Plants that grow in cold weather: Spring Plants Cold season crops
You don’t have to wait until summer to get your garden going. In fact, many vegetables grow and taste better when temperatures are cooler in the spring. Some, like lettuce and spinach, escape when it gets too hot and can only be grown in cooler weather. Read on to find out when to plant cold-season vegetables.
Plants that grow in cold weather
What are the cold season crops? Cool season crops germinate in cold soil and ripen in cool weather with short periods of daylight, which means they are perfect for planting in early spring. Pea, onion and lettuce seeds germinate at temperatures as low as 1 C, which means they can penetrate the soil as soon as it thaws and you can work in it.
Most other food crops grown in cold climates will germinate in soil as cold as 4 degrees C. These include many root and leafy vegetables such as :
- Beet
- Carrots
- Turnips
- Radish
- Cabbage
- Cabbage
- Curly kale
- Spinach
- Swiss chard
- Rocket
- Broccoli
- Cauliflower
- Kohlrabi
- Potatoes
Spring plants and cold season crops
Sometimes, the period between the time the land becomes workable and full summer is terribly short. A good way to start, no matter where you live, is to start your seeds indoors, even earlier in the spring, and then transplant them as seedlings when the weather is right. Many cold weather food crops can be started indoors six to eight weeks before the last frost date.
Just make sure that when you put your cool climate plants in your garden, you’re keeping enough room for your warm climate plants. Cold climate plants are often ready for harvest around the time warm climate plants can be transplanted, but a particularly mild summer can mean your lettuce and spinach will last much longer than expected.
