Not Too Early To Start Planting Cool Season Seeds
By Kim Glovas
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Seed catalogues are arriving in mailboxes across the Delaware valley and gardeners are planning their spring gardens.
It's way too early to even think about getting anything in the ground, but if you start with peat pots or trays, you can get seeds for cool vegetable crops in now. Jacqueline Ricotta, a Plant Sciences professor at Delaware Valley College in Doylestown, says cool crops include lettuces, kale, Swiss chard and broccolis.
"The rule of thumb for something like green peas is Saint Patrick's Day," she says. "Now, this year in particular, I think it's going to take the ground a long time to warm up, so chances are you're not going to be getting peas in on March 17th, but certainly towards the end of March, beginning of April."
Ricotta says don't even think about starting your warm weather crops, like tomatoes, peppers and squash, until at least mid-March if you start from seed.
And she says you can get a lot of seed catalogues for free online. That's where you will see the new cream of the crop.
"There's some very new and interesting crops out there," Ricotta says. "The newest darling of the horticulural world is called the kalette. It's a cross between kale and a brussel sprout."
