Mid Maine TimeBank

One of our members offers these hints to get your garden off to an early start:

This is the perfect time to do cold weather plantings. Plants that like cool weather will bolt in the heat of July if you don't plant them soon enough. A perfect cold weather plants is peas (shell, snap, and snow), which need the cold ground to germinate. On these warm days lettuce and greens also can be planted. They need warmth to germinate but prefer 50-degree days. Swiss chard and beet greens also fall into this category. I start my carrots now because they are slow to germinate and planting now gives them an edge over the weeds that come when the ground warms up. Broccoli, cabbage, and cauliflower can be started and transplanted out in 2 weeks. I use cold frames for transplanting these so I will be putting them in very soon. Some say you can put their seed directly in the ground now but I usually grow them inside and transplant. Milk jugs with bottoms cut off and placed over the transplants (no cap on) provide mini-greenhouse conditions for them and keep the first bugs off them.

Hope this helps you decide what you can and can't do. Can you take a temperature of your surface soil? Anything over 40 degrees at around 6pm means you can put any of the above in. Happy planting!