Rainline GardenMonthly garden chores
What to do in a Northwest vegetable garden each month. For exact planting dates where you live, use the planner.
January
- Order seeds now while catalogs have full stock. Look for short-season and cool-summer varieties.
- Prune dormant fruit trees on dry days between rains.
- Check stored squash, potatoes and onions, and remove any that are softening.
- Sketch this year's beds and rotate crop families so the same family isn't in the same spot two years running.
February
- Start onions and leeks indoors.
- West of the Cascades, start broccoli, cabbage and lettuce indoors late in the month.
- Clean and sharpen tools, and wash old pots and seed trays.
- Stay off wet soil. If a squeezed handful drips or stays in a ball, it's too wet to dig.
March
- West-side valleys: sow peas, radishes, spinach and onions once the soil can be worked.
- Start tomatoes and peppers indoors, timed six to ten weeks before your warm-crop planting date.
- Spread compost on beds ahead of planting.
- Put out slug bait or traps. Northwest slugs wake up hungry in spring.
April
- Set out broccoli, cabbage, kale and lettuce starts in west-side and lower eastern gardens.
- Central and high eastern gardens: sow peas, radishes, lettuce and spinach late in the month.
- Keep row cover handy; late frosts are common even after your median date.
- Begin hardening off seedlings with a few hours outdoors each day.
May
- Plant tomatoes, peppers, squash and beans once the soil is warm. A soil thermometer takes the guesswork out.
- Thin carrots and beets sown in spring.
- Mulch around plants after the soil warms to hold moisture.
- High desert: transplant warm crops late in the month with frost protection ready.
June
- Water deeply and less often; aim for about an inch a week, more in the eastern valleys.
- Stake or cage tomatoes before they sprawl.
- Harvest peas, lettuce and spinach before summer heat makes them bolt.
- Sow a second round of beans and summer squash for late-summer harvests.
July
- Start fall broccoli, cabbage and kale, from seed indoors or in a shaded nursery bed.
- Sow fall carrots and beets in west-side and coastal gardens.
- Watch for powdery mildew on squash and cucumbers; improve airflow and water at the base.
- Harvest garlic when the lower third of the leaves turn brown.
August
- Set out fall and winter crop starts: kale, broccoli, cabbage.
- Sow spinach, lettuce and radishes for fall harvest.
- Pick summer squash and beans every couple of days to keep plants producing.
- Plan for overwintering crops west of the Cascades, like kale, leeks and overwintering cauliflower.
September
- Pinch off new tomato flowers so the plant ripens fruit already on the vine.
- Plant a cover crop, such as crimson clover or cereal rye, in emptied beds.
- High desert and inland gardens: watch the forecast and cover tender crops on cold nights.
- Save seed from open-pollinated beans and tomatoes.
October
- Plant garlic cloves, pointed end up, about 2 inches deep.
- Harvest winter squash and pumpkins before a hard frost, then cure them somewhere warm for a week or two.
- Rake leaves onto beds or into a compost pile as winter mulch.
- Bring in green tomatoes before frost; many will ripen indoors.
November
- Mulch garlic and overwintering crops with straw or leaves.
- Clean up diseased plant debris; don't compost blighted tomato vines.
- Drain and store hoses in eastern and high-elevation gardens before hard freezes.
- Test soil pH this fall. Most Northwest soils run acidic and benefit from lime applied over winter.
December
- Harvest kale, leeks and other hardy crops as needed.
- Cover winter greens with row cover on nights below the low 20s.
- Review this year's notes: what thrived, what failed, and which varieties to repeat.
- Rest. The seed catalogs are coming.