The essence of gardening is patience and waiting, but even if you do everything right a good harvest is not guaranteed. Spring is one of the best times of the year for planting, and below is a list of the best seeds your elderly parents can plant in spring.
Brassicas
These are leafy greens which are a very popular spring crop. They include collards, kale, and more. Some experts don’t recommend cauliflower or broccoli for amateurs since it can be challenging to make their sprouts or heads form properly. The good thing about all brassicas though is that all the leaves are completely edible, and a few leaves may be harvested simultaneously from the plant every three days while they continue growing. This gives the option of picking these plants before full maturity, which means your parents can add baby kale to their salad to maintain a well-balanced diet.
Lettuce
Rapidly-growing lettuce is perfect for spring since its leafy vegetables do well during winter. Its varieties include butterhead, iceberg, and romaine. Butterhead is distinctive since it has leaves that are supple, and soft. They come in green, oak, and red types, with tender leaves that make them excellent for salad.
Spring Radishes
Radishes come in three types, which are summer, winter, and spring. Each season determines the number of days until maturity and the winter type is the biggest variant and also has the longest growth times. The spring radishes are considered the babies and are referred to as salad radishes. They can be consumed raw and when done so will provide a peppery flavor, but your parents also have the option of sautéing, braising, or roasting them.
Basil
Basil is one of the most fragrant and easy herbs to grow from seed. Your parents can also perform cuttings and then regrow basil through the stems, which allows them to divide one plant into numerous ones without needing to sow additional seeds. When planted besides flower, the basil will attract pollinators which make it ideal as the companion crop for plants such as squash, fruit trees, and cucumber.
Legumes
Legumes include snow peas, fava beans, and snap peas, which are a joy to plant since the big seeds are simple to handle. The seeds will germinate within two days while the plants will mature in sixty to seventy days. Maturation occurs once the pods become prepped for harvesting. However, it is also possible to harvest the younger leaves and shoots from the bean and pea plants before the appearance of the pods, and they are edible and great tasting.
The thing to remember about peas and fava beans is that they need to be planted in spring to take advantage of the cooler weather they thrive in. In fact, your parents can begin seeding before the final frost date, when the soil has a temperature of at least forty-five degrees. Some experts don’t recommend it, since too much moisture from spring rain or melting snow can cause the seeds to become soggy and then rot.
