MOVING OUT
They say April is the cruelest month, but March can’t be far behind. Spring weather in the NE is unpredictable, so you might need to cover and uncover your plants multiple times. Be prepared. The soil should be starting to thaw for most of us, and the first scent of spring—mud—will fill the air. Don’t be too eager to start turning soil. You need to let things dry out and warm up. But on the plus side, the days are getting noticeably longer and garden centers are filling up with cool-season plants and supplies. It’s also garden show season, a time to indulge in a little garden fantasy and some totally acceptable impulse buying. At the very least, you can check out this year’s hottest new gardening gadgets.
PLAN
Attend garden shows and classes
Finalize your garden plans
PREPARE AND MAINTAIN
EVERYONE
Check compost; if it’s not frozen, turn the pile and spread finished compost on beds
Amend garden soil, as necessary
Put up fencing
Allocate space for perennial vegetables
ZONES 3 AND 4
Continue dormant pruning berry bushes and apple trees
ZONES 5, 6, AND 7
Test soil in vegetable garden
Remove mulch from strawberry beds
Move artichoke seedlings to protected spot outdoors to vernalize
Trim tops of seedling onions to about 3 inches
EVERYONE
Pot up indoor seedlings as true leaves appear
ZONES 3 AND 4
Sow indoors (late in month): artichokes, celery, leeks, mint, onions, oregano, and thyme
ZONE 5
Sow indoors (early in month): broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, and kohlrabi
Sow indoors (late in month): basil, celery, chervil, chicory, eggplant, fennel, kale, lettuce, mint, okra, oregano, parsley, peppers, summer savory, and Swiss chard
ZONE 6
Sow indoors (early in month): basil, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, celery, kale, kohlrabi, mint, okra, oregano, and Swiss chard
Sow indoors (late in month): chervil, chicory, eggplant, fennel, lettuce, parsley, peppers, summer savory, and tomatoes
Direct sow: beets, carrots, green onions, lettuce, peas, radishes, spinach, and turnips
TIP Plant only if soil is workable.
Plant outside: asparagus, horseradish, potatoes, and rhubarb
Chit (pre-sprout) potatoes and prepare sweet potato slips
Sow indoors (early in month): chicory, endive, lettuce, and okra
Sow indoors (late in month): basil, cucumbers, melons, parsley, pumpkins, and squash
Direct sow (early in month): arugula, Asian greens, carrots, cilantro, fava beans, onion sets, peas, radishes, spinach, and turnips
Direct sow (late in month): beets, endive, green onions, kale, lettuce, parsnips, and Swiss chard
Transplant outdoors: broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, kale, leeks, lettuce, onions, oregano, and Swiss chard
Plant outdoors: asparagus, berry bushes, fruit trees, horseradish, potatoes, and rhubarb
HARVESTING NOW…
FROM STORAGE
Garlic
Parsnips
Potatoes
Onions
Squash
Turnips
FROM HOOP HOUSE
Arugula
Beets
Brussels sprouts
Carrots
Herbs
Kale
Leeks
Parsnips
Swiss chard
Preparing to sow seeds outdoors gives you the chance to get to know your soil intimately, because you’ll need to get the seed bed ready to support the plants before you sow. Unless your soil is very compacted, you should not need to till an existing planting bed, but you will want to add some amendments to beef up the organic content and nutrients. Start by applying 2 to 4 inches of compost, along with a scattering of organic fertilizer, to the planting areas. Then turn the compost and fertilizer into the top 8 to 10 inches of soil. The compost will improve the soil’s moisture retention and provide a welcoming environment for beneficial microbes. Organic fertilizer is slow to release its nutrients, which will still be in the soil when your plants start growing. Finally, use a rake to break up any large soil clumps and make the soil fairly level.
Check the back of each seed packet for instructions on planting depth and spacing. Generally, a good planting depth for seeds is twice their diameter. (The diameter of a pea seed, for example, is about ½ inch, so it should be planted about 1 inch deep.) Many vegetable seeds are much smaller than peas and are more difficult to handle. Small seeds should barely be covered with soil. Rather than digging holes or furrows, lightly indent the planting area and do your best to sprinkle the seed evenly. Then top with a light dusting of loose soil and gently tamp the soil. Ideal spacing is next to impossible with tiny lettuce, radish, and carrot seeds. Don’t worry about spacing at this point, because you can thin out the plants later and eat the little seedlings.
HOW TO DETERMINE IF THE SOIL IS WORKABLE
Certain phrases in gardening, such as “well-drained, moist soil” and “as soon as the soil is workable,” can leave you scratching your head. Many cool-season fruits and vegetables are labeled with this ambiguous planting direction. “Workable” does not mean “as soon as it has thawed enough to dig into.” After a harsh NE winter, soil needs a chance to dry out and warm up. Because our winter weather can vary greatly, we cannot set a calendar date for this phenomenon, as we do for approximating the last spring frost. Some gardeners have come up with an easy, portable test for determining whether the soil is warm and dry enough to plant. They say if you can sit on the soil comfortably, it is ready to be planted. If, however, sitting on damp soil is not how you’d like to inaugurate your gardening year, you can do two tests while standing up.
Shovel test. If you can easily slice your shovel into the ground and it comes out fairly clean, the soil is ready to be worked. On the other hand, if it comes up clumped with mud, you’ll need to wait.
Crumble test. Grab a handful of soil and squeeze it into a ball. If it crumbles with a gentle touch of your finger, it is ready to plant. If breaking up the ball of soil requires more force, your soil is too wet for planting. If the soil will not form a ball at all, you can plant, but your garden badly needs water!
