Discover Wellness ~ Plant Cold-Hardy Vegetables

There are several ways that planting cold-hardy vegetables help people to discover wellness. First, putting these plants in the garden in early spring lifts our spirits and gets our bodies moving. We are finally out and about in the natural world, and this alone is beneficial. Secondly, in our gardens we can grow food that hasn’t been sprayed with problematic pesticides. When you grow food organically, you know that there aren’t problematic insecticides or fungicides on the produce. And finally, when people have access to freshly picked vegetables they discover that the flavor of this produce is above and beyond any that can be purchased in the store. And when food tastes good, you’re likely to eat more of it…a good thing when it comes to vegetables! 

Here are the vegetables that you can plant in early April on Cape Cod:

Grow these from plants: kale, cabbage, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, collards, lettuce and arugula.  Plant peas with seeds.  (We have a few pea plants in 3-packs now, but if you want several plants you’ll be better off with seeds. 

The lettuce in six packs is fresh and ready to be planted outdoors.

Broccoli, cabbage, Brussels sprouts and more grow well in cool, spring temperatures.

Parsley and collard plants are fine for early spring planting, and behind them are strawberries and onions that are also ready to go into the garden.

When you take such early vegetable plants home, put them out in the daytime and bring them in at night for five or six days. This is a process called “hardening off” and it makes sure the plants get introduced to the real world gradually. After doing this for about a week, you can plant these vegetables out into your garden beds or containers.

Note that it is far to early in this region to put warm-weather vegetables outside. Things like tomatoes, eggplant, peppers, beans and squash get planted at the end of May.