-sodden ground dries out enough, it'll be plenty warm. Then it will be a test to see how heat tolerant the early stuff is.

[brownrexx]

[mention]GoDawgs[/mention] Based on that chart, I really should get some spinach seeds into my 59° ground. I think that I will do that next week.

The problem here is that our temperatures fluctuate widely at this time of year. I was looking at my notes and last year after several 60° days and 60° soil I planted peas but 2 days later the temperature dropped into the 20's and most of my pea seeds did not germinate. This year I will wait a bit on peas.

[GoDawgs]

That's still the tricky part, knowing when to expect those late arctic blasts! Some years they come and some years they don't. Even a plastic tunnel won't keep damage from happening at 20 degrees.

I need to get my scuba gear on and check to see how that kelp I'm growing is doing. I wonder if any crawdads are out and about.