Pennsylvania Garden Tips

1. Begin with broccoli, peas, and lettuce! Now is the perfect time to plant transplants and start some cool season seeds. Stop at your local garden center and pick up a pack or two. Head lettuce and broccoli do well as transplants. Plant them, water them, and cover them overnight, if freezing temperatures are expected.  Peas and leaf lettuce, as well as the spicier greens like arugula and mustard, are best planted by seed. Directly sow them in the garden, following the depth indicated on the seed packet. These are all cool crops – they tolerate light frosts and temperatures as low as 28°F, short term.
2. To determine what kind of peas to grow, know the difference. Snap peas, also called sugar snap peas, have rounded pods, and the entire pod can be eaten. Snow peas have flat pods, are harvested before the peas inside mature, and the entire pod is edible. Garden peas have pods that aren't edible and are harvested when the peas inside are plump. These peas are shelled.
   Plant pea seeds 4 – 5 weeks before the last frost date. All peas are best grown on a trellis and require a minimum of 6 – 8 hours of sun per day. Trellises can be bamboo and twine, chicken wire, cattle panels, netting and posts, or a combination. Read the seed packet to learn how tall they get to determine the height of the trellis needed.
3. Is growing blueberries in your future? Start preparing now for next year. First, test your soil. Blueberries grow best in a pH of 4.5 – 5.5. A Penn State soil test will provide you with recommendations on what and how much to add to your soil to address any pH or nutrient needs.  Next, prepare the soil. Add the recommended sulfur to lower the pH as it takes a minimum of one year to correct soil pH. Mulch the blueberry bed with aged sawdust until next spring, when it’s time to plant the plants.
   And lastly, determine the cultivar. Blueberries do best with two cultivars for production. Many are available. Take this year to research what kinds of blueberries you would like to grow. To learn more, read the Penn State Extension article Blueberries in the Garden and the Kitchen
4. Although April 20 is now our area's average last frost date, we can still get cold temperatures and frosty nights. If you planted frost-sensitive plants a bit too early and a frost advisory is in the forecast, cover up the plants!  Use milk jugs with the bottom cut out, create a little hoop house with wire or PVC pipes covered with plastic (this will require a little planning), or lay a row cover - a light mesh fabric - over the top of the plants. And even easier, just throw an old sheet or blanket over the plants for the night and use stones to hold it down. Uncover after danger of frost has passed. This will protect those tender, sensitive plants up to 5°, depending on the type of cover.
5. When we enter the month of May, consider companion planting. Some plants support others through attracting beneficial insects, acting as a deterrent for pests, adding nutrients to the soil, or providing shade to sun-sensitive plants. Some such combinations are growing the annual flower alyssum (a good pollinator attracting plant) with melons, tomatoes with basil (fragrant plant that deters insects), beans (adds nitrogen to the soil) with corn (heavy user of nitrogen), and lettuce (cool season crop) with tall or trellised vining crops like beans or melons (crops that can shade the lettuce). This also becomes a space saver in a garden as the shorter season crops can be grown in between the longer season crops. Try growing carrots (long taproots) alongside onions (shallow bulbs).
6. Mother's Day is the traditional beginning of the gardening season. The average last frost date has passed for most of Pennsylvania; therefore, frost-sensitive plants and warm-loving seeds can be planted.
   Of the many vegetable plants and seeds, plant beans now. There are bush beans and pole beans. Be sure to research which kind you prefer. Bush beans do not require a trellis, unlike pole beans that are vining and grow up to 10 feet tall! If space is minimal, try growing up and plant pole cultivars.
   Consider relay planting. Sow some beans this week, next week sow another row and continue for three to four weeks. This allows production to last longer.
7. By late May, plant tomato plants, not seeds. There are indeterminate tomato plants and determinate tomato plants. Indeterminate will continue to grow taller (as much as 10 feet or more!) and produce fewer tomatoes at one time but continue to produce through fall. Whereas determinate plants will produce a large crop in a short period of time and stop growing after harvesting. If you like to make tomato sauce, juice, etc. and preserve it, consider determinate varieties. If you are growing for fresh eating, indeterminate may be your best choice. For more information, see Penn State Extension's article on Selecting Tomato Cultivars
8. Love a good melon? Plant some seeds at the end of May through the middle June and grow your own! Make a small mound of soil and plant 3 – 5 seeds in the mound. Water them well. Seeds will sprout within a week after planting. Melon plants are vines and cover quite a bit of space in the garden. If there is limited space, consider growing up! Build a trellis for the vines. This makes it a bit easier, too, when scouting for pests and diseases as well as harvesting. Melons can take 80 – 110 days from seed to harvest, depending on what kind of melon is planted. Keep them watered well throughout the season. It is a commitment, but a fresh melon that you grow from your garden is the best tasting ever!

Happy Gardening!

Mary Ann Ryan is a Consumer Horticulture Program Coordinator, Penn State Extension of Adams County. Our office is located at 670 Old Harrisburg Road, Suite 204, Gettysburg. Phone number is 717-334-6271.

 Master Gardener Hotline is open Wednesdays, from 10am to 2pm.  Please send an email (with pictures, if possible) to adamsmg@psu.edu with your gardening questions or stop by Penn State Extension, 670 Old Harrisburg Rd, Gettysburg.