Starting Summer Crops in April
by Anza Muenchow
Though the soil is not warm enough in April to start planting warm season crop seeds outside, the ambitious gardener may be interested in starting these delicious summer veggies in pots indoors.
For our cool Northwest springs, we can start these seeds indoors in April and plant them out carefully in mid-May to assure a full and bounteous harvest. Use a well drained seed starting mix in a 4-inch pot for starting your squash seeds, sowing two to a pot. Be sure to label the pots because the seedlings of summer and winter squashes may look very similar. The soil temperature should be at least 60 degrees for good germination.
When two true leaves have developed on your seedlings (about 5-6 weeks old), you can begin to harden them off in preparation for planting in May. Set the pots with the seedlings outside in partial sun during the day and bring them in at night for a few days. This will slow their growth and prepare them for moving into your garden beds. When ready to transplant, water the pots and then tap the seedlings carefully out of their pot, holding the soil in place as much as possible. Then plant them deeply, covering the stem up to the cotyledons, and water well. A weed-free mulch can be tucked around the seedlings. At this point, I use floating row cover over them for extra protection for a week or two, depending on the weather.
As for sowing corn indoors, I use a seed blocker or some 4-cell trays in flats. Sow numerous trays, planting one seed to a cell. Corn also wants at least 60 degrees to germinate. These seedlings are much tougher and can handle being squeezed into a small cell.
Corn must be planted outdoors in large groupings because the ears won’t form unless they have lots of wind-blown pollen falling on the silks. A minimum of six rows with the prepared beds eight to ten feet long is preferred. You can start 80-100 plants in the trays and set them out in late May. In a rich soil with plenty of water, they will reach knee high by the 4th of July.
Choose a variety that will grow in cool summers, like Seneca Horizon, Bantam or Bodacious. These will have short stalks and only produce one or two ears per plant. There is nothing like fresh picked corn on a summer day. We’ll eat it raw right in the garden.
Tomatoes, tomatillos, ground cherries, eggplant and peppers are all in the Solanacea family and they need an especially long growing season in a Northwest garden to produce the delicious fruits we desire. Typically they are started in greenhouses in March and are transplanted outside after Mother’s Day in May. Buy your transplants at local plant sales or farmers markets that will carry the varieties that do well in our climate. Most heirloom varieties are meant for growing in the midwest or southern states, so choose short-season varieties and hope we have a dry autumn to get them all to ripen.
The most prolific are probably the cherry tomatoes, like Sungold. The plants will need to be seriously staked, caged or fenced up, and it might take a large area. We also enjoy Aunt Molly’s Ground Cherries, which grow as a low bush and drop their grape-sized fruits when they ripen. I easily harvest by lifting up the trailing vines and pick up the little sweet fruits still encased in their calyxes. The taste reminds me of a pineapple and is quite sweet. Kids like them because they “unwrap just like candy.”
Last year, the tomatillos were the best. They can continue to produce into the fall and grow into very large bushes. I had them on the top of a terraced bed, so they hung down but kept the fruits well off the ground. Keep an eye on them and pick before they crack. We made the best roasted tomatillo enchilada sauce from these.
Good luck with the 2024 growing season and happy eating.