When to Plant

If you've already been growing an irrigated year-round garden, this
book's suggested planting dates may surprise you. And as with
spacing, sowing dates must also be wisely adjusted to your location.
The planting dates in this chapter are what I follow in my own
garden. It is impractical to include specific dates for all the
microclimatic areas of the maritime Northwest and for every
vegetable species. Readers are asked to make adjustments by
understanding their weather relative to mine.
Gardeners to the north of me and at higher elevations should make
their spring sowings a week or two later than the dates I use. In
the Garden Valley of Roseburg and south along I-5, start spring
plantings a week or two earlier. Along the southern Oregon coast and
in northern California, start three or four weeks sooner than I do.
Fall comes earlier to the north of me and to higher-elevation
gardens; end-of-season growth rates there also slow more profoundly
than they do at Elkton. Summers are cooler along the coast; that has
the same effect of slowing late-summer growth. Items started after
midsummer should be given one or two extra growing weeks by coastal,
high-elevation, and northern gardeners. Gardeners to the south
should sow their late crops a week or two later than I do; along the
south Oregon coast and in northern California, two to four weeks
later than I do.