June 28, 2024

VIDEO: Crops You Can Direct Sow Before Your Last Frost


Growing from seed can be tricky to figure our when to start them indors, when to move them outdoors, how soon to start, and all the other tricky things that come with seed starting, But there is a simple way to start seeds, and that is to just direct sow them. In this video I will give you a list of crops you can plant before the last frost date to get growing earlier.

25 thoughts on “VIDEO: Crops You Can Direct Sow Before Your Last Frost

  1. I live in the South (about 35 deg lat). I sow some things in late Fall (onions & garlic) and planted green peas, kale, radish & carrots in mid January. From my experience, many of these crops grow well, even in winter & through mild frosts, but they grow VERY SLOWLY until the ground begins to warm up. Don't expect exuberant growth in the coldest months.
    Also many survive mild frosts but not severe ones. I have celery that over wintered fine (who knew it was cold weather crop?), but a 20deg frost in Jan froze & burst some of the stems. The roots were fine & it is growing new stems.

  2. Luke, are Mustard greens ok…in Michigan right now? I tried without success in the Fall because it was too hot so I need some this Spring.

  3. Question, I thought my hubby planted our garlic in the fall, he didn't, I just returned from Florida taking care of my mom. We live in Idaho and I just found our garlic in the very back of the fridge. So, are they still OK and can I get them in the ground this weekend and still have garlic????

  4. Oh yay! I bought your red veined sorrel!! I had once saa a youtube video on how in the 1500's they used sorrel to spice their salmon so I've always been wanting to try sorrel but could never find it. Thank you for all your help over the years!!

  5. Thanks Luke for this info. Would you film you actually planting this stuff, please? In Alberta with still a few inches of snow on the beds… would I pull the snow away to plant? at this time all is solid in the garden so i would need to add compost over the seeds. and then would i put the snow back over said area?

  6. Love your channel Luke. I have learned so much. Thank you for all your time. Do you direct sow all of these? I am assuming if you do, from previous videos, you put soil down on top of the frozen soil. Yes? And do you create a greenhouse effect with some sort of dome/row cover?

  7. I believe that celery, spinach and kale are in the "dirty dozen" vegetables in that the ones you get at the store tend to be full of pesticides. If you plant at home, you can avoid that.

  8. I planted beets and carrots in Early November (zone 7) and nothing has happened. Should I just give up and plant something else in that area? My spinach I planted at the same time is starting to really take off. Also, my kale and arugula survived and we’ve been eating from it through the winter. We also planted daikon radishes which are now bolting. Not sure what to do. Any suggestions are appreciated. TIA

  9. I'm still under 6 inches of snow in Idaho. I planted my potatoes last year. When i harvested them last fall i just left a few down the row. I didn't mean to but did the same thing the year before. My volunteer potatoes left over in the fall, out performed the ones i planted in the spring last year. I do a Ruth Stout method of gardening. Works good for most things.

  10. I'm in zone 5.5 and I'm wondering if carrots can stay in the ground over the winter. I planted a batch late fall last year and it looks like I needed to top off the bed with soil. The tops took some damage and they turned to mush. I had mixed success. I found that when I planted spring carrots they were all bitter due to high temps getting to them as they became ready to harvest. So, I'm battling bitter carrots in the spring because they get into June/July heat. I'm battling July/August germination rates being tricky when it's too hot to want to play at all. Maybe this is a crop that I'm glad is $1.50 a pound at the store. 🙂

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