Continous Planting

themonitor999 8/20/2010, 11:47 pm

I'm looking at the "Planting Shedule for Continous Harvest Crops" in the New Mel Book.

I've a little proficiency in Excel, so I'd thought to recreate this table within.

This is confusing to me, the difference between the 'Weeks after Spring Frost' and 'Weeks Before Fall Frost' are 26 weeks. Is this to suggest we follow the same pattern as what is grouped for 'Weeks after Spring Frost' ????

Wyldflower 8/21/2010, 12:21 am

Hi themonitor999 and welcome!

Frost dates aren't cut and dry tied to the calendar start of spring or fall, but depend on where you live. For example, I'm in Colorado, and I have frost dates of October 8 through May 14 (which gives me about 150 days, or 5 months growing season). In Louisiana, where you are, you'll have a far longer growing season.

You'll want to check your frost dates, and plug them into your spreadsheet. Then you can count back or forward from those dates to get your planting dates.
You can find a chart of Frost Dates HERE

Another useful thing to know is what your Gardening Zone

Good luck! I'm looking forward to hearing from you and, when you can, seeing pictures of your progress!

themonitor999 8/21/2010, 12:41 am

[quote="Wyldflower"]Hi themonitor999 and welcome!

Frost dates aren't cut and dry tied to the calendar start of spring or fall

That part I understand, but looking at the 'Continious Harvest Crops" table on 255-258, the 8 wks after ended 4/9/10 and the 8 wks before start 10/26/19.

What happens in the 25 weeks between -- all fallow?

Wyldflower 8/21/2010, 1:09 am

Ah.. I think I see what you mean.... depending on what you plant, some of these crops won't do well in heat (such as lettuce or spinach) so there is a long gap between spring and fall plantings. You could try following the spring plantings of these with a late spring/summer planting of other crops that can take some heat.

I guess I just didn't quite get what the issue was. Where I am, nine weeks before first frost is just about the same date as nine weeks after last frost, so I don't have that long stretch that you have. I'm sure someone else from your zone can help with suggestions of things to plant in between.

themonitor999 8/21/2010, 5:45 pm

I'm using the 'Old Farmer's Almanac' to get the frost dates and also see I have a 300 day growing season.

I'll need to read into it more closely to determine what's going on.

elliephant 8/22/2010, 5:58 pm

I think I understand what you are grappling with. I used the links above to find first/last frost dates for my area and counted and found out that right now my area is 17 weeks before first frost (we have about a 6 week period with a chance of a freeze).

I'm still new at this, but what I did was find fall planting dates put out by the agricultural extension office of a neighboring county (closest I could find) and am going to try to go by those this year and see how it goes. I find the first/last frost date thing confusing since it's almost always assuming a very different climate with a very different growing dynamic from an area with only a short "winter."

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