Blackbird Hollow Almanac
The Sowing Board
Not A Frost Calculator — What The Week Is Asking For
Your Ground
Zone 5b
Zone 6a
Zone 6b
Zone 7a
Zone 7b
Zone 8a
Zone 8b
The Third Week Of July · First Frost Around Oct 28
In the Ground This Week Seed Goes Straight Down
Bush Beans
Phaseolus vulgaris
Sowing Window 68 Days To Pick
Late May Early Aug
Sow Now
One more round. They’ll beat the frost with a month to spare.
Carrots
Daucus carota — For Fall
Sowing Window 75 Days
Mid July Mid Aug
Sow Now
Fall carrots come up sweeter. Keep the top inch damp or they sulk.
Kale & Collards
Brassica oleracea — Fall Greens
Sowing Window 55 Days
Mid July Late Aug
Sow Now
A frost only makes them better. Plant for the cold on purpose.
Cilantro & Dill
For The Pantry, Not The Heat
Sowing Window Quick
Now September
Sow Now
It’ll bolt in this heat — sow a pinch every two weeks and stop mourning it.
Start for Fall In Flats, Out Of The Worst Sun
Broccoli & Cabbage
Brassica — Transplant In 5 Wks
Start Indoors Set Out Early Sept
Mid July Early Aug
Start Inside
Too hot to direct sow. Baby them in flats where you can shade them.
Fall Lettuce
Lactuca — Loose-Leaf Types
Start Indoors Transplant Aug
Now Late Aug
Start Inside
Germinates cranky over 80°. The refrigerator trick still works.
Hold the Seed The Ground Isn’t Asking Yet
Garlic
Allium sativum — The Patient Crop
Plant Window Opens In Fall
Late October
Wait
Goes in after the first hard frost. Order the seed garlic now; plant it later.
Spinach & Peas
The Fall Second Act
Sowing Window Opens Late Aug
Sept
Wait
Six weeks off. Sow now and the heat will just cook them.
The board doesn’t tell you the weather and it won’t do your thinking. It tells you what a working garden this size, on ground like yours, would be putting down this week — and what it would have the sense to leave in the packet.
