Plant No Crop Before Its Time

“We will sell no wine before its time”

— slogan, Paul Masson Wines

The Mountain Winery, which makes and sells Paul Masson wines trumpeted the above slogan to advertise the fermenting and careful aging of its wines. They boasted that none of their wines would be put on the market until they had been properly and sufficiently aged to just the right degree. To sell a wine too soon would mean putting out a product that had a flavor profile that did not measure up what customers had come to expect of Paul Masson wines.

In a similar fashion, you must be a Paul Masson gardener. You must be careful to plant no vegetable crop before its time. If you put something in the ground too soon or too late, you won’t have to worry about an inferior vegetable flavor profile, because you’ll have no vegetable with a flavor to profile.

Vegetable seeds have a minimum, optimum, and maximum temperature at which they will germinate. Onion seeds for example will germinate in a soil temperature as low as 32^oF (0^oC) or as high as 95^oF (35^oC). However, just because they germinate, doesn’t mean that they will grow well. At those minimum or maximum soil temperatures, the onion plants will be weak, stressed, and much more susceptible to diseases. It’s much better to wait until the soil temperature reaches 80^oF (26.7^oC), which is the optimum temperature for onion seeds to germinate. Pumpkins, on the other hand, need a soil temperature minimum of 65^oF (18.3^oC) before they will even barely start to germinate. At a maximum of 105^oF (0^oC), you’ll be lucky if they germinate at all. However, a soil temperature of 95^oF (35^oC) is ideal for pumpkin seed germination, and you’re more likely to grow plants that are strong, healthy, disease-free, and productive.

Seed packets will also give you information about when is the best time to plant the contents within. A tomato seed packet for example might say to start the seeds indoors six weeks before the average last annual frost date. So to figure out when to plant those seeds, consult a source such as the Old Farmer’s Almanac or your local Cooperative Extension office to find out when the average annual last frost date occurs. Then count back six weeks before this date, and that will give you an approximation as to when you can start your tomato seeds. This will ensure that you get your seeds and plants in the ground when conditions are most favorable for vigorous growth and productivity.

So as much as we want to start gardening once we start to see a bit of warm weather, trying to rush things will almost always result in failure. Conversely, waiting until we have too much warm weather will also adversely affect your garden’s success. Timing plays a big role in success or failure, whether you’re selling wine or growing vegetables.