What do I plant now?
June 26, 2024 12:45 PM Subscribe
I'm in Toronto, Canada, and planted some sugar snap peas this year for the first time. The plants have grown pretty well and we've gotten to enjoy eating the peas. I didn't realize that the plants will stop producing really soon. What should I put in the planter next so that I could enjoy some other fruit or vegetable?
Best answer: Green Beans. If in a planter make sure they are marked bush beans, you won't want a vining type in a container. Green beans as a type not necessarily the color.
posted by BoscosMom at 4:23 PM on June 26 [1 favorite]
posted by BoscosMom at 4:23 PM on June 26 [1 favorite]
Best answer: Agreed on beans and chard as two easy things to grow that are productive and amenable to getting started in mid-summer. I'm in a climate a zone one warmer than yours.
Green/String Beans: I generally sow a first crop of beans as soon as the soil warms up enough, and a second crop around July 1 to go until frost. You'll get more yield on your beans and peas if you buy a packet of inoculant and follow the instructions on it to add it to the soil when planting. It helps them fix nitrogen. Note with bush beans that they'll bear a few weeks and then stop, and pole beans will keep bearing longer if you keep picking them but have to have a trellis. A trellis doesn't have to be complicated but it does need to be tall. We stick a couple metal garden stakes in the ground and thread them through a panel of chicken wire. My favorite variety is Fortex.
Chard: Chard is productive in a small space, doesn't mind getting started in mid-summer, and will bear until frost. I've had good luck with Charbell in the past, which is red, and this year am growing Fordhook Giant, which is white and milder.
This is getting into more effort and is less optimal, but you can sow peas again, too - look at the days to maturity on your pea packet, and add about 10 days to the days to maturity number for the effect of shortening days in the fall. Then subtract that total number of days from your average first frost date to know when you should plant them. Mine will go in about July 7th here. Peas in mid-summer are less suited to it than beans or chard will be - they like to germinate in cooler temperatures and will appreciate it if you can give them some temperature-lowering shade cloth. That's a way to keep a spring planting of peas bearing longer too - shading them once the weather gets warmer.
posted by jocelmeow at 9:39 AM on June 27 [1 favorite]
Green/String Beans: I generally sow a first crop of beans as soon as the soil warms up enough, and a second crop around July 1 to go until frost. You'll get more yield on your beans and peas if you buy a packet of inoculant and follow the instructions on it to add it to the soil when planting. It helps them fix nitrogen. Note with bush beans that they'll bear a few weeks and then stop, and pole beans will keep bearing longer if you keep picking them but have to have a trellis. A trellis doesn't have to be complicated but it does need to be tall. We stick a couple metal garden stakes in the ground and thread them through a panel of chicken wire. My favorite variety is Fortex.
Chard: Chard is productive in a small space, doesn't mind getting started in mid-summer, and will bear until frost. I've had good luck with Charbell in the past, which is red, and this year am growing Fordhook Giant, which is white and milder.
This is getting into more effort and is less optimal, but you can sow peas again, too - look at the days to maturity on your pea packet, and add about 10 days to the days to maturity number for the effect of shortening days in the fall. Then subtract that total number of days from your average first frost date to know when you should plant them. Mine will go in about July 7th here. Peas in mid-summer are less suited to it than beans or chard will be - they like to germinate in cooler temperatures and will appreciate it if you can give them some temperature-lowering shade cloth. That's a way to keep a spring planting of peas bearing longer too - shading them once the weather gets warmer.
posted by jocelmeow at 9:39 AM on June 27 [1 favorite]
Best answer: You can plant more peas, if you want more. Bush beans are a good idea. You can also do pickling or snacking cucumbers if you have something for them to climb up; they do well in containers.
You could also plant cherry tomato plants and take advantage of end of season sales at nurseries. They won't grow as super big in containers as they would in the ground but you should still get a good little crop and you can get varieties that produce over a couple of months.
posted by urbanlenny at 9:42 AM on June 27
You could also plant cherry tomato plants and take advantage of end of season sales at nurseries. They won't grow as super big in containers as they would in the ground but you should still get a good little crop and you can get varieties that produce over a couple of months.
posted by urbanlenny at 9:42 AM on June 27
Best answer: I’d grow chard to take advantage of the nitrogen left by the peas. Don’t pull up the roots, cut the vines off instead.
posted by clew at 10:55 AM on June 27
posted by clew at 10:55 AM on June 27
Response by poster: I'm leaning towards beans and radishes. I already made a trellis for the snap peas so the beans could use that right? It's a sunny west facing location so I feel like it might be too hot and sunny for lettuce or chard.
I have cherry tomatoes in another planter already as well as some in pots so don't need to do more of those (the planters are 8'x1' so they hold quite a few plants).
Can I start some snap peas indoors in August to plant them once the summer plants are done?
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 11:59 AM on June 27
I have cherry tomatoes in another planter already as well as some in pots so don't need to do more of those (the planters are 8'x1' so they hold quite a few plants).
Can I start some snap peas indoors in August to plant them once the summer plants are done?
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 11:59 AM on June 27
Best answer: Yes, beans can use your existing trellis.
Peas really don't like to be transplanted, so no on that.
Radishes are a cool-season crop, like lettuce. Where I am, I sow radishes in March and April, then put in a fall sowing in late August and into September. If you plant them in the middle of the summer, they're likely to bolt (make seed rather than roots) and if they do make roots, for those roots to be woody and overly hot or bitter.
Chard isn't fussy about heat like lettuce. We grow it every year in full sun almost all day, south-facing. It's trucking along happily right now though the mustard greens are trying to put up flower stalks and the kale is sulking.
posted by jocelmeow at 1:00 PM on June 27
Peas really don't like to be transplanted, so no on that.
Radishes are a cool-season crop, like lettuce. Where I am, I sow radishes in March and April, then put in a fall sowing in late August and into September. If you plant them in the middle of the summer, they're likely to bolt (make seed rather than roots) and if they do make roots, for those roots to be woody and overly hot or bitter.
Chard isn't fussy about heat like lettuce. We grow it every year in full sun almost all day, south-facing. It's trucking along happily right now though the mustard greens are trying to put up flower stalks and the kale is sulking.
posted by jocelmeow at 1:00 PM on June 27
Response by poster: OK, so maybe beans and chard then.
I actually started my current peas indoors and then planted them after the last frost date had passed. I didn't transplant them per se, they were in newspaper pots and I dug holes for them in the planter so they just had more soil added around them, but they seemed to do fine. Maybe some peas are better with it than others?
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 1:20 PM on June 27
I actually started my current peas indoors and then planted them after the last frost date had passed. I didn't transplant them per se, they were in newspaper pots and I dug holes for them in the planter so they just had more soil added around them, but they seemed to do fine. Maybe some peas are better with it than others?
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 1:20 PM on June 27
Best answer: It sounds like you did a good job of avoiding what they dislike, which is having their roots disturbed. That's the reason not to do it - they can go into transplant shock particularly easily. So planting the whole newspaper pot was a smart move.
Johnny's Seeds has a bunch of planting calculators, including a Fall-Harvest Planting Calculator that might give you some ideas of what you could follow the beans with.
posted by jocelmeow at 1:31 PM on June 27
Johnny's Seeds has a bunch of planting calculators, including a Fall-Harvest Planting Calculator that might give you some ideas of what you could follow the beans with.
posted by jocelmeow at 1:31 PM on June 27
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posted by shock muppet at 1:42 PM on June 26