Vegetable gardening: ready, set, go!

You can have both annual and perennial cool-season crops in your vegetable garden. If you are interested in annual crops, radishes are the first root crops to harvest. Then comes beets, carrots, turnips and rutabagas. Parsnips are also a great crop to have. But they will not be ready until right before the ground freezes. The perennial cool-season crops are rhubarb, asparagus, chives and horseradish. They still need proper watering, fertilization and weed control to keep providing each year. 

Besides annual and perennial cool-season crops, pay attention to the families they are grouped into because planting the same crops in the same families year after year causes the same diseases. Beets are in the same family as spinach and Swiss chard. If you planted beets this season in the same place you planted Swiss chard last season, then your crop might attract the same diseases and insects. For more information, look up Colorado State University Extension’s “Colorado Vegetable Guide.”

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