If you’ve decided to plant in rows, dig a furrow the desired length and evenly space the seeds in it, and then cover them with soil. For wide rows, plant closely spaced multiple rows or use a hoe to pull back the top few inches of soil, space out the seeds, and sprinkle the soil back on top.
Immediately after planting the seeds, you should do two things: add labels and water. Label your rows so you will know what you planted and, more important, where you planted. You don’t want to dig up a previously seeded area or accidently plant carrots on top of peas. Water is the magic elixir of the garden. It is necessary for the seeds to germinate and it keeps them growing. Use a gentle spray of water on your new beds so you don’t dislodge or wash away the seeds. Keep the beds damp, but not soaking wet, until the seeds sprout.
After the plants reach 1 or 2 inches tall, you can thin them to their ideal spacing. Be merciless now, because crowded plants will compete with each other and won’t grow or produce as well as they should. The young seedlings don’t have an extensive root system, but pulling them up can dislodge the plants you want to keep. To avoid this, use scissors to snip the excess plants at the soil line. Then use these tiny lettuce, beet, radish, and carrot thinnings in a salad.
Our spring weather is fickle. The sun may shine for a week or two, and then a surprise overnight frost (or worse) descends upon our unsuspecting spring gardens. We can’t leave our baby plants out there unprotected. We must take a few precautions, such as installing simple row covers and quick-and-easy hoop tunnels, to cover tender plants and extend the growing season.
By far the fastest and easiest way to protect your garden from an impending frost is to toss a row cover over your plants. You can create row covers, or floating row covers, out of just about anything, from a layer of newspapers to an old sheet. Or you can purchase garden fabric created for just this purpose; it offers a few advantages over other types of covers.
Garden fabric is sold in different weights, for different uses. The lightest weight, often called summer weight, is used to protect plants from insects. It can remain in place during the growing season and allows water and light to get through. For cold protection, the best option is a general-purpose garden fabric, which is a thicker weave that holds in heat, or a heavy-duty garden fabric, for maximum cold protection. The fabric traps the sun’s heat, warming the soil and keeping the temperature around the plants about 2 to 5 degrees warmer than the outside air. These covers can prevent frost damage in temperatures down to about 28°F. You can double the fabric for even better protection. They are light enough to avoid crushing or snapping off tender plants, or you can lay them over wire hoops or some other structure to keep them off the plants. If you leave the hoops in place, you can add the row covers for protection at the end of the season, too.
A hoop house is a portable greenhouse you can make by arching PVC pipe into a frame and covering it in plastic or ventilated garden film. Hoop houses can provide more reliable cold protection than row covers, plus they are easy to make. You can build your own hoop house to shelter overwintering vegetables such as late-season kale and carrots.
The temperature inside the hoop house will warm up weeks before the exposed beds in your garden, and this allows you to get a head start on spring planting. As your plants grow under the hoop house, keep tabs on the temperature. During warm spells, you may need to open the ends of the hoop house to ventilate and cool the plants inside. After snow covers the hoop house, it may become impractical to continue harvesting, but the plants will be safely tucked away and waiting for you at the next thaw. When you do harvest, wait until the sun has had a chance to warm the plants inside so they are not partially frozen when you bring them indoors. And when you’ve finished harvesting, be very sure to secure both ends of the hoop house.
You can take down the hoop house at the end of winter or remove the covering and leave the hoops in place and handy for the next fall. Gardeners in zones 3 to 5 can leave the cover on, with ventilation, and grow enviable hot-season prizes such as eggplants and peppers a bit earlier than usual. Or cover the hoops with shade cloth to grow cool-season crops throughout the summer.
SKILL SET 
BUILDING A HOOP HOUSE
By arching PVC pipe across a prepared bed and covering it with heavy plastic or garden film, you can create a 6-by-3-foot hoop house to cover your plants and protect them throughout the winter months.
A hoop house is a simple structure that can extend your growing season for months.
Three, 6-foot lengths of ¾-inch diameter PVC pipe
Six to eight, 12- to 18-inch rebar stakes
Plastic sheeting, horticultural fleece, or ventilated garden film
Twelve garden clips or clamps
One, 6-foot length of 1-by-2-inch board (optional)
Rubber mallet
Scissors
Three galvanized 13/4-inch nails or screws, plus a hammer or screwdriver
Several bricks, large stones, or boards
Another set of hands
BUT FIRST:
Before you start a hoop house project, consider a few factors:
Prepare the planting bed before erecting the hoop house.
Even easier, build the hoop house to cover an existing raised bed.
Make sure you can reach into the center of the bed to harvest crops with the hoop house in place.
To gain the most benefit from your hoop house, situate it where it will receive the most sunshine.
Do not put your hoop house at the bottom of a slope, where cold air can collect and spring runoff could flood it.
STEPS:
1 Pound a rebar stake halfway into the ground at each corner of the bed and on either side of the center of the bed.
2 Slip one end of a PVC pipe over the exposed portion of rebar, and very, very carefully bend the PVC to the rebar stake on the opposite side of the bed. Repeat with the remaining pipes.
3 For additional support, you can lay the 6-foot length of 1-by-2-inch board over the center top of the curved PVC and nail or screw it to the pipes.
4 Drape the plastic, greenhouse poly, or garden film evenly over the frame. Secure it to the frame with the garden clips or clamps to prevent it taking flight in the wind.
5 Cut away any excess material along the sides, leaving enough overhang to weigh down and secure with bricks, stones, or a board. You could also shovel soil over the ends, but soil is not as convenient to remove.
6 Close the end opening of the hoop house by twisting the covering tightly and securing it in place by tying it to additional rebar stakes or by weighing it down with several heavy bricks.
7 Double-check that everything seems secure. Winter winds can overturn lightweight hoop houses, and it is no fun trying to get them back in place with frozen hands!