Zen,

I think radishes are somewhat cold tolerant, so you might be able to plant them sometime in May. They do mature enough to pull in about a month, so you should be able to replace them with a fall planting of something like cucumbers or English peas. To conserve space, I grow everything on our fence that I can, using it as a trellis. Such as pole beans, cucumbers, and climbing sugar snap peas. I like Super Sugar Snaps. Unfortunately, so does a local groundhog.

We live in a wooded area, so we have a lot of wildlife, including deer, squirrels, chipmunks, ground squirrels, wild turkeys, groundhogs, and the occasional raccoon. All of them visit our garden from time to time and "sample" the merchandise. I gave up on growing corn. The squirrels, chipmunks, and ground squirrels love it, and leave none for us.

You can cope with our shorter growing season by starting a lot of things inside under fluorescent lights. I do that. If you have a Home Depot handy, they have 4-foot shoplights for about $8. They work very well and don't cost a lot. Home Depot also sells a box of 10 4-foot cool white T8 fluorescent bulbs for about $20, which makes the fluorescent tubes cost about $2 each.

I use their inexpensive timer switches to turn my lights on and off automatically. I usually set the timers for about 16 hours of daylight and 8 hours of dark. Over the years I have accumulated enough shoplights to do a respectable amount of indoor gardening. You can use fluorescent lights to get an early start on nearly any vegetable. In this area of Maine, near Augusta, our "safe" no-frost date is Memorial Day, so I usually set anything that is tender, like pole beans, out in the first week of June.

I plant my veggies in big pots made from the bottom part of 2-liter soft drink bottles, which give them enough root volume to become quite large before setting them out. My potted pole beans are starting to vine when I set them out. As a hobby, I am an amateur zinnia breeder, and I have a few cuttings from my "breeder" zinnias blooming inside now, under fluorescent lights. It's nice to be able to do some gardening year 'round. I hope to build a small greenhouse kit in the future.

Welcome to the forum, Happy Holidays, and happy gardening!

MM

Thanks MM for the great advice!

I was thinking abut setting up a cloche, or rows of them with 4 mil plastic from HD...10x 100 4 mil, with some pvc tubing for the arches, and that would let me set lots of m plants, like tomatoes, and such, out in the garden a couple weeks earlier. Te onions and radishes, as well as the beets, broc and cauli are all cold season plants, so I can plant them early with minimal cloche Anyone done much on that count?

As for greenhouse...I've been toying with the idea of building one also, but I want to build one, not buy a kit. I can insulate the north side and roof the north side also, which should help keep it warmer in the late fall and early spring I should think.

Maineman, I think I will start potting things like you are...but using milk jugs instead. I can put several plants in each jug. While they may undergo some shock on transplanting, I hope that it wouldn't be much more than transplanting smaller plants.

So, here's the thought....

I'm going to get 1/2 the garden ready for planting by late April, if possible, and build a few cloches. 2 weeks later, after the cloches have helped warm the soil up more quickly, I'll plant more onions, beets, carrots, garlic, brocolli, cauliflower in these early prepped beds. Keeping things cloched at night to ensure no frosting.

I can plant additional cycles of carrots, beets, possibly even reuse the cloches for tomatoes and peppers, etc... I think having 3 or 4 15-20 foot long cloches will help extend my growing season by 2 - 4 weeks total... Does this make sense...or sound reasonable?

okay when I say I'm a newbie, I mean it. lol. what is a cloche? and Maineman you are very wise, have seen a few of your posts and have learned a bit. this is my first year doing a veggie garden and as excited as I am, I'm a bit lost as where to start... any suggestions? I am planning on planting a lot of the same things listed on this post. I live in the Bath area so thinking we are in about the same zone? and I have no idea which zone that is. lol, told ya I'm a newbie. lol
if any of you could give me some tips it would be helpful and welcomed. AND omg when is it going to warm up and stop snowing?

norma, I have been speed learning....making a few mistakes, and having significant success so far this year.

Winter sowing has so far been a great success. I have healthy broccoli plants in milk jugs in front of myy front porch on the bare ground that I stuck there almost 2 months ago. Have chamomile seedlings and a dozen+ other seedlings sown in milk jugs growing also.

I'v had much more success with my indoor starting as well. I was told by several people that peppers can be difficult to start and very slow. So far for me they have been quite easy and fast!

While you are at it, read up on lasagna gardening and/or sheet mulching. I am planning on doing a lot of that this year along with companion planting.