@Joseph_Lofthouse Can you please remind us of some of the seasonal signs you use to determine when to sow seeds? Anyone else, what seasonal phenomena do you use to decide when to do certain garden tasks?
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I don’t go by anything like that at least not anymore. Natural signs and signals are just too messed up now. Peaches and cherries bloom in the fall and get frozen. Trees forget to change color and shed their leaves in fall, so they get freeze dried while still green. Instead of April showers bringing May flowers, May flowers bloom in February and fry in the hot wind of March.
Our official last frost date is still May 15, but if it’s 70 degrees and dry in February I’ll probably be planting something. I don’t worry about having to start over because of planting too early cause I have plenty of seeds.
I just came in from building some trellis, they will be placed in the garden by end of the week. I may plant beans and certainly will plant peas in February. In the old days only peas went in before May 15 and then only by a couple of weeks.
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That sounds like a good strategy, to put out seeds at different times of the year and the ones that make it stay in the game. I planted some peas in the fall, and they are still hanging on despite the snow. I hope they’ll take off once things warm up a bit.
Have you already gotten February-planted beans to flower and make pods? Are these fava beans?
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I’ve never grown fava beans, just regular common beans and nope, never had any that I planted very early make it very long, just because it hits the 70s or 80s for a couple weeks doesn’t mean it’s not going to freeze again. There is a first time for everything though and if you have the seeds, why not go for it?
I planted some peas in late January last year and out of about a hundred that all looked great for a few weeks, four plants survived hard freezes and made seeds. I’ll definitely be planting some of those seeds in a couple of weeks and some more a couple weeks later. I have to get my peas moved up on the calendar to avoid hot dry as they are making pods.
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I started looking around for cold-resistant common beans. Seems that some work has been done to cross tepary beans with common beans to bring the cold- and drought-tolerance of teparies into the common bean genome. But it’s work done in the lab, and my quick search did not find any commercially available hybrids.
Have you tried chitting your bean seeds (presoaking and germinating indoors), then planting them out closer to your last frost date (but still early for typical bean planting)? I thought I read somewhere that germination requires more heat, but once sprouted, the plant can withstand cooler temps. This would be more work, but maybe you’ll eventually find a bean that can germinate at cooler temps?
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Yes, I think it was Carol Deppe who talked about how seeds need a warmer temperature to sprout and can handle colder temperatures once they have sprouted. And that is one of the issues when I have planted way too early.
Even though it may have been warm for a period the soil is still too cold, so most just don’t sprout but it’s the ones that do, that have my interest. But with those so far, all have been frost killed a week or three later.
I think I might take a different approach. For example, if I plant a hundred seeds in cold soil and three or four sprout, I could then cover them if frost or freeze is expected. I don’t know how much cold tolerance (as seedlings) I’d be selecting for doing that, but it might give me a supply of seeds selected for cold sprouting. Maybe I could use them to keep pushing the limit of seedling cold tolerance.
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I’ve already planted some fava beans outdoors, under milk jugs. So far they haven’t sprouted, which is a good sign that they aren’t ready to sprout yet. But since winter sowing is supposed to be a technique that can work, especially for cold hardy crops, I figure it’s a good idea to see how early I can get them to grow for me.
I sowed a bunch of Austrian winter peas the week before last, too. Most of them I just strewed on top of the wet mud, and didn’t even bother covering. Some of the ones I can see on top of the mud are starting to sprout! 
Most of the rest look fatter than before, like they’re thinking about germinating. Gosh, if I can plant those things in January and they’ll grow just fine, they’re going to be fantastic when I plant them in November.
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Last year my dogs blew their coats in June. This year, even though it’s also been a cool spring, it’s starting now.
The chives are up but nothing else, not even the nettles. It’s an odd year.
I’m also soaking and planting my favas.
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I have four climate signs that work lovely for me. in my Mediterranean climate.
1- A few days after melting of the winter snowcover. Time to plant cold hardy things like favas, grassy grains, spinach, lettuce, parsnip, poppies, bok choi, orach, onions. Most years that’s March 15th. This year, it will be closer to April 25th.
2- When the weather turns from cold/damp to hot/dry. That’s equivalent to what others call the average last frost date, but based on what the weather is actually doing, not on an arbitrary calendar date. That’s around the last week of May. Time to plant the frost sensitive crops like tomatoes, peppers, okra, common beans. This isn’t equivalent to planting during warm periods of false summer. It’s waiting until the climate has truly shifted from one mode to the other, an obvious market at my place.
3- A few days before the arrival of our fall monsoons. Again, it’s an obvious switch in the seasons, from hot/dry to cold/damp. Time to plant small winter grains, and fall greens. Things like rye, wheat, spinach, bok choi, turnip, radish, winter kales.
4- A few days before the arrival of winter snow cover. Time to plant things that overwinter well as seeds/tubers: poppies, wildflowers that require cold stratification, garlic, sunroot.
The flowering of apple trees is an important phenology marker for me, because it marks a good time to plant things that can take an occasional light frost, but not heavy frosts. These are things like carrots, beets, corn, my frost tolerant beans, tomatillos. Apples typically flower 3-4 weeks before my average last frost date. I plant direct seeded tomatoes two weeks after the apples flower.
Apricots flower so precociously that they are not a good marker for me, other than something like, if the apricots are done flowering, then don’t bother planting favas, cause they won’t have enough time to set seed before the weather turns hot.
Another super important phenology sign for me regards water availability. It’s important during March, April, and May that I plant a day or two before the arrival of rain. I don’t have irrigation during that time, so have to depend on the natural water cycle.
One of my favorite phenology tools is Growing Degree Days. Very useful for predicting Days To Maturity of my varieties when they are sent to different locations, or even for myself when temperatures are cooler/warmer than usual. When Astronomy Domini went to Malasia, is completed it’s life cycle in something like 30 days, while it’s more like 90 for me.
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Your weather sounds very predictable! Or rather, your seasons do. I’m trying to note as many things related to heat accumulation as possible to try to start correlating things.
Do you calculate growing degree days for your specific spot, based on daily temperature readings?
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I used to calculate growing degree days. It was interesting to note that in early spring, it might take 6 weeks for newly planted corn to grow to 4" tall, but in the summer it only takes 2 weeks.
So I stopped planting successive crops of corn based on dates, and started planting them based on phenology. Plant the next crop of corn when the previous crop is 4" tall.
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