Cool Weather Vegetables-March 1 to April 15
Asparagus: Grown from roots planted 18″ apart. Won’t reliably produce spears until the third year, but can produce for twenty years or more. Asparagus plants take up a lot of room in a garden and may better suited for your perennial beds. The ferny plant makes a great accent to rose bushes and other tall perennials. To plant, dig a trench 15 inches deep and line with two inches of manure and compost, topped with an inch of topsoil. Lay the root, crown side up, and cover with two inches of soil. As the plant grows, backfill with soil until level with the rest of the garden. For the first three years do not harvest spears. First up will be male spears, about as thick as you index finger. Later in the season will come the female spears, the diameter of your little finger. Never pick the female spears. All-male cultivars have been developed. One good old-time variety is Jersey Giant. There’s also a purple variety, which reverts to green when cooked. Europeans also heavily mulch asparagus, to blanch it, producing white spears.
Beets: 50-80 days. Grown from seed, planted as soon as the soil can be worked. Sow seeds 2″ apart, thin to 6″ by eating the smaller, slower plants fresh or boiled. Harvest when roots reach 2″ diameter. Repeat sowing every two weeks for summer-long harvest. Of the many varieties, golden beets are among the tastiest.
Broccoli: 55 to 100 days. Grown from seeds or starts. Plant 18″-24″ apart. Can be planted as soon as ground can be worked and again in late summer. Heat is the great enemy of broccoli, causing the heads to bolt-turning from a tight green head to a cluster of flowers. Some types are grown for heads and, once harvested, side shoots. Some are grown for side shoots alone. Broccoli raab is a member of another plant family, can tolerate more heat, has a sharp, distinct flavor and is usually sautéed. Plants grown from seed offer some advantages. They tend to have better root systems and can tolerate heat waves and water shortages better. The two most common problems are aphids and cabbage loopers. Aphids can be hosed off followed by an insecticidal soap spray. Cabbage loopers-small green caterpillars-can devour leaves but can be treated with the bacterial powder Bt. Just for fun try growing Romanesco broccoli, which looks like a plant designed by M.C. Escher. The head is a cluster of tiny, spiraling minarets, it’s flavor somewhere between broccoli and cauliflower.
Brussels Sprouts
80-90 days. Grown from seeds or starts. Plant12″-18″ apart. Care is much the same a broccoli. Sprouts form from the bottom up and harvests can last up to 8 weeks, if you pinch the topmost growth the sprouts will develop all at once. Tolerates heat better then broccoli.
To read all of Todd’s Avant Gardening posts, see the Avant Gardening Series category.
