The Time for Planting 155 
radish - early 
beans —bush 
eas 
lettuce 
Beets 
cucumber 
sweet corn 
bush squash 
onion from sets 
carrots 
Zima beans 
tomatoes 
melons 
epper 
©99 plant 
vine squash 
onion (dry) from seed 
sweet potato 
parsnip and salstfy 
Days:0 30 60 90 120 150 180 
Fic. 86. Chart showing growing period of some common garden crops. The 
solid line shows the shortest period in which early varieties of the crop can be 
grown. The dotted line shows the additional time required to bring later varie- 
ties into condition for use. 
It is usually safe to begin planting the crops that stand 
cool weather as soon as the soil is in condition to be 
worked. Inmany partsofthesouthernstates planting may 
begin in January or February ; in the more northern states 
the same crops cannot be planted until April or later. 
The growing season. The actual growing season of 
most vegetables extends from the date of the last killing 
frost in the spring to the first killing frost in the autumn. 
In the extreme southern part of the mainland of Florida 
only half the winters bring killing frosts. As far north 
as Tallahassee, Florida, and Austin, Texas, and also in a 
narrow strip along the coast of California as far north as 
San Francisco, the length of the growing season is 9 
months or longer. In the extreme northern part of the 
