To Pot or Not To Pot

Published: Friday, September 09, 2011, 3:18 AM

By Bill Finch

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Q: You’ve said now is the time to start sowing seeds for a fall, winter and spring vegetable garden along the Gulf Coast, and that some plants should be sown in pots before planting in the garden. If these vegetables are hardy, and they’re going to go in the garden anyway, why can’t I just plant seeds directly in the garden?

A: Some seeds, you can do just that. Fava beans, turnips, peas, carrots, parsnips, for example — should be planted directly in the garden when the temperatures start cooling in late September and early October.

But there are some slow-to-develop cool season vegetables — collards, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, to name a few — that are much more productive if you start them in pots while the weather is still warm.

The cool seasons is an abundant season for gardening along the Gulf Coast — and arguably the easiest season for gardening, with minimal needs for watering and few pests or diseases. But as the days shorten leading up to December 25, light becomes an increasingly precious commodity. And as you should know, it’s light that makes plants grow and produce leaves, flowers and fruits. Plants that haven’t built up enough strength earlier in the year may just stop growing.

To be successful during the cool seasons, you often need to “borrow” a few weeks of long late summer days (along with the bugs and heat) so that your plant is ready to produce before the short days of winter slow down growth. And the best way to dodge the bugs and the heat is to plant seeds inside in pots in August and September. That way the plants will be nice and big and ready to start producing when the weather cools down.

Consider broccoli. With just a little bit of protection, the plants will survive almost all winters here. And if they’re large enough and beginning to form heads in late October or early November, they’ll produce spears almost continuously throughout the winter and well into April.

But if the broccoli is not large enough to start forming heads in November, it may wait until the days start lengthening and the temperatures warm in mid-February. Instead of 5 or 6 months of broccoli harvest, you may get only a month and a half.

How do you know which plants need that early start in pots? There’s no hard and fast rule, but here’s my experience: Plants that produce a stalk (like collards) or edible flowers (like broccoli and cauliflower) or that “head up” (like cabbage) often do best when planted early in pots.

Plants that produce leaves directly from the ground — including turnips, mustard, broccoli raab — tend to produce harvestable leaves more quickly, and it often makes much more sense to just sow these directly in the ground. But if you’re going to treat leafy plants such as lettuce, chard or Japanese mustards as ornamentals or a “cut and come again” vegetable, it can also be useful to plant those in pots as well.

See if the following planting schedule helps you sort through your decision-making about potting winter vegetables:

Start these seeds inside between Aug. 20 and Sept. 20: Broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, collards, cabbage, kale, kohlrabi, lettuce, large-leaf ornamental mustard and chard, parsley.

Sow these seeds directly in the garden starting in September and continuing every couple of weeks through October: Arugula, broccoli raab (rapini), carrots, cilantro, chard, kale, kohlrabi, mache, mustards, parsnips, parlsey, radishes, turnips.

Sow these seeds or plant bulbs directly in the garden from October through early December: Garlic, multiplier or clumping onions, single onion sets, fava beans.

Sow these seeds in the garden from December through January: Winter peas (including snow peas, “English” podded green peas and sugar snaps).

If you’d like more information about fall vegetable gardening along the Gulf Coast, there are still a few slots left in Bill Finch’s Fall Vegetable Gardening class, which runs from 9 until 11 this Saturday at the Mobile Botanical Gardens. For more information and reservations, call Dee Cariglino at 251-342-0555.