There's still time to plant crops

Jeanne Crisp and Julie Kelly

Gardeners, if you feel discouraged after our wet, cool spring, take heart. It's not too late to have a successful gardening year.

Warm temperatures and long hours of daylight will enable many hot-weather vegetables to thrive. And in a few weeks, you'll be able to sow cool weather crops that you'll harvest into the fall and perhaps early winter.

Hot weather crops can be sown directly into the ground now. Green beans, cucumber, and squash are a few you could try.

For direct seeding, start by preparing the soil. Pull out weeds and rocks bigger than your thumb, break up lumps in the soil, add compost to enhance the nutritive value, and water the bed so you plant into moist soil. Follow directions on seed packages to avoid planting too deep, and note the number of days until your seeds should germinate to ensure you'll be around to keep the soil moist. Nothing is more discouraging than to have a row of seedlings pop out of the ground and then die for lack of water.

Additionally, if you can find seedlings in garden centers, it's not too late for tomatoes, peppers and eggplants. If you go this route, buy the largest plants you can find (and afford). And focus on smaller varieties which ripen faster. For example, a cherry tomato will ripen in 50 to 65 days while a beefsteak tomato needs at least 85 days to ripen.

Gardeners in our region can count on fall as a great time for cool-weather crops to mature and deliver fresh produce. Mid-July is the perfect time to plant seeds for numerous vegetables including carrots, broccoli, kale, peas, beets, green onions, and more. Again, rely on seed packets to describe planting and germination schedules as well as days to maturation. Prepare the soil as described above, and be ready to keep seeds moist. Once seedlings appear, be sure to water properly (deeply as opposed to spraying) several times a week, and look forward to harvesting most of the fall.

Root crops (turnips, beets, carrots) don't require a lot of heat, so they can be planted as late as August for a fall-winter harvest. In our area, Oct. 26 is the first frost date. Your aim is to get your plants into a survival state – 6-8 inches tall – by that date. Hours of daylight is another factor that matters to crops. Most crops do best with at least 8-10 hours of sun per day, which is easy to achieve now but will be difficult in a few months.

Other tips to ensure success include pest protection and hydroseeding. For easy pest protection, use floating row cover. This strong, lightweight, filmy material, sold in garden shops, protects seeds and seedlings from rabbits and flying pests that like to lay eggs on vegetable plants. Iron phosphate slug bait is considered a safe method of slug control.

Sprinkle it sparsely as soon as seedlings appear.

Hydroseeding is a fun technique to plant tiny seeds such as carrots, which are very difficult to space properly. Boil and cool one cup of water mixed with one tablespoon of cornstarch. Add the seeds into this mixture, then use a squeeze bottle to squeeze a narrow, uniform line of seeds into a shallow depression in the soil.

Cover with a fine mix such as seed starter, water gently, and voila! You've saved a lot of frustration trying to gently place those fine, lightweight seeds in position.

Feel free to stop by the Mukilteo Community Garden to see examples of all plants and techniques described in this article. There's a work party every Saturday from 9:30-11:30 a.m. and anyone there will be happy to share their experiences and words of encouragement.