Gardening: Spinach, leaf lettuce and snap peas grow best in cool air and soil

The ups and downs of weather this winter leave gardeners wondering about their cool-season crops. These are the wonderful vegetables that prosper in the cool soil and weather of late winter and through spring. They are great to have and reasonably easy to grow.

I have always called this Act 1 of the vegetable gardening show because it gets the season going at a time when the days are getting longer and you yearn to get the garden going.

Consider such choice plants as spinach, leaf lettuce, mesclun and snap peas that are quite hardy and amenable to Piedmont weather in late winter. You see them already on seed racks in garden centers, and they are too tempting to pass up. Soon, other crops best planted from young transplants such as cabbage and broccoli will show up to add to the garden because they will get well-established and put out good growth in cool weather, standing up even if it gets snowy and cold.

If your garden was prepared and used last year – hooray – you are almost ready to go. A fresh turn of the soil with your garden fork or spade and removal of any stray winter weeds are tasks that require attention before you sow seeds.

This also allows you to get the soil the best it can be, either by buying it by the bag or working significant amounts of compost into the native soil, loosening and improving it. A garden bed, even a very small one, has the advantage of draining faster so that soil does not stay soggy in wet weather, to the detriment of seeds and seedlings. Compost encourages good drainage and keep the soil in a spongy state that holds moisture without being soggy.

A small garden bed, especially a raised one that is 4 inches or higher than the surrounding ground, is perfect for the gardener who wants to grow a few crops but not be too tied down to a lot of maintenance.

Root crops such as onions, beets, radishes and carrots demand cool soil. Onions planted from bulbs should go in the ground between now and mid-March. Carrot seeds also require early planting by late February or early March. Radishes and beets face a later deadline, about April 1.

The most important thing to remember about root crops is the careful attention that must be given to spacing and thinning so that roots have sufficient space to expand underground. Keep the seed envelopes handy so that you can check exactly as the seedlings emerge. They also require soil that has been well-loosened with compost.

You can get started with leafy greens from now until about mid-March. Consider a staggered planting of these fast-growing crops to keep the season going. Sowing seeds in short rows or small blocks about every 10 days will help stretch the harvest season and save you should a weather disaster hit.

As good as the leafy greens for the home gardener are, the popular Sugar Snap peas are their close relatives. These are outstanding cool-weather plants that bear delicious peas before summer. They require support of a fence or trellis. Check the mature height on the envelope.

This story was originally published February 10, 2017 at 11:30 AM with the headline "Gardening: Spinach, leaf lettuce and snap peas grow best in cool air and soil."