Home vegetable gardens “What to plant” for Spring

We sometimes get questions about what to plant in home vegetable gardens.  While Mississippi’s climate is not suitable for all fruits and vegetables, we can easily grow a tremendous assortment.  Growing a garden in Mississippi can be highly awarding.  Gardeners can enjoy the freshest produce ripened in their own garden.  Sometimes only minutes elapse between harvest, preparation, and consumption.  Even if you don’t consume the food on the day of the harvest, it typically last longer in storage than store-bought produce.  Additionally,  gardeners have more variety available to them and are not limited to what is stocked at the stores. 

    Once a person decides what to plant, they should consider how much to plant.  The decision is based  on the number of days required for a plant to reach maturity or when it can be harvested. It also depends on how much of each vegetable your family can eat, an d the amount of garden space you have. Some vegetables take a lot of garden space and a long time before they can be harvested and others are planted and harvested in short time, producing abundantly in a small space.

    Most melons, pumpkins, vining types of squash, and sweet potatoes take several months to mature and take up a considerable amount of garden space. Typically, they are harvested over a short period of time, but the produce has a long shelf life. Most okra, tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, and pole beans also grow for several months in a garden, but they typically can be harvested continuously.  Sweet corn takes a considerable amount of space, but many feel it is well worth it to be able to enjoy the incredible sweetness of freshly harvested corn.  For gardeners with limited space, please consider planting smaller vegetables: bush, snap, and lima beans; leafy green vegetables like spinach, mustard, collards, and turnips; green onions, tomatoes, sweet peppers, and eggplant. As space permits, add broccoli, cabbage, hot peppers, okra, summer squash, southern peas, and pole beans.  

Vegetables grown for their fruits or seeds, such as sweet corn, tomatoes, squash, cucumbers, eggplant, peppers, beans, and peas, should be planted in the sunniest spots. Vegetables grown for their leaves or roots, such as beets, cabbage, lettuce, mustard, spinach, and turnips, can grow in partial shade, though they perform better in direct sunlight.
Source: “Mississippi Vegetable Gardener’s Guide”, Mississippi State University, Extension Service, Publication, 3616