VEGETABLE GARDEN
My husband has a new pet project…his vegetable garden. I describe it as his because he has spent the past eight months reading books about methods (Smith; The Vegetable Gardener’s Bible), researching potential harmful pests, and planning what to plant. It has been a chore just to watch!
Although I grew up around vegetable gardeners, and I mean serious ones, I’ve never really had the space or the time to get organized and produce something meaningful. I stuck to growing the basics, what I loved to eat. Green bush beans, plum tomatoes, zucchini, and lots and lots of herbs would pleasantly coexist with perennials in my sunniest bed and I was really content with my modest yields.
Everything changed last year when my husband got involved. He wanted to do more, more, more! So we tried to add other crops to our bed. We transplanted a few perennials to make room and off we went. The results were disastrous.
First, we did not have a plan for what we wanted to plant. Other than what I usually plant being a given, we simply went to the garden center and picked out what looked interesting. The lesson learned was that some vegetables are just not a good fit for the small house garden. Brussels sprouts, peas, corn all take an extraordinary amount of room to produce enough yields for a single meal. The brussel sprouts did not produce one sprout and the peas gave us about ten pods, but the plants I pulled out at the end of the season were as big as a small Volkswagens!
Where we had some crops that were all show, we had others that produced so much I was toting two bags to work each week full of bounty we could never eat!
My father’s side of the family had a garden that took up half of their entire property; I am not kidding. It really isn’t all that rare in his hometown of Highwood; that’s just what you did to feed your family. They planted a ton of tomatoes so that we could spend countless hours in my grandmother’s basement canning homemade tomato sauce that the entire family would then use all winter. At its peak, under the care of one of its best head gardeners, my Uncle George, we had 135 plants. That’s a lot of tomatoes.
With this in mind, my husband and I decided we would plant 6 plants. I mean if they planted in the hundreds, we could easily handle 6! Well, if you have ever planted tomatoes and been successful you know that we planted enough for a large family of people who love tomatoes, not for two people. We did the same with zucchini and cucumbers.
Then there were the specialty crops that produced well, but aren’t really something you’d store for long term. For example, I planted a row of radishes. Probably around thirty or so matured, all at the same time. By week two I’d had enough radishes for a lifetime. I wasn’t about to freeze the radishes, so off to friends they went!
We learned a lot of valuable lessons last year and I’m certain will learn more this year, especially by listening more intently to our family’s sage advise and relying on my husband’s countless pages of research.
My husband’s list of most important things he has implemented in our garden:
Contemplate raised beds
Creating raised beds with mulch paths in between has transformed our little garden. Vegetable’s root systems are delicate and by giving them their own space, they won’t get trampled on, and you avoid damage and long term compaction.
Use natural solutions for pest management
There are lots of organic products out there…some of which might not actually be organic, so research them with diligence. Then you have to determine their value through trail and error. We are using two products this year…Neptune’s Harvest is a fish emulsion (www.neptunesharvest.com) and Use BT Worm killer, a natural bacteria. Use BT for the first two weeks after planting for cabbage, broccoli and cauliflower to keep worms from destroying your tender plants.
You can also try employ a method of pairing certain plants together to discourage infestations. Try pairing basil with tomatoes you may throw off the scent of predators. Marigolds can be used in the same manor.
Rotate your crops
Insects are lazy and they won’t want to go far to eat so if you keep the crops moving you may keep more bugs away. Sometimes diseases also stay in soils for several years, by moving crops it helps prevent that. Always be aware that swapping crops in the same family, like sweet onions and leeks, isn’t a true crop rotation.
Time your planting appropriately and get more from your garden
Some seeds, like lettuce and spinach, can be planted in the cool season, like early April. Once harvested, you can plant another crop for fall harvesting.
Research research research!
