How do you know what to plant when?

[caribumamba]

Hi guys, how do you know what to plant when? I know it is a common question and one you would learn from experience. What I have found is that there is nothing (well not nothing kale - yuck! horrible bitter thing but probably some other bits too like cabbage which I do like) to plant in the winter then all of a sudden I am bewildered by the array of choices of what to plant.

Also I am starting to think about what to plant to have harvest throughout the year so then that adds more complexity trying to figure out not only what it suitable to plant at that particular time but also having everything line up so they are ready to harvest in succession and not have a glut at any time.

I am accepting that it will not be perfect and at some point I kind of submit to the confusion and just buy a few things with some general ideas in mind without are strong structure and see what happens. I imagine things will become clearer with more experience.

[Andraste]

I'd start with a list of what you want to grow.

The seed packet will usually guide when to sow & experience will help you discover if you can sow earlier or later in that window.

You can think about when you want to plant out & count backwards: e.g. if you want to plant out in early May & your seeds will take 6 weeks from sowing to planting out, you're not going to want to sow until around last week March/first week of April - but it's never a bad idea to try a slightly earlier sowing to experiment or in case you have failures.

There are lots of websites that give advice but 2 I've found particularly useful are gardenfocused.co.uk & Charles Dowding's site.

[JoaoLeaftide]

Honestly the year-round harvest thing is what gets most people stuck because you end up trying to plan everything at once. I found it easier to work backwards from what I actually want to eat each month and then figure out sowing dates from there. Seed packets help but they're pretty vague on timing. I ended up building a planner for exactly this because I kept losing track of what needed sowing when. But even just a spreadsheet with months across the top and crops down the side makes a massive difference.

[rary]

It would be an advantage to know roughly when the last frost and first frost dates are in your area and be guided by those, and of course by using polythene you can alter those dates

[Mark Rand]

I will admit that I have a spreadsheet. It's got all the varieties down the first column, one month per column with entries like 'sow', 'plant out', 'flower', 'harvest' for each variety in the appropriate months. I stick in extra columns to indicate best sowing temperature, light needed, whether it's a flower or vegetable, and when I've sown it.

I tend to sort it by veg or flowers depending on what I'm doing and can show what to sow etc. in any particular month.

The forum won't let me upload the spreadsheet itself, but here's a screen capture of some of it:-

[Andraste]

If you don't already pick one up, you might find the physical GYO magazine helpful too for lots of ideas, jobs/things to sow each month plus free seed & growing guides for those seeds included

[Vince G]

I will admit that I have a spreadsheet. It's got all the varieties down the first column, one month per column with entries like 'sow', 'plant out', 'flower', 'harvest' for each variety in the appropriate months. I stick in extra columns to indicate best sowing temperature, light needed, whether it's a flower or vegetable, and when I've sown it.

I tend to sort it by veg or flowers depending on what I'm doing and can show what to sow etc. in any particular month.

The forum won't let me upload the spreadsheet itself, but here's a screen capture of some of it:-

That spreadsheet is a thing of beauty!

[caribumamba]

JoaoLeaftide Yes indeed, too much information to grasp. I am not sure about the working backwards idea, that just sounds more complicated, like counting backwards! The 'what do I want to eat' idea seems better to narrow it down then analyse that shortlist for what to plant when. I have a vague idea. I have gotten some hardy root veges in now and planning the more fair weather ones like sweetcorn and sweet potato, bush cherries maybe, soon.

rary Yes I looked that up not long ago on a site which has the metoffice data going back to 1960 or so, giving you the average, and it is around mid May here.

That spreadsheet is a thing of beauty!

Indeed, I am not sure why the implied shame about using one by the OP. lol

Spreadsheet works for me.

Just keep on truckin and taking notes on spreadsheet I guess.

[Penellype]

Here is what I do, bearing in mind that I have an allotment, so plenty of space, and I am retired so I (usually) have plenty of time. I have not bought a vegetable from the shops for the best part of 10 years, with the exception of mushrooms.

1. Grow what you like to eat. Make a list of the most important crops for you. Mine are tomatoes, potatoes, onions, peas, spinach, cucumbers, carrots, cauliflowers, lettuce and fruit such as apples, raspberries, strawberries, gooseberries and blueberries.

2. Make a second list of things that you would like but are less important or might be tricky. Mine include broccoli, leeks, beetroot, courgettes, beans, parsnips, peppers, kohlrabi, florence fennel, turnips, salad leaves and microgreens, herbs, melons, watermelons, currants, rhubarb and tricky fruit such as citrus, cherries and apricots.

