Despite Frozen Ground, Start Thinking About Some Crops Now

By Kim Glovas

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - If you've received any seed catalogs this winter, you may be thinking about starting a vegetable garden from the ground up.

So you bought some seeds from one of those glossy seed catalogs. But the ground is still frozen. Now what?

Doug Christie, farm manager at Delaware Valley College, says it depends on what you plan to put in that summer garden.

"If you're going to grow tomatoes, you want to start them maybe 6-to-8 weeks before your last frost date for you area where you're growing them in. You don't want to start them way too early or else they're going to be tall and leggy by the time you want to put them outside."

He says use a sterile soil mix, and you can use egg cartons then move them to peat pots as they grow.

He says if you are starting seeds for hardy greens, those can be started about now. "If you're talking about a crop like lettuce, or broccoli, or cabbage -- anything in the cole crop family, which would be the brussel sprouts, cauliflower, cabbage, kale -- that whole group of plants, you could start them in the middle of February or so and then plant them out sooner because they can take cold weather."