Gardening: Best Spring Vegetables to Start Planting
Cary, NC – If you’re a gardener, you know certain vegetables do best at certain times of the year. With Spring halfway done, here is some advice on what vegetables will do well this time of year.
Wet Climate
Spring brings a lot of rain and a general wet atmosphere, which is a very hospitable environment for certain leafy vegetables. One of the most obvious choices is lettuce, which does very well this time of year and as the weather warms up, it will taste even better as it matures. Your lettuce will require some shelter against pests however.
Other vegetables that do well for similar reasons are spinach and cucumber. Spinach does better when the weather is cooler so the early Spring is the best time to start planting those. For cucumbers, make sure you know if you are getting vining cucumbers or bush cucumbers. If they are vining, you will need to put some sort of fencing near them so they can climb up it. Regardless of which kind you get, they grow quickly but require constant watering, which is why our rainy climate is helpful.
Vegetables Every Spring
Spring is also a good time of year to start planting perennial vegetables because they will continue to provide more food each year. And if you want these vegetables growing on a yearly cycle, you want them to start growing this time of year when the moisture and temperature are perfect.
Asparagus is the best example of this kind of vegetable. They grow fast and in tight clumps and you can wait to harvest them for months. If you start planting asparagus now, you will have a crop of them for years to come.
Another perennial vegetable you may not have considered is rhubarb. This sweet stalk grows quickly and easily in this weather and will continue to pop up for years to come. The only thing gardeners have to look out for is they grow in dense groups and will need to be divided up so they can develop strong roots in the soil.
Story by staff reports. Photos by Nick Saltmarsh and Stephen Bowler. The Gardening column is sponsored by Garden Supply Company on Old Apex Road in Cary.
