It is about time to where you can begin planting some vegetables. Therefore, it believe it is relevant to post some things about planting vegetables.

First, what types of vegetables can you plant.

In Utah, like in many areas, you can get away with three different gardens, depending on where you live. A spring garden, a summer garden and a fall garden. Some areas of Utah have a much shorter season than others so you must apply these basic principles to your individual circumstances. That being said…

Spring garden- You want to plant vegetables that don’t mind occasional frosty temperatures, some snowfall and cooler temperatures.

• Peas
• Carrots
• Radishes
• Spinach
• Lettuce
• Onions
• Broccoli
• Cauliflower
• Swiss Chard
• Beets
• And more

The time to plant these vary with the weather, but you can plant them as soon as you can work the soil. You also need the soil to be warm enough around 40 degrees to get the seeds up. In my area, I can sometimes plant 1st of March, but this can be too early. Generally, mid March is the earliest. April 15th is probably the day that most should shoot for with these vegetables, earlier if sowing seeds directly into the garden. Even better than this is to plant the seeds indoors and then transplant them when it is an ideal time or buy starts from the nursery. Regardless, there are some seeds that aren’t ideal for transplanting like root crops (carrots, beets, radishes). Onions, broccoli, cauliflower, leaf lettuce, spinach, swiss chard are all good ones to start inside.

In fact, if you don’t get them in early enough then you won’t really get a crop for your Spring garden. A good example is broccoli and cauliflower. You really take a chance in the spring garden with these because if it gets too hot too early then they will bolt and go to seed and no longer head. This is also true of head lettuce which is hard to do in the Spring garden.

Summer garden- These crops need the heat, long days, and can’t take a frost. With these crops you need to be sure you plant them after your frost free date. I have provided the link to Utah frost free dates. Here are the frost free dates if you live outside Utah.

• Beans
• Corn
• Melons
• Cucumbers
• Squash
• Peppers
• Tomatoes
• Pumpkins
• And more

Generally, May 15th is when I plant these summer crops, sometimes I will plant under hotcaps earlier, in order to get a better jump on the season. You will want space reserved for these crops since your Spring garden crops won’t be harvest yet. You will also have these crops into the Fall so that is why you plant your Fall garden where your Spring garden was located except maybe for onions which will need most of the year to mature.

Fall Garden- This is a good time in Utah to get all those Spring vegetables that don’t do well in the Spring, like the ones I mentioned above. In fact, usually your Fall garden will be much more productive than your Spring garden. In the Fall, you can plant all those listed (direct seed or starts) under the Spring garden. Just remember that you must start head lettuce indoors or buy starts since head lettuce will not germinate when temperatures are over 80 degrees.

You will start to plant some of your fall garden around July 1st depending on the vegetable. Fast maturing vegetables like radishes or early varieties of any vegetable will need to wait so that they don’t mature when it is too hot. The way to know is to determine your first frost date of the Fall and then work backward to make sure that the plant will mature before then. If you have a 65 day carrot and your first frost generally happens Oct 15th then you would want to plant around the first of August. Most of these fall vegetables can take mild frosts, but plan it so that you don’t cut it too close.

Remember, to plan your garden to keep these crops segregated so that retilling for your Fall garden in July won’t ruin your summer crop and so forth.

Here is a great link for planting guides and dates when to plant

Utah varieties and planting guide

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