Tuesday, February 17, 2009

fall planting calendar

I've started an on-line calculator for a fall planting calendar based on your first frost date. The dates are based on my experience and the calendar at Heirloom Seeds. Still a few months before I'll need to use this. Let me know if any of the dates seem off or if I should add other vegetables.

I get such a kick out of putting in dates and pushing the button! You'd think I was a kid with a new video game (or my mother in law with a slot machine...) This is the longest code I've "written" and it is such fun that it actually works.


On-line calculator for spring planting calendar

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hello! I'm a new reader here... just bought my first house and I'm interested in starting a vegetable garden :) I'm enjoying your blog and trying to learn - gardening is so complicated! I'm in Los Angeles, CA (Zone 9 or 10-11, depending on which site you query), so I think I need to start up soon for my summer veggies. Cool calendar, by the way! I'm a web programmer :)

kathy said...

Gardening doesn't need to be complicated. It's really only complicated if you're like me and always want to grow more.

To start, just pick a few vegetables you really like and buy seedlings in your local garden center when they are available. When they're for sale is when its time to plant them.

The plants to grow from seeds planted directly in your garden would be green beans, peas, and carrots - if you want to grow these. (Maybe some sunflowers and nasturtiums too. Oh and radish.)

Most important is SUN and good soil. Good luck.

(I hope you're not laughing too much at my newbie programming skills...)

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the tips!

And NO I'm not laughing :) I think it's very cool and useful :)

TYRA Hallsénius Lindhe said...

Brilliant Kathy, thank you!

Tyra

Lisa said...

What an excellent chart!
Thanks,
Lisa

Matriarchy said...

I'm comparing my seed list to your chart (great work!) and I have a couple questions.

When do you transplant the onions from seed? At the same time as onion sets?

When do you transplant the first parsley, basil, and first round of beet seedlings?

When do you start the first round of spinach? The second batch goes in 1 week before last frost.

Tom Leith said...

Awwww!

the fall planting calculator is broken!

kathy said...

I'll check on it soon. Thanks

kathy said...

OK I checked. Works for me. Time for my last sowings of beets, beans and cilantro.

Tom Leith said...

Thanks for checking. The link in this post

http://bioarray.us/Skippy%27s%20fall%20planting%20calendar.html

still gives me a 404

The spring planting calendar works fine.

kathy said...

Oh I see. It's the link in this push that's old. The correct link is in the side bar under Skippys Planting Tools. It's

http://www.skippysgarden.com/planting%20calendar%20fall%20v2015.html

I'll see if I can update the link in this post. Thanks for catching that.


kathy said...

I hope the link works now. (I'm stuck with an iPhone only). You should try out Skippys Fall calendar app sometime! It's out in android too now.

Tom Leith said...

Perfect, thanks.

I'm wondering whether there's time to get pickling cucumbers in yet. I thing I'll try. The garden's been a disaster this year.

kathy said...

Many pickling cukes produce fruit at about 50 days. You might want to check the variety and then go for it. Or look for some left over summer seedlings in a nursery.

Im fighting something that's getting my cukes this year, so I'm thinking I'll also plant more seeds this week after I seal off the edges of a bed against voles. We have so many voles around and I was planning to do this soon anyway to prepare for a winter bed. It seems possibly the cause of my cucumber woes.

My plan is to use an 8 inch depth of hardware cloth to line the edges of one of my raised beds. I'll see if that helps. I'm also going to keep planting the different varieties in different locations in the gardens - and in the yard. In my herb garden and maybe even in a pot up by the back door.

Don't worry if it's a disaster now. It could turn around and become fantastic!