You will notice some glaring omissions - cabbage, kale, celery, celeriac, broad beans, chillies, radishes etc - I don't like these and won't eat them. Your lists will be different from mine. Add flowers to your list if you want, but I am concentrating on veg.

3. Consider what will be available to eat in each season. For example, for my allotment and garden:

Summer - beans, peas, courgettes, early tomatoes, peppers, lettuce, cucumbers, beetroot, kohl rabi, cauliflowers, florence fennel, fruit. Potatoes and onions will be ready later in summer. Do I also want to grow turnips, summer leeks and summer broccoli to eat with these? I normally sow crops like this around April or May, as I find March is too early for most.

Autumn - the peas, beans and cauliflowers will probably be finished. Courgettes, tomatoes, cucumbers will be hanging on and you might get an autumn crop of beetroot, spinach and florence fennel if the weather is not too hot. Onions, potatoes and lettuce should be ready and there should be some early carrots. Sowing times for autumn crops (apart from lettuce which can be sown any time of year under cover) should ideally be done by July. Some seed packets will tell you that August is ok, I find it usually isn't.

Winter - not the write-off you would expect, with leeks, parsnips, early broccoli and hardy carrots (such as Eskimo) available all winter. Beetroot, potatoes and onions will store well in a garage and there is the freezer to raid for peas, beans, tomato sauce, soups and summer fruits, but be sure to keep some supplies for spring. Most of these are slow growing biennial crops which need sowing in spring.

Spring - the hardest gap to fill. The carrots, parsnips, broccoli and leeks are starting to bolt and stored potatoes and onions may be beginning to sprout although they should be edible. The summer crops are not ready yet. Spring is the time you need to plan for most carefully. Autumn sown spinach may provide some relief in early spring and an early sowing of spinach will go a long way towards filling the "hungry gap". Lettuces will grow very quickly especially with some protection from the cold. Other leafy greens, if you like them, will help to fill this gap - spring cabbage, kale, mizuna and other oriental greens are all hardy and start to put on new growth as the weather warms. If they bolt the flower shoots are edible, like broccoli. I also "cheat" - I have a greenhouse and grow lights and I start things in the house far earlier than recommended. I sow tomatoes to grow on the windowsill in January and early peas in pots in the house to plant in the greenhouse in February (Meteor is a good variety for this). I grow small (1 litre) pots of dwarf beans under lights indoors, shifting them to the windowsill as light increases and space becomes more precious. Sown in mid January a small crop of beans is available in early April. To fill the potato gap I plant a couple of buckets of early potatoes in January under cover, putting up a frame I can cover with plastic or fleece if it is frosty. These are often ready to eat as new potatoes in late May, about a month before the "normal" earlies.

4. Plan your growing space around the most important crops and fill in with the additional ones if there is room. An early sowing of spinach or spring cauliflowers can be followed by summer crops of tomatoes or courgettes, but be wary of filling every space in spring, as many crops like peas and onions take just too long to be ready to allow for those summer crops and are better followed by winter veg or "catch crops" of salads, spinach or possibly dwarf beans. The biggest "log-jam" is July, and I always have a queue of plants waiting for space.

5. Keep a record of when you sowed your seeds and how many, and when they were ready to eat. Each year is different but you will soon get a feel for when things should start to be ready and you can tweak things if there is too much all at the same time or too little for a sensible meal.

You can see how my plans, techniques and results have panned out since 2018 at my allotment here https://www.growfruitandveg.co.uk/gr...pe-s-allotment


I hope this helps.

[caribumamba]

....

Wow a lot of info to work through there, thanks.

It seems though there are no shortcuts and lots of number crunching/calculation to do in any case.

[Andraste]

Going back to the frost dates, Snoop Puss recommended this site a while back & I found it really good: https://www.lastfrostdate.co.uk

You enter your postcode & the dates broken down into Air Frost/Light Frost/Hard Frost alongside a helpful tender plant risk scale. There's also a climate change button beneath the map that's interesting in terms of the shortening of the frost window.

[caribumamba]

Going back to the frost dates, Snoop Puss recommended this site a while back & I found it really good: https://www.lastfrostdate.co.uk

You enter your postcode & the dates broken down into Air Frost/Light Frost/Hard Frost alongside a helpful tender plant risk scale. There's also a climate change button beneath the map that's interesting in terms of the shortening of the frost window.

That is what I used already when I mentioned it earlier.