Anyone started planting garden in south central mn?

[Bambito]

Just wondering if anyone has planted anything in there gardens yet in the twin cities area? If so what have you planted? We are doing tomatoes and peppers in containers this year. In the actual garden we are doing peas, green Beans, and cucumbers. I'm thinking middle of May is when I will plant everything. Could I plant any sooner since the weather has been nice? Thanks

[Juneau4]

Peas can be planted, the other wait until mid May and later.

[delcecchi]

Tomatoes especially need warm soil or they will just sit there. Better off not planting them too early.

[Dotch]

The snap peas and radishes planted here on March 31st are making extremely slow progress. Radish leaves are yellow. Peas are about an inch tall. Too much cold, cloudy weather. To put things in perspective, the low was 21 Thursday a.m. at the Waseca airport. At the SROC in Waseca, soil temps averaged in the low 40's on the 21st at the 2" and 4" depth, upper 30's on the 22nd and back to the mid-40's on the 23rd. Measurable precip has been recorded on 11 of 25 days at the farm. Looks like the forecast for the next week should offer some warmth and sunshine.

[roony]

I live but a few miles SW of said experiment station. I planted snap peas, kale and lettuce on March 21. Peas are up about 3 inches and looking good. Lettuce and kale are emerged but staying quite small. Planted onion sets, beets, more lettuce and radishes on April 1. Onions and radishes look great. Beets and lettuce have emerged but aren't doing much.

I am well satisfied with everything so far. I am looking for things to really bust loose next week.

BTW we had our first meal of asparagus last week.

[Rip_Some_Lip]

I have my taters, carrots and spinach planted. I hope to get onions in this week. The spinach has been up for about a week. My asparagus is not up yet. I just weeded the grass out a few days ago.

[DrJill]

Our garden is off to a great start.

We even threw in some green beans on April 15th and they're up too !

Tomatos in 2 weeks.

[paceman]

I tilled my garden this past sunday, probaby plant most things in the next week, still had frost yesterday morning. But the forcast is looking great.

[Early Riser]

So far in my New Hope garden the potatoes, onions, garlic, peas, carrots, beets, parsnips, kale, chard, spinach, lettuce and radishes are all up and look good so far. I planted all of these seeds in the ground the first weekend of April. We got down to 28 one morning a week or so ago and it didn't harm what was already up. My beets, parsnips, carrots and potatoes just started poking up within the last 4 days or so.

I usually plant my garlic in the fall, but thought I would try some plantings in early spring this year to see how that goes.

I dedicated one 4X8' bed to asparagus, but that is not up yet. It was planted almost two weeks ago and I have no idea how long that is supposed to take when starting from roots.

Yesterday I planted seeds of beans, zucchini, turnips, rutabagas, cauliflower, broccoli, basil, marigolds, zinnia, cilantro and a mixture of peppers. I will wait and see what tomato volunteers come up and then fill in my beds with some tomato plants from the hardware store.

This year I am trying something new by broadcasting a mixture of basil, cilantro, zinnias, marigolds and wildflower seeds in a dedicated bed, as well as in between the rows of my potatoes to shade the tubers, use up some of space, bring in pollinating insects, and to add more diversity and color to the garden.

My planting beds are amended every year with ample compost from the previous year, which includes all my grass clippings, all our leaves, a few of our neighbor's yard leaves, all kitchen scraps, and dozens of five gallon pails of coffee grounds. All fish waste from spring and summer is first soaked in buckets of water for a few days, then used as a tea to water my plants. The remains are then buried in my walking rows, and finally covered with lots of leaves or cardboard. The number of earthworms in my garden is very high

Down here in the metro, I start as soon as I can get in, and just keep planting until everything is growing well. I like to do second plantings of kale, beans, and zucchini into early July, and then some more lettuce and spinach in early August.