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A Succession Planting Calendar for St. Lawrence County

By Ken Kogut, Master Gardener at St. Lawrence County Cornell Cooperative Extension

Are you a gardener who plants everything at the end of May and thinks “That’s it for planting this year”? If you do, I’m guessing you miss having nice salad greens, spinach and kale after your initial crops have become bitter and gone to flower. Succession planting is a garden practice that stretches your harvest season and maximizes your use of garden space. It’s not too late to start!

Succession planting begins with the knowledge that many common garden vegetables tolerate light frosts and can be planted in cool soils. Peas, carrots, lettuce, spinach, beets, and radishes are great candidates to start in your garden as early as April. Then, as the term “succession” implies, you can continue to plant multiple crops of those vegetables throughout the growing season, following one after another. Succession planting is normally done on a two to three week interval. Some cold-sensitive vegetables such as bush beans can be added to your succession planting schedule now that the threat of frost has passed (typically early June in the North Country). Add them to your schedule and keep fresh produce on your table throughout the summer.

Rather than having just one huge crop of lettuce, spinach, beans, etc. in early summer, succession planting will ensure that you enjoy multiple crops from the same plot of land throughout the summer and into the fall. Read more A Succession Planting Calendar for St. Lawrence County

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Seed to Supper Gardening Course Comes to a Close

On Saturday, graduates of St. Lawrence County’s first Seed to Supper gardening course gathered at the Learning Farm to receive their garden kits and to watch Master Gardener Ken Kogut demonstrate how to build a raised bed with a hoop cover.

Seed to Supper is a 6-week comprehensive beginning course focused on low-budget strategies and partnership building for new gardeners. The curriculum was adapted by Cornell Garden-Based Learning from resources created by the Oregon Food Bank and Oregon State University Extension.

Throughout the spring, 15 participants met weekly on Zoom to learn from St. Lawrence County Master Gardeners about planning, planting and maintaining a food garden as well as using its bounty. Despite the limitations of teaching the course online this year, the instructors were able to convey a wealth of information and to break up the lessons with demonstrations on growing microgreens, effective watering, and comparing soil types. Early on in the course, Master Gardeners consulted with participants on their garden maps, prompting responses like this one from Wajira: “Thank you so much everyone for your time. I made changes to my garden map based on your valuable advice. I have already seeded okra seeds inside near the window. I am so happy to tell you some of them have germinated!” Read more Seed to Supper Gardening Course Comes to a Close

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How to Build a Raised Garden Bed with Optional Hoop Cover

Raised Beds are a wonderful way to garden, but there’s more to it than buying some wood to build a box and filling it with soil for your transplants and seeds; before you even begin the process of building a raised bed, here are some important considerations:

  • Orienting your raised bed: You will need a location that gets at least 6 to 8 hours of full sun. Placing it under trees guarantees failure since nearly all vegetables require ample sunshine. Additionally, never place your raised bed on the north side of a house or other building. The best location for a raised bed is on the south side of a house with the raised bed oriented east to west on its long axis.

Read more How to Build a Raised Garden Bed with Optional Hoop Cover