Commentary by Noah Herron
Waiting for the last frost to pass before planting your garden can be a waste! Now is the time to start your cole crops before it’s too late. Cole crops do better during the cooler months of April and May and tend to bolt or go to seed during the hot days of June. Cole crops. such as broccoli, cauliflower and cabbage, should be transplanted now for best results. If seeds were not started four to six weeks ago, it’s best to purchase seedlings that can be transplanted now.
Too often, inexperienced gardeners will plant cole crops in May, which will result in little to no harvest of these plants. Broccoli, cauliflower and cabbage can easily tolerate cold down to 26 degrees, but once it gets down below that, there’s probably going to be some damage, and if it gets below 17 degrees, it will probably kill them. This is when you should be ready with row covers or buckets to cover the plants should it get down that cold.
Cole crops aren’t the only cool-season vegetables that need to be planted early. Snow peas, carrots, spinach, lettuce and other greens need to be direct-seeded into the soil at the end of March or the early part of April. Seed potatoes also should be planted at this time. When Indiana’s summer heat begins in June, the cool-season vegetables will start to turn yellow, and that’s when they should be pulled and replaced with warm-season crops. You can follow up with any warm-season crop such as tomatoes, squash, melons, cucumbers and more!
