Grow the Right Plants for Your Season

Now that you understand your kitchen garden seasons, it’s time to understand the plants. Think of plants as future guests in your kitchen garden. Each guest will have particular needs and wants—this much space to spread out, this much time to stay, and this temperature range to produce.

Some of these guests are laid back, while others are more like Goldilocks and will need everything to be just so. Learning which plants like to grow in which season means you have a much better idea which guests can come to stay each month and how long they'll intend to linger. Planning out your vegetable garden each season is then simply a matter of picking small, medium, and large plants that like to grow in the same season so you can keep your garden filled with guests.

Consider this step as the booking calendar for your garden.

Pick Small, Medium, & Large Plants for Each Season

Each season has its own set of plants that will be large and lengthy in growth and others that will be small and short. I’ve found that, generally speaking, a plant’s size predicts its length of time until harvest.

A large plant needs about 1 square foot of space and at least 75 days before harvest. Broccoli is a great example of a large plant. It spreads wide and needs about 80 days before it's ready for harvest. Vining plants like cucumbers and tomatoes are also considered large, even though you can train most of their growth up a sturdy trellis.

Small plants, in comparison, take up a fraction of the space in the garden and need just 25 to 45 days before harvest. Radishes are small and ready to harvest in about 40 days, some in under 20 days.

Let's look at some of the most common small, medium, and large plants to grow each season.

Small Cool Season Plants

Small and short plants include lettuces (red lettuce, spring mix, buttercrunch, and more), radishes, beets, carrots, and spinach. There's also herbs like chives, dill, fennel, cilantro, and parsley. Lastly, we have bulbs like onions, garlic, shallots, and leeks, all of which thrive during the cool season.

During the warmer parts of your cool season, you can begin adding other culinary herbs like oregano, sage, thyme, rosemary, lavender, and mint. I like to plant these herbs around the border of the garden and send their growth over the sides of my raised beds.

Medium Cool Season Plants

Kale can grow into a small tree, but you can ensure it doesn't take up too much space in your garden by harvesting the lower, outer leaves frequently. The cool season is also the time to grow kale's medium-size cousins like bok choy, mustard greens, and kohlrabi. Swiss chard is also a medium plant, as are heading lettuces like romaine and iceberg. Cool season flowers like chamomile and calendula are also medium.

Large Cool Season Plants

Large and lengthy plants that thrive in cool weather and tolerate frost include broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cauliflower, cabbage, sugar snap peas, snow peas, and fava beans. Note: not all beans like the cool season, but all peas do.

You can see now how full your raised beds can be even before your last frost date, right? So many delicious plants here you don't want to miss!

Small Warm Season Plants

Now's the time to add basil and bush beans to the garden. Onions, chives, and garlic will continue to grow in the warm season as long as they were established in the cold or cool seasons. Arugula is a great leafy green to grow in the warm season.

Medium Warm Season Plants

Medium-size plants in this season include peppers. You'll want to space pepper plants at least 12 inches apart, but you can grow smaller plants around their bases. Flowers include marigolds and zinnias. Kale and Swiss chard planted in the cool season should continue to grow. Other greens that do well in warm weather include mustard greens and mizuna.

Large Warm Season Plants

This is the quintessential time to grow vining plants like cucumbers, bush beans, and tomatoes, plus plants that spread out like squash, eggplant, and zucchini. You can also grow extra-large plants like gourds and melons.

These warm season crops are what we consider a “quintessential kitchen garden harvest”—beans, cucumbers, squash, tomatoes, basil.

Small Hot Season Plants

You can continue to plant basil and perennial herbs like rosemary, sage, thyme, and oregano. If you need a leafy green, arugula is a good bet, especially if you re-plant frequently. For beans, keep it to to crowder peas, black-eyed peas, and lima beans—basically those beans that are from Central America or South Asia. These plants are super productive and will protect your soil through the hottest part of the year.

Medium Hot Season Plants

Hot peppers are more tolerant of heat than other peppers and will produce fruit even in the 90s. We've also got flowers like zinnias to fill your garden with color no matter how hot it is.

Large Hot Season Plants

Large and lengthy plants that can take the heat are eggplants, okra, and tomatillos. You could also grow sweet potatoes, but I recommend giving them their own raised bed. There are several cucumber cousins that are heat-tolerant plants, including luffa gourds, Armenian cucumbers, and suyo long cucumbers. Watermelons and honeydew melons are also accustomed to hot temps.

Keep Your Garden Full Each Season

Once you know which plants you'll grow in each season, it's a simple matter to plant your garden up: start by putting some herbs and flowers along the border of your garden, then plant your large plants. Fit medium-size plants around your large plants, and finally, fill in any open spots with seeds for small plants.

If you want more help breaking down plants by size and season, check out my book Kitchen Garden Revival, and download our Gardenary Planting Guidebook. These planting plans I put together with easy companion plants for each growing season are another great resource.

Gardenary is the place to come to start your garden or take your gardening skills to the next level, so make sure to explore our blog, subscribe to our YouTube channel, and keep an eye out for our next gardening workshop.