Growing Guides · 7 min read
The Sowing Calendar, Plainly
When to put what in the ground around Marrow Creek, with the two dates we actually trust.
Marrow Creek sits in a valley the frost finds twice a year: late May and late September, usually within three days of the date the old ledger gives. We sow against those dates, not against the calendar's confidence.
The two dates we trust
Last frost: May 24, give or take a long weekend. First frost: September 28, give or take a hard surprise. Everything else follows.
- Mid-March. Onion seed, early lettuce under the cold frame, and the first flats in the kitchen window. Nothing brave.
- After May 24. Beans, corn, squash, and the amaranth go straight in the ground. Transplants go out hardened off, on a gray day if the sky offers one.
- Early July. Fall kale and the second lettuce. The kale wants sowing in the heat so it matures into the cool, which feels wrong and works.
- September. Garlic in the first week of the month, mulched by the second. Also the last salad sowings; the cold frame extends them into December.
Reading a seed packet honestly
"Days to maturity" counts from transplant for most of what we grow, not from sowing. That single misreading is the most common reason a Marrow Creek tomato arrives green in October. Direct-sown crops count from emergence, and they lie less.
“The calendar is a suggestion. The soil temperature is the fact.” — bench note, spring 1998
Soil at 60°F wakes the beans; at 55°F it merely disappoints them. A kitchen thermometer pushed two inches down, read at ten in the morning, has settled more sowing arguments here than any almanac.