As I was taking a break in the garden yesterday I was looking around and checking out the garden's transition from spring to summer stuff. Then I got to wondering about some kind of definition for my garden about when spring "officially" ends and summer begins. Spring and summer are so much more variable than dates on the calendar. I don't think a date like May 1st would be appropriate because of that.

Hmmm, warmer temperatures becoming reliably steady? Maybe by what's being harvested and what's being sown? There does come that time when the last of the brassicas are gone and the last of the beans have been picked. The warm weather/summery stuff like corn, okra and watermelon get planted. Then there are the exceptions, the "bridge" veggies like cukes, squash, peppers, carrots, scallions and tomatoes that are planted earlier and go into summer.

Pickles and I are debating it. She thinks the picking of the peas marks the end of spring. That's mid May. I was thinking about the end of bean picking. Then I checked the first and last pick dates for the peas and beans. Peas are usually picked the first two weeks or the second and third weeks of May. Bean picking is somewhere in the first three weeks of June. Both pea and bean picking lasts two weeks. After looking at picking dates I think Pickles might have the better answer

What about your gardens? Do you have any kind of time frame between the spring and summer garden or is it all a blur? Inquiring minds want to know!

Cool season vegetables and vegetable gardening here runs from around November 1st +/- into April or early May. That would be all the brassicas/mustards, onion/garlic family, peas, lettuce, carrots, spinach, celery, fava beans, etc. Warm season crops run from mid to late February into June and July, the possibly again September into December. Hot weather crops start in April and run into September/October.
Warm season crops are tomatoes, potatoes, beans, squash, corn.
Hot and warm/hot crops are melons, okra, southern peas, eggplant, peppers, peanut.


What I think of our Spring weather ends here in mid to late May. Fall weather creeps into the picture mid to late September, but it takes another month or more to get more established. Winter, our winter weather begins after mid December and lasts until mid to Late February.

Spring is late February until mid to late May,
Summer is late May until end of September
Fall is October into mid to late December
Winter is late December into mid late February.

Winter is the easiest season to garden here. Very little insect pressure. Water needs are minimal, temperatures for heavy work are comfortable, and the winter garden is typically very productive. The wild card is out of character polar air incursions that might go ten or twenty years between them or be stacked together for three years in a row.

My sugar snap and snow peas pretty much died, the last week or so. I left a few to dry up, and save seeds from, but about a week ago, I ate the last few sugar snaps that were edible - the lower ones dried up. Last week one "cooler" day, I uncovered the greens row, and pulled the bolted ones, and put them in the compost, and the weeds went in the lawn trash. The senposai and misome have not bolted yet, which is not unusual - they often last well into August here. Komatsuna is just barely starting to bolt, but still harvestable. But most of the brassicas are long gone. I have 2 leaf lettuce varieties that haven't bolted. A new one (to me) - Tropicana - and a saved variety, that has lasted longer than any other I have grown.

So far, the heat has slowed down the flowering of some of the tomatoes, but not the eggplants. The Ichiban is always one of the first to stop blossoming, but also the earliest, and super productive, so I put up with that. And it comes back, once it gets a little cooler again. And although I can't stand heat, the good thing about it is, the peppers love it! I have to keep reminding myself of that.