How to Use My Sowing Guide
In an effort to reduce FOMO (fear of missing out) in all aspects of our lives this growing season, I am committed to helping you create a garden that works for you; a growing list that excites and motivates you; and a space where the information you need will be easy to find. In that vein, I want to spend some time breaking down my thought process for my succession planting sowing guide.
I imagine most of you reading this have my new and completely exhaustive succession planting guide. The pressing question even I have from time to time is, “Am I sowing things early enough? Am I too late?” Truly, I even wonder if Meg-of-season’s-past did it differently, because she probably did. But then I stop and remind myself that this is title a GUIDE for a very good reason. Because that’s all it is.
This most recent sowing guide — and its deconstructed, seasonal siblings that live in various chapters throughout my new book — are launchpads, not mandates. They are invitations, not directions. Spoiler: even I deviate from them from time to time. Like my head lettuce and beets that could have been sowed a week ago? Yeah, I still haven’t even gotten a tray of soil blocks ready for them (it’s the evening of March 7 as I type this).
Why am I “behind” and why am I nonplussed? Because time, friends. Time. The earliest season transplants are as much a testament to faith in warmer weeks as they are for earliest harvests. Will this “delayed sowing” mean a week later for harvests? I actually doubt it, because if anything, I will transplant them a week later with slightly warmer soil and air temperatures and they may acclimate and establish quicker.
Click the image for a downloadable version of the sowing chart. Note: it prints on 8 1/4 x 14” and is the sowing guide I have been mailing with all pre-orders (and proof of purchase). If you haven’t gotten yours yet, shoot me an email.
This sowing guide also extensively reflects my need to enthusiastically focus on my mental health in winter. And that involves being ridiculously excited and organized with planning and executing my successions — at least, at the beginning of the season.
I have been methodically studying, pushing, and recording the growing season of many of the vegetables I love growing for the past six years, and each year I have revised this chart. These charts represent the most accurate and expansive windows of time for each vegetable. I focus on the first sowing, so these dates are the earliest possible date you can sow them to push the season. They are not the latest dates possible to sow them.
So let’s take something like cabbage where I say to sow them starting in the end of the February and again in the end of March. What this means is you can sow cabbages indoors for transplant anytime in that window, from late February through late March for spring planting. It is a wide-open continuum: sow seeds anytime within that timeframe and you’re golden. You don’t need to have sown them yet, and you can sow them anytime until the end of March (or, warmer climates, 4-6 weeks before your last frost) for an early summer harvest.
I’d also say, you’re welcome to use me as your “reminder” of what to sow. I know many of you do, and it’s frankly endearing. Because I do tend to push the envelope here, there is almost always “time to sow” in warmer zones when I’m sowing, and certainly in cooler climates too.
What are you sowing in your garden or seed trays right now? As I said, it’s beets and head lettuce (tomorrow, I swear!) for me this week.
Has Anything Changed?
Have I adjusted sowing dates? How closely do I need to follow the suggested times in this calendar since publishing it in December 2021?
All you have to know is that the Green bars for sowing indoors or the brown bars for direct seeding indicate the earliest sowing I will attempt. If there are more than one succession, basically the space between those two successions is a wide open field for sowing. While I often do one tray every four weeks for brassicas, for example, starting in late February, I could have sowed it the second week in March and the second week in April, too.
For peppers, while I do sow some in mid-February, I also have been known to sow them in mid-March. As mentioned above, these are guidelines, and they are to be followed for the earliest possible harvests. If early is not your game, I’d start in March or April for your first sowings, as this will likely mean, for many of you, low tunnels will be unnecessary.
Let’s Share Our Experiences
I know many of you have been using this guide for years as such — simply a guide. And you’ve created your own sowing charts, spreadsheets, and methods for your particular growing zones. I’d love to see how you’ve made it your own — what ways are working for you to customize it to your growing zone and favorite veggies? The beauty of this community is harnessing the collective creativity.
