Discussions

We’re starting a garden for the first time with no experience. I’m wondering when we should start to plant our seeds? We plan to grow corn, peas, potatoes, cucumbers, beans, beats, zucchini, etc. Are we too late to plant seeds? Or would planting them this weekend be too early?

Usually anything after the 23rd of May SHOULD be good to go. I don’t know if I would plant tomatoes yet. So place your seeds in the garden and good luck. Just watch out for any frost!!!!!

Any seeds should be fine. I would wait til the first week of June to put out any seedlings.

I'll echo what the others have said. You can put seeds in now. Started plants should wait another week or two.  
 
For the future, if you read the seed packages it will tell you the best time to plant. i.e. Before frost, after last frost, as soon as the ground can be worked, etc, start indoors too.  
 
For example, peas could have gone in weeks ago, and because they thrive in cooler weather it's better to put them in sooner rather than later (and because their season is relatively short, you can plan to plant a later summer crop in their space of something else, like late beets, spinach, or even bush beans). Some seeds, like zucchini, you can even start a plant indoors to give you staggered maturity (plant some directly as well) (although be careful... how much zucchini does one household need? lol). I planted spinach back in April and it's almost ready to harvest (we've been nibbling at it), and then I'll put tomatoes in their place as it gets hot there in high summer.  
 
Have fun gardening. It's highly addictive!

My grandmother always said wait to plant until after the last full moon in May.  
Good luck, have fun, and don’t forget to read the package instructions about how far apart to plant your seeds!

My potatoes went in on Easter Sunday and I hilled them yesterday as they were 3 inches tall. The rest of the seed went in last week and tomatoes today.  
A few of the potatoes got a touch of frost but that has also happened other years and they are fine.  
In my option plant your garden when you think the weather will hold.

Axana, my grandma said to wait until the first full moon after the May long weekend. This year, the full moon fell ON the long weekend, and the next one isn't until June 16 or 17. I was talking to someone this week who looked into 'gardening by the moon', and they said that May 31 is the day to plant after. So you have lots of time.  
I know many people who put things in early....I am not one of those, LOL. I have waited until June some years and have had great crops.

We plant our garden the weekend after the May long. We plant everything at once. We plant the following seeds- potatoes, onionsx2, corn, carrots, beats, lettuce x3, cucumbers, pumpkins, sunflowers, beans. Then for plants we put in spaghetti squash, zucchini, cucumbers (just to get some at different stages), peppers, celery, pumpkins (different variety from seeds), and tomatoes.  
 
For the plants we put coffee cans around them until they are strong enough. This gives them some protection from the wind. Also if we have to cover at night (frost) the blankets won’t damage the plants.  
 
We like to buy seed tape for things like carrots that have tiny seeds. Plus easier to plant if it’s windy. We leave lots of room between rows that we can till early on to keep weeds low. Some things will need thinning out like beats.

in a newly dug area I would recommend planting the whole area to potatoes.  
 
potatoes will make it a lot easier to weed.  
 
potatoes also fix a lot of nutrients into the new soil.  
 
it will make your garden next year a lot better

Good advice so far. Congrats for taking the effort to grow a garden. It can be hard work but there is nothing better than fresh garden vegetables. Our daughter lets our grandchildren play and dig in the garden area in the off season. Yesterday she planted. In the evening our three year old grandson excitedly showed his mom the potatoes he”found “ in the garden. Not sure about the correct response but Grandma and Grandpa enjoyed a good laugh.

Right now the forecast has the low tonight touching minus 2. Don’t know about rest of garden but if it gets much colder than that and holds for very long it gets to the point where you’d get concerned for fruit trees that are in bloom.

I'm just looking at my apple trees with their blooms just starting to blush open. Hopefully it won't get that cold overnight!!

Frost advisory went out a little while ago:  
https://weather.gc.ca/warnings/report_e.html?mb7  
 
Apples and cherries have been through worse in past years, so fingers crossed!