There are many cold tolerant crops that can be planted in late winter and early spring. If you have a cold frame, hoop house, or low tunnel you can plant as soon as your nightly lows are in the 20°F range. If you do not have these structures cold tolerant crops can be direct seeded into the garden under row covers as soon as the ground has thawed and can be worked. Our high desert farm sits at about 6500 feet elevation and for perspective we’re classified as zone 6a. We direct seed our early spring crops in our unheated hoop house under row covers in mid to late February. It’s hard to believe that crops can thrive when it’s still really cold outside but they do so why not? Spring greens are so amazing after eating winter storage crops for several months. I can barely wait!
Here I am in late February in our hoop house shaping and amending beds with our homemade compost. To shape these beds I began by broad-forking, then raking them into these mounds. I lightly watered the beds the day before so they would be easier and less dusty to work. There’s definitely a fine line between the right amount of water and too much. If you over water you’ll have to wait for the soil to dry out before the beds can be worked so don’t do that. Here’s a list of what I’m currently planting. If you want to keep keep this list in your back pocket click on the PDF button below and print it out!
All of the crops in the hoop house list can be planted now in cold frames, or high and low tunnels. If you don’t have these structures you can plant these cold tolerant crops directly in the garden under row covers as soon as the ground thaws and can be worked. These crops are very resilient to cold weather and can thrive even when temperatures dip below freezing at night. By getting an early start on these you will have fresh greens to enjoy in spring when you’re super hungry for some fresh green energy. When it’s time to plant summer crops these spring green beds will be flipped and planted with summer crops.
We like to start the crops listed in the indoor list either in a sunny window or under grow lights. We start onions by seed in February and transplant them out to the garden in April. Peppers are slow to get started so we start them in March but they don’t get transplanted out to the garden until June 1, which is our average last frost date. Everything listed from kale down we start indoors in March and then transplant out to the garden in May under row covers. These crops are somewhat frost tolerant but not as tolerant as the crops in the other list. Eggplants are a bit slow to get started as well actually and I’ll probably start them about halfway through March. I try to hold off as long as possible planting tomatoes because they grow so fast and I don’t want to have to keep potting them up. They can’t go out to the unheated hoop house until around the last week of May so I start them in April.
Starting Onions by Seed
onion seedlings emerging under grow lights
We start onion seeds under grow lights in February and transplant the seedlings out to the garden in April. Onions prefer cold and do better if you get them out when it’s still cold and even frosty at night. They can even get snowed on and be happy. We start the seeds in started tray bottoms (the kind with drainage holes) by filling them about half full with potting soil. We broadcast about a handful of seed even over the soil, then lightly tamp them in and sprinkle a tiny bit of soil over them. Onions prefer cold so don’t use a heat mat. The seeds will emerge in about a week. I will sprinkle some compost on them to feed them a few times between now and April when they get planted out.
