Year Round Gardening Chart

I have three and a half gardens, not including my Fruit trees/shrubs, raised beds of strawberries and compost beds. Last week I posted a garden layout of two of my main gardens: Layout of 2015 Spring, Summer & Fall Garden using polyculture, pest prevention, & companion planting. In the post I showed that One of the main gardens is South facing. And because it gets the most Sun, I intend to grow Greens and cold weather vegetables like Cabbage, Collards, Peas, and Broccoli in this Garden during the Spring months. Then in the Summer I will replace certain cold crops with Summer vegetables that need the most sun like Tomatoes and Peppers. The second main garden is much shadier and cooler because it is North facing. In the Summer, I could grow cold crops that hate the heat and too much sun at the second main garden. But I also intend to grow Corn, squash, and Beans (the Three Sisters) at the Second garden. Across from the second garden is the Third large patch which gets slightly more Sun. This space will be dedicated to Fruit trees, fruit bushes, and Vining fruit plants.

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The "half" garden is more like a triangle patch where two Forsythia bushes grew for over 20 years. Then in 2012 I cuts those out and grew Tomatoes that Summer. In Spring 2013, I grew Cabbage, Broccoli, Lettuce, and Collards. In 2014 I grew Sweet potatoes in the patch. And since then I have turned the patch into a compost heap. I expect many different things to grow here in the Spring and Summer of 2015.



 Below I have created a Year Round Gardening Chart based on the Seeds I currently have in my inventory. A couple days ago I posted Garden Calendar for ALL USDA ZONES 1-11 (When to grow different vegetables & Moon phases) which provided a short list of vegetables to grow by month. In the chart below is a more extensive list of Vegetables to grow by month. Please refer to Garden calendar post for your personal growing Zone/season/times.

Seen in the chart below, March through May will be dedicated to growing Greens outdoors and harvesting May through July. In May I will be transplanting Tomatoes, Peppers, Eggplant outdoors, as well as growing Corn, beans, cucumbers, and Squash. In late Summer I will start Cabbage, Brussels, etc for a Fall and Winter harvest.

Not seen in the chart below, January through April I will starting Fruits and vegetables indoors, which I have discussed here: Mini Greenhouse, What plants to start indoors, & growing sub tropicals in cold climate.

If you're interested, I purchased the seeds in a "seed vault" from Vegan seeds company on amazon. Some of other seeds like Acorn squash and spaghetti squash, were saved from store bought fruit. The luffa and Goji berry seeds were bought from the companies I mention in this post, as well as links to Vegan seed company: Seeds I bought for 2015 Garden year.

Spring (Mar-May)	Summer (May-Aug)	Fall/Winter (Aug-Dec)
Collards	Cowpeas	Collards
Celery	Kidney	Lettuce
Mustard greens	Limas	Radish
Lettuce	Pinto	Spinach
Radish	Cayenne	Kale
Spinach	Jalapeno	Swiss chard
Onion yellow	Pumpkin	Arugula
green Peas	Luffa	Broccoli
Arugula	Crookneck Squash	Brussels
Kale	Sunflowers	Carrots
Asparagus	Watermelon	Cabbage
Swiss Chard	Echinacea	Turnip
Endive	Cucumber	Beets
Broccoli	Eggplant black	Rutabaga
Wheat spring	Fenugreek
Turnip	Cantaloupe
Beets	Rutger tomato
Brussels	Cherry tomato
Cabbage	Roma tomato
carrot	Manalucie tomato
Rutabaga	Beefsteak tomato
Kohlrabi	Blue lake beans
Sage	Green pepper
Cilantro	Zucchini
Chives	Butternut squash
Chamomile	Corn yellow
Dill	Truckers fav corn
Rosemary	Okra
Mint	Cauliflower
Anise	Spaghetti squash
Basil	Acorn squash
Catnip	Banana pepper
Marjoram	Straightneck squash
Savory
Oregano Italian
Thyme
lavendar
watercress

Year round gardening is possible in warmer climates. Southern Florida has such mild Winters, FL gardeners are able to grow Tomatoes around this time!

For gardeners in cold climates--like myself--Greenhouses, cold frames, poly tunnels, or any covering apparatus is needed to trap heat and moisture for the plants during the Winter. Greens and root crops can withstand cool temperatures but once the temperatures drop to 0 degrees, your plants may die unless if they are covered with a cold frame (seen in the picture above).

Of course I recently bought a Mini Greenhouse which will allow me to start fruits and vegetables early. But the Greenhouse won't cover my crops in the outside gardens, so I will need to make Poly tunnels for starting Greens and root crops early in the Spring Garden. Cold frames will be implemented in the Fall and winter months when growing Greens and root crops.

Constructing Cold Frames, Poly tunnels, and other coverings will be a topic for a future post. If you're interested, I have an existing post on how to build a greenhouse for free or little money using little materials which will give you an idea of how to build other coverings (Plant protectors), here: Construct a Greenhouse using Free Materials.