The Best Plants to Grow in Your Kitchen Garden in Early Spring

You Don't Have to Wait Until Your Last Frost Date to Plant These 

You may be counting down the days till warm weather arrives, but you don't have to wait to start your spring garden. There are so many herbs and vegetables that will thrive in your garden before the temperatures start to rise.

I've started gardening outdoors at least 60 days before my last frost date in every place I've ever lived, including Chicago. My neighbors have always looked at me like I'm crazy when I'm outside planting in January and February. And that's because they've been told you can't grow anything if there's still a chance of frost, but nothing could be further from the truth.

There are so many wonderful and delicious plants that love the cool weather of early spring, even if the nights drop down below freezing. These plants actually don't like growing when it's warm, which is why you may have struggled to grow them in the past. It's really all about getting the timing right. The trick is to get these plants into the garden early enough that they can grow to maturity before it warms up too much.

So here are the plants that love growing in your garden in early spring.

The Best Plants to Grow in Early Spring

• arugula
• beets
• bunching onions
• carrots
• chives
• cilantro
• dill
• kale
• lettuce
• mizuna
• Napa cabbage
• parsley
• radishes
• snow peas
• spinach
• sugar snap peas
• Swiss chard

Let's look more at how to start each of these plants growing in your garden.

The Best Herbs to Grow in Early Spring

Herbs are some of the easiest plants to grow, and this list includes three herbs that come up from seeds you can plant directly in the garden as soon as your soil is workable (meaning you can dig into the top 4 to 6 inches). Once these herbs are up and growing, you can harvest from them again and again.

The first three herbs to grow in early spring are cilantro, dill, and parsley. You can grow all of these from seeds directly sown in the garden. The best time to plant them is about 60 days before your last frost. Cilantro and dill will be ready to harvest in just about 45 days. My cilantro plants have been loving the cool weather here in Nashville so much that I won't be having to buy cilantro from the grocery store for at least the next few months.

Parsley is a little slower to grow, but it will last in your garden much longer. You can always buy a well-grown parsley plant from your local nursery if you'd like to harvest leaves sooner.

The last herb is chives, which some people might not consider an herb (but I definitely do). If you're going to plant chives in the garden, I highly recommend you head to the nursery and buy some small plants. Chives are a little bit harder to grow from seed, and you'll get a great return on your investment. Chives are perennial, so you'll have those plants for the next century—only slightly exaggerating!

The Best Leafy Greens to Grow in Early Spring

Early spring is prime salad garden season. Some of my favorite greens to grow when it's nice and cool outside are arugula, kale, lettuce, mizuna, Napa cabbage, spinach, and Swiss chard.

Swiss chard, Napa cabbage, and kale can be started by seed indoors as early as 100 days before your last frost date. That way, they can be moved outdoors about 60 days before your last frost. If you're ready to plant them right now, you can always buy well-grown plant starts from the nursery. You can direct sow them, but having small plants to move into the garden will give you a bit more success this cool season.

Kale and Swiss chard are biennials, so you can continue enjoying leaves throughout the spring and summer and even into fall. Biennials want to stay in your garden for two years before they go to seed.

Arugula, spinach, lettuce, and mizuna are smaller leafy greens that can be planted by seed right in the garden when you're about 60 days out from your last frost. These are all delicious greens that love to grow in cool weather, and you can buy seeds for varieties you might not find at the store, like Black Seeded Simpson lettuce or really any type of mizuna. Mizuna is a beautiful plant with feathery leaves, and it adds a peppery kick to your salad bowl.

If you had to pick just one of these, I'd recommend arugula. I don't think there's an easier green to grow in the garden.

I mean, can you envision the most delicious salads in just about 30 days or what?

The Best Root Crops to Grow in Early Spring

Spring is the perfect time to grow root crops like radishes, beets, and carrots in your garden because they love it when the temperatures are cool. Bunching onions are technically bulbs you can grow for their delicious greens, but I'm gonna throw them in here, as well.

All four of these can be planted by seed directly in the garden as soon as your soil is workable. Make sure to give them ample space to grow to maturity. Here's a handy little trick for spacing your seeds:

• Plant bunching onions just 1 finger apart (about 0.5 inches).
• Plant French breakfast radishes (the easiest type to grow) 2 fingers apart (about 1 inch).
• Plant carrots 3 fingers apart (about 1.5 inches).
• Plant beets 4 fingers apart (about 2 inches).

You'll have your first root crop harvest in just a couple weeks. Radishes can grow in 30 to 45 days, depending on the variety. Carrots take about 65 to 75 days. Beets need about 90 days, and then onions need as long as 100 days, though you can harvest those greens much sooner.

By the time you're midway through spring, you're going to have a root harvest that just doesn't stop!

The Best Fruiting Plants to Grow in Early Spring

The last type of plant you can grow in your cool season garden is peas. Sugar snap peas and snow peas, two of my favorites, will need a trellis if you're growing the pole variety. They can grow about 6 feet tall in your garden if you give them something to climb onto. I love to grow peas on the arch trellis in my kitchen garden. They do so well and look beautiful.

Peas need about 90 days to produce pods for you, so you'll want to get those pea seeds in the ground at least 60 days before your final frost, maybe even a little earlier if your soil is workable.

That's a Packed Spring Vegetable Garden!

So there you have it. Look at how packed your garden can be in the cool season. You can have herbs and leafy greens and root crops and even peas!

Just picture yourself cutting some leaves from your parsley and lettuce plants. Then pulling up some roots and roasting them. Chop up some of those green onions. Stir fry those sugar snap peas and toss them in a big bowl with everything else. And would you look at that? You've created the most delicious spring meal ever, and it all came from your garden.

And it happened because you did not wait until your last frost to start planting.

Thanks for being part of Gardenary, and thank you for changing the world with your kitchen garden.