Some vegetables are best started indoors due to a short growing season. I live in the northeast and there is no way I could directly sow Tomatoes in my garden and expect to get any harvest. The season would be just too short.
However, there are many plants that I can sow directly into the garden and get a harvest at a reasonable amount of time. If you want a quicker harvest, then sow indoors and move outdoors.
Here is a list of vegetables that can be sowed directly in the outdoor garden in the NorthEast:
- Arugula (A good hardy plant, the young leaves taste like peanuts, the mature leaves taste like pepper)
- Beans (I usually sow one week after memorial day)
- Beets
- Carrots
- Collards (I joke saying that I could grow collards in the winter on concrete in New England)
- Corn (I usually sow mid May depending on weather)
- Cucumber
- Endive
- Kale (A good fall and winter plant)
- Kohlrabi
- Mustard Greens ( another good frost hardy plant)
- Parsnips
- Peas (I usually get two harvest during the season, after one is done I can replant and get another harvest)
- Potatoes
- Radishes (what to do with all of those radishes!)
- Spinach ( whenever I get some free space, I sow in some spinach)
- Summer Squash
- Winter Squash
- Turnips ( another plant that I never know what to do with all of them)
Go get your hands dirty in the Garden!
Save the Earth, plant a graden and eat locally!