Swiss Chard is a cool weather crop that can take hot weather. So, you can plant early and enjoy greens all summer. Harvest when plants are about 10” high. Pick the outer leaves, allowing the center leaves to grow and produce a new crop.
Varieties:
Bright Lights: (60 days) A healthy AND ornamental plant for your vegetable garden. Striking yellow, gold, orange, pink, red and white stems. Mild flavor, tender dark green or bronze leaves. All-America Selections Winner.
Fordhook Giant: (50 days) Popular green leaf variety with white veins. Very Heat resistant.
Bright Lights Photo Courtesy Ball Horticultural Company
Spinach is a cool season crop that needs about 6 weeks of cool weather from seedling to harvest. It likes moist, well drained soil. As with lettuce, it will bolt and become bitter in the heat of summer. Sow successive crops for a fall harvest.
Varieties:
Bloomsdale: (30 days) Quick growing savoy type (quilted leaves) with an upright habit. Open pollinated.
Tyee: (37 days) Upright, semi-savoy type has exceptional flavor and a slow-to-bolt habit. Dark green leaves are thick.
We offer our onion starts as live plants. They are one of the earliest vegetables that you can plant out in the garden. Mid-April for most parts of town. Give them plenty of sun. Keep them moist early on and they will reward you with a good harvest. Bunching onions can be harvested as needed. Bulbing types are ready when the tops fall over.
Varieties:
Bunching: Non-bulbing salad onions/green onions Sweet Spanish White: 115 days, mild white onion – long day type Sweet Spanish Yellow: 115 days, yellow onion – long day type Leeks: American Flag: 105 days, Mild onion flavor. Heirloom type
Lettuce is a cool season crop that prefers moist soil. There is nothing like being able to walk out to the garden for your own salad! Plan to plant additional crops though, as your Spring plants will eventually become bitter in the heat. Get around this by planting a second crop about three weeks after your first crop and again in August for a Fall harvest. We tend toward the leaf lettuce types (as opposed to head types) because you can keep harvesting a portion of the leaves and leave the main plant to grow more.
Varieties:
Arugula: (40 days) Leaves are peppery, flowers are edible. Buttercrunch: (65 days) Popular, top-quality variety is easy to grow and yields tender 4” rosettes. All-America Selections winner. Bistro Blend: (50 days) A gourmet loose leaf blend of exotic leaf shapes with red and green variations Gourmet Blend: (45-60 days) Spicy mix includes arugula, mustard greens and an assortment of lettuces in an array of colors, shapes, textures, and tastes. Harvest for ‘baby greens’ after about 30 days. Red Sails: (50 days) Loose leaf type that offers burgundy red leaves with a mild, non-bitter taste. Slow to bolt. Simpson Elite: (55 days) Loose leaf type with tasty, light green curled leaves. Long-holding with a non-bitter flavor. Improved over traditional ‘Simpson’ in that it is slower to bolt.
Kohlrabi is a cool weather plant that will develop quickly. Harvest when the bulb is about 3” in diameter and make sure to peel off the out layer as it is quite fibrous. Grows best in moist soil.
Varieties:
Purple: Beautiful purple globes hold sweet white “meat” on the inside. Winner: (45 days) Fresh, fruity taste. Holds well.
Kale is another cool season green that you can plant early and enjoy into Fall. It won’t bolt in hot weather so you will have a season of leaves. Just clip what you want and leave the main plant to grow more leaves.
Varieties:
Dinosaur (Lacinato): (60 days) Open-shape kale has straplike, blue-green leaves. Extremely winter hardy. Dwarf Blue Curled: (60 days) A super compact variety that keeps producing tender, blue-green frilly leaves over a long period. One plant is enough to feed a family of four. Best yet…it stays very compact compared to other varieties. So, it is wonderful for small space gardening. Can be overwintered in Zone 4 areas with some protection. Red Russian: (50 days) Dark green oak-leaf shaped leaves. Red/purple hues intensify in cooler weather. Tender, sweet taste when cooked. Can also be eaten raw. Can harvest for ‘baby greens’ after about 25 days. Toscano: (60 days) Also called Italian, Dinosaur or lacinato type. Open-shape kale has straplike, blue-green leaves. Long lasting into cold weather.
Blue CurledDinosaur Lacinato Photo Courtesy Seeds by Design via BHCRed RussianToscano
Collard greens are a cool season crop that can withstand summer heat. They will take about 2 months to develop. Harvest lower leaves first and leave the upper leaves to continue to grow. You will have greens all summer and into fall this way. Like many vegetables, they become sweeter with a light frost.
Cauliflower is a cool weather crop. Like cabbage, they can be planted for both Spring and Fall crops since they mature quickly. Our self-blanching type will naturally cover the developing head with leaves so that it will stay white.
Varieties:
Early Snowball: (55 days, 3-4lbs/5-6″ across) Heirloom variety with white heads. Excellent eaten fresh and also freeze well
Self Blanching: (65 days, 3-4lbs) Pure white heads are well-shaped and fine textured.
Cabbage is a cool season crop that will develop quickly (around 65 days for the smaller headed varieties). So, you can plant it for both Spring and Fall (sow in mid-July for a second crop). Harvest when the head becomes firm.
Varieties
Flat Head: (80 days, 5 lbs) Flat specialty cabbage produces sweet, tender heads with a very short core and less dense interior for easy slicing and shredding. Katarina: (45 days, 4″-5″) Compact green cabbage bred for smaller spaces. All America Selections Winner. Red Jewel: (75 days, 3-5lbs) Very early red cabbage. Short core and dense, good sized heads. Stonehead: (50 days, 2 lbs) Smaller green round heads develop earlier in the season and also hold well in the garden without splitting. All-America Selections winner.
A cool weather vegetable that will develop for a Fall harvest. Don’t worry, they won’t bolt. Pinch out the center growing point about mid-September to hasten development. Sprouts are harvested from the bottom up when they are about 1” in diameter. Flavor is sweetest after a light frost.
Varieties:
Long Island Green: (90 days) Stocky, semi-dwarf plants produce lots of tasty green sprouts on short, self-supporting stems. Heirloom variety.
