COLORADO SPRINGS — Spring is upon us, but here in Colorado, it’s still too early to start planting your garden outside before that last frost of the season. For most of the Pikes Peak Area, you want to wait until after the last frost, usually around the middle of May to start planting your garden outside.
But, if you’re someone with a green thumb, you might be eager to get a head start on your garden this year.
Something Daniel Hopper, owner of Rick’s Garden Centerin Colorado Springs suggests doing is starting your garden indoors. There are many vegetables and plants that can be grown inside. Daniel tells me it’s too late to start most plants from seed today, but garden centers do have plants here that you can buy and continue to water indoors, for now. Before moving the plant outside into warmer weather.
“You have time if you get a plant from a garden center, you have time to harvest that plant during the summer. Right now, you are probably too late to start from seeds for a lot of plants, particularly peppers but you can still start seeds for tomatoes, depending on the variety,” said Hopper.
“The biggest mistake that people make this time of year is they put things into the ground too soon and then they’re unable to move them. If you’re putting peppers in the ground, you’re putting tomatoes in the ground, other warm crops such as that, you’re probably starting a little bit early.”
Daniel says the gardening season is short in Colorado. It usually only lasts about 100 days. But if you plan, you can still be successful when it’s time to harvest.
You can use a frost cloth, a 5-gallon bucket, or even a blanket to cover up your plant if it’s already inside. You want to make sure the cover is touching the ground, but not putting pressure on the plant.
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