Gardeners thinking about a crop of cabbage, broccoli and cauliflower later this season should start them indoors now.
Master Gardener Ed Buyarski said they should be grown under lights or near a bright window.
“Make sure you keep rotating them so they get even light,” Buyarski advised during this week’s edition of Gardentalk.
Spinach, a hardier green, may be planted outside now and will sprout as soon as the soil warms up to 45 to 50 degrees.
“Problem is if you wait too late, it will just sprout and will immediately go to bolting,” said Buyarski, who notes that Juneau’s day length already exceeds 15 hours.
Listen to the April 26th segment about seed potatoes:
Buyarski also has some tips for picking out seed potatoes which are now being sold by Juneau retailers.
“Buy some nice, clean, firm, round potatoes that don’t show any obvious signs of scab or funk in places,” Buyarski said.
If you buy large seed potatoes, don’t cut them up ahead of time. Wait until the day of planting until you cut them up into single eyes.
Plant the seed potatoes with 1- or 2-inch long sprouts in warmer soil.
“We don’t want to bury them too deep and we don’t want to be planting them in this cold, cold, cold soil because they will just sit there and, perhaps, just rot there in the soil,” Buyarski said.
For potatoes which have already developed longer sprouts, Buyarski recommends planting the seed so the sprout lays horizontally and can be covered by a shallow layer of soil.
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