The air temperatures are finally warming up, much to my relief! But five minutes of sunshine doesn't mean that the soil is warm enough to support healthy root growth for some of our veggie plants. With the lingering cold spring and hard frost last week, it is still too early to plant summer favorites like tomatoes and melons in the field (unless you can cover them, or you have a raised bed where the soil warms up faster). That is, we could plant these things early, but the result would be cold feet for these delicate crops. And like anyone with cold feet, it's hard to put on a good show! If we plant them in cold soil, melon plants sit in misery for weeks before starting to grow roots. And even when they do start growing they often don't perform as well as ones that were planted just a week or two later and avoided having cold feet. So we usually wait until late May or early June to plant heat-loving crops. They won't be ready to eat until August, but it's worth the wait.
So you might be wondering which crops can handle having cold feet? Which ones will be ready for our first CSA delivery in June? There's lots of options! Things like salad greens, snap peas, and scallions are usually in our first boxes. There is also carrots, beets, and garlic scapes that will be ready in June, to name a few. These are the stars of the show early on, happy to jump on stage and show off, without succumbing to cold feet.
The other question many farmers and gardeners in this area might be asking is: are we going to have a late frost? It’s not likely, but it is possible, or so I’m told by some of the wiser farmers who have seen it happen before my time. This is the sort of year to have it happen, based on other weather patterns, so we are prepared for it. Weather sure keeps us on our toes, but neither our toes nor our feet are cold. We’re just thrilled to have another season underway, and a great show of veggies coming up on the horizon.