Early and Late Crops
Lettuce, spinach, kale, carrots, beets and chards can be started in cold frames as early as March for an early harvest.
Snow peas, radishes, and chives should be sown directly in the garden as soon as the soil can be worked.
The other root vegetables – celery, leeks, onions, garlic and parsnips, and the cabbage family, which includes mustard, cauliflower, broccoli, turnips and Brussels sprouts, follow in April.
All the above can be replanted in summer for a second harvest.
Plant onions and potatoes in the fall for summer crops and in early spring for fall harvest.
Unlike tender summer crops, fall crops are dense, starchy, and have low water contents; they store well and last for months during winter in a cellar or unheated room.
Leave root vegetables in the ground for as long as possible at the end of fall. Frosts prompt the plants to turn starch into sugar and you’ll get better tasting produce.
This is true for cabbages as well, wait until a few frosts have passed, cold enhances their flavor.
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