Gardening All Year Long Using Nature’s Sunlight

Gardening is something you can do year-round. Prepare in January and February so that when March comes you are able to start planting. These ideas from the University of Illinois you’ll be on your method to having a great harvest this fall.

Gardening in January– February

• Order seeds and garden supplies.
• Prepare lights and tools for beginning seeds.
• Clean and keep garden tools

Gardening in March

• Frost seed white dutch clover in backyard and garden courses where weeds are under control.
• Complete pruning fruit trees. Fertilize when buds start to swell.
• 2nd week: Start indoors: onions, broccoli, cabbage, kale, collards, kohlrabi, parsley, lettuce, celery root.
• Plant outdoors as quickly as soil is practical and reaches 40 degrees; mustard, chard, onion sets, kohlrabi, radish, arugula, peas, fennel, parsley, parsnips, leeks, raddichio, beets, kale, rhubarb, asparagus, shallots, spinach.
• 3rd week: start peppers and eggplant inside your home.
• Plant chard, carrot, and beet seeds in garden.

Gardening in April

• Plant fruit trees.
• Mulch garden courses
• Kip down cover crops or leading dress beds with compost.
• If weather condition is dry, begin watering.
• First week: start tomatoes inside
• Second week: transplant onions, leeks, plant potatoes, Jerusalem artichokes.
• Third week: transplant brassicas, lettuce, chickory, plant strawberries.

Gardening in May

• Very first week: plant warm season crops like beans, corn, summer season squash, spinach.
• Second week: (watch weather forecast) transplant tomatoes, eggplant, peppers, hill potatoes.
• 3rd week: mulch potatoes, plant winter season squash, transplant sweet potatoes. Plant corn last.

Gardening in June

• Week: prune tomatoes, mulch tomatoes, peppers, eggplant. Establish trellis or cages and start training plants to support. Be sure your support can hold the weight of mature plants.
• 2nd week: start fall plantings. Plant carrots now through early July for fall harvest.
• Fourth week. Plant fall turnips, radish, choi.

Gardening in July

• Second week: plant last cucumber, summertime squash, storage beets, transplant broccoli, cabbage, collards, cauliflower.
• 3rd week: plant spinach, arugula, rutabaga
• 4th week: last planting of carrots, beets, chard, beans, basil.
• Pull onions.

Gardening in August

• Till beds for garlic and overwintered spinach.
• 3rd week: Last planting of lettuce, arugula, choi, turnip, radish. Plant cover crops on unused areas of garden.
• Fourth week: Plant cold hardy crops now through late September for season extension under low tunnels.

Gardening in September

• Third week: plant overwintered spinach, harvest sweet potatoes before soil temperature levels drop listed below 60 degrees.

Gardening in October

• 2nd week: harvest winter squash, harvest fall roots before temperature levels drop listed below mid-twenties. Japanese turnips are most sensitive to cold damage. You can hill them to postpone harvest.
• Fourth week: plant garlic, dig last potatoes.

Gardening in November

• First week: plant garlic, dig last potatoes. Mulch carrots, parsnips, burdock, and so on that will be left in the ground over winter season.
• Third week: mulch garlic after ground freezes.