The single biggest factor in whether your Missoula vegetable garden succeeds is variety choice. Our growing season runs from the average last spring frost around May 19 to the first fall frost around September 22, and that is not a lot of time. Plant a variety bred for a long, hot southern summer and it may never finish here. Plant one bred for a short, cool season and you will be harvesting while your neighbor is still waiting.
Days to maturity is the number to watch on every seed packet. MSU Extension makes this point for every crop: choose varieties that mature quickly so they have time to produce before frost. Here are the varieties I reach for again and again across the main vegetables in a Missoula garden.
Tomatoes
Tomatoes are where variety choice matters most, because the long-season beefsteak types that fill seed catalogs often run out of summer here. Look for varieties in the 55 to 70 day range. Early Girl is the classic Missoula tomato, dependable and quick. Stupice and Glacier are cold-tolerant and set fruit even when nights are cool. For cherry tomatoes, Sungold and Sun Sugar are nearly foolproof and ripen early. For more detail, see our full guide on growing tomatoes in Missoula.
Peppers
Peppers want even more heat than tomatoes, so short-season varieties are essential. Smaller-fruited peppers ripen faster than big bells. For sweet peppers, look at early types that color up quickly rather than the largest bells. Hot peppers like jalapenos and many smaller chiles tend to mature faster and do well here. Our guide on growing peppers in Montana’s short season goes deeper on getting a good pepper crop.
Cucumbers, Squash, and Beans
For cucumbers, fast varieties like Marketmore 76, Spacemaster, and the pickling types finish well inside our season. Summer squash and zucchini are some of the most reliable crops here since most varieties produce quickly and heavily, sometimes more than you can keep up with. Winter squash is trickier and needs the shortest-season varieties you can find, like the smaller buttercup and acorn types, because the big storage squashes often do not finish before frost.
Beans are easy as long as you wait for warm soil. Bush varieties like Provider and Contender produce fast and do not need a trellis, which makes them a strong choice for our season. Pole beans work but mature later, so plant them early in your warmest spot.
Greens, Roots, and Cool-Season Crops
This is the easy group. Cool-season crops actually prefer our spring and fall, so you have more room to experiment. Leaf lettuce, spinach, kale, and Swiss chard all do well, and most varieties will produce here without much worry about maturity dates. Kale and chard in particular shrug off cool weather and keep going for months.
Root crops like carrots, beets, and radishes are dependable too. Radishes are the fastest crop in the garden, ready in about a month. Carrots and beets take longer but handle cool soil and even improve in flavor after a light fall frost. For these crops, focus less on maturity dates and more on choosing varieties suited to your soil and taste.
A Few Habits That Matter More Than Any Variety
Picking the right variety gets you most of the way, but a few habits make the difference between a decent harvest and a great one. Start heat-loving crops like tomatoes and peppers from transplants rather than seed so they have a head start. Give those warm-season crops your sunniest, most sheltered spot. And pay attention to seed sources that select for short seasons and cold tolerance, since a packet labeled for our kind of climate is worth more than a generic one off a national rack.
If you want help choosing varieties for your specific yard and building a planting plan around our short season, that is exactly what I do. Take a look at the vegetable garden consulting page and reach out.