It may be the very early days of spring right at this moment, but time flies. Before you know it, your garden will be ready for action. But one challenge of planing crops in early spring is the lingering chilly temperatures. Some days it might be brilliantly warm and awesome, but the next day might be cool and cloudy. Plus, early season frosts may threaten to loiter long after the snow has melted.
There’s no doubt that you’ll need to hold off planting cold-sensitive crops until the danger of frost has passed (hello, indoor tomato trays!), but many vegetables can handle the weather of early spring. On the seed packets of some of these varieties, you might have seen a phrase such as “plant as soon as the ground can be worked” or something similar, to indicate that these crops can be sown very early in the year.
Let’s take a closer look at that phrase, and explore some of the early-spring crops you can look forward to getting in the ground right away this year. This is gardening for the impatient!
When Is Soon?
So what does “as soon as the ground can be worked” really mean? Partly, it’s a temperature indication. In very cold climates, garden soil may actually freeze solid during much of the winter (sometimes down a few inches), so obviously folks in those regions must wait until the ground thaws before considering spring planting. (Though I did once successfully plant some late-autumn garlic well into December by literally breaking through a 1/2-inch surface layer of semi-frozen soil to reach the fluffy soil below.)
But there’s a lot more to the phrase than just the absence of frost. Early spring often means overly wet soil—the type that can be worked into a ball with your hands. This doesn’t count as ground that can be worked. Instead, your best bet for success will come once the soil has dried sufficiently to be fluffy and crumbly.
Those two factors—warm and dry soil—are the basics that combine to form soil that is ready for planting. But if you enjoy bringing a scientific attitude to your gardening (maybe you routinely monitor your garden’s soil pH), a simple soil thermometer can help you determine if the soil temperature is within the range that your particular seed varieties prefer.
“As soon as the ground can be worked” plant choices include the following.
Peas
Peas are wonderfully cold-hardy and can be planted from seeds as long as the soil temperature is above about 40 degrees F and below 70 degrees, basically any time after the ground has thawed. They thrive in cool temperatures and make an excellent early spring crop. Plant them as soon as you can!
If you’d like to experiment, try sowing pea seeds in the fall and allowing them overwinter in the soil. If you time this correctly, the seeds should lay dormant in the soil (it’s OK if they…