Know what is better to plant from seed and what to buy from your local garden center. Herbs have a difficult time germinating, so definitely purchase them as plants. When you buy plants, buy them in 4.5 inch containers and make certain that the roots are not coming out of the bottom of containers. This means the plant is already stressed before you get it in your garden and it may not perform as well. Below is a representative list…
SEED
Cucumber, Zucchini, Lettuce, Spinach, Beans, Radishes, Carrots, Melons, Squash
PLANTS
All herbs, broccoli, leeks, onions from sets, peppers, tomatoes
Moisture
Vegetables like a constant even supply moisture throughout the season so you don’t get misshapen vegetables.
NEXT WEEK: MY FAVORITE PLANTS, RIGHT NOW
Although I grew up around vegetable gardeners, and I mean serious ones, I’ve never really had the space or the time to get organized and produce something meaningful. I stuck to growing the basics, what I loved to eat. Green bush beans, plum tomatoes, zucchini, and lots and lots of herbs would pleasantly coexist with perennials in my sunniest bed and I was really content with my modest yields.
Everything changed last year when my husband got involved. He wanted to do more, more, more! So we tried to add other crops to our bed. We transplanted a few perennials to make room and off we went. The results were disastrous.
First, we did not have a plan for what we wanted to plant. Other than what I usually plant being a given, we simply went to the garden center and picked out what looked interesting. The lesson learned was that some vegetables are just not a good fit for the small house garden. Brussels sprouts, peas, corn all take an extraordinary amount of room to produce enough yields for a single meal. The brussel sprouts did not produce one sprout and the peas gave us about ten pods, but the plants I pulled out at the end of the season were as big as a small Volkswagens!
Where we had some crops that were all show, we had others that produced so much I was toting two bags to work each week full of bounty we could never eat!
My father’s side of the family had a garden that took up half of their entire property; I am not kidding. It really isn’t all that rare in his hometown of Highwood; that’s just what you did to feed your family. They planted a ton of tomatoes so that we could spend countless hours in my grandmother’s basement canning homemade tomato sauce that the entire family would then use all winter. At its peak, under the care of one of its best head gardeners, my Uncle George, we had 135 plants. That’s a lot of tomatoes.
With this in mind, my husband and I decided we would plant 6 plants. I mean if they planted in the hundreds, we could easily handle 6! Well, if you have ever planted tomatoes and been successful you know that we planted enough for a large family of people who love tomatoes, not for two people. We did the same with zucchini and cucumbers.
Then there were the specialty crops that produced well, but aren’t really something you’d store for long term. For example, I planted a row of radishes. Probably around thirty or so matured, all at the same time. By week two I’d had enough radishes for a lifetime. I wasn’t about to freeze the radishes, so off to friends they went!
We learned a lot of valuable lessons last year and I’m certain will learn more this year, especially by listening more intently to our family’s sage advise and relying on my husband’s countless pages of research.
My husband’s list of most important things he has implemented in our garden:
Contemplate raised beds
Creating raised beds with mulch paths in between has transformed our little garden. Vegetable’s root systems are delicate and by giving them their own space, they won’t get trampled on, and you avoid damage and long term compaction.
Use natural solutions for pest management
There are lots of organic products out there…some of which might not actually be organic, so research them with diligence. Then you have to determine their value through trail and error. We are using two products this year…Neptune’s Harvest is a fish emulsion (www.neptunesharvest.com) and Use BT Worm killer, a natural bacteria. Use BT for the first two weeks after planting for cabbage, broccoli and cauliflower to keep worms from destroying your tender plants.
You can also try employ a method of pairing certain plants together to discourage infestations. Try pairing basil with tomatoes you may throw off the scent of predators. Marigolds can be used in the same manor.
Rotate your crops
Insects are lazy and they won’t want to go far to eat so if you keep the crops moving you may keep more bugs away. Sometimes diseases also stay in soils for several years, by moving crops it helps prevent that. Always be aware that swapping crops in the same family, like sweet onions and leeks, isn’t a true crop rotation.
Time your planting appropriately and get more from your garden
Some seeds, like lettuce and spinach, can be planted in the cool season, like early April. Once harvested, you can plant another crop for fall harvesting.
Research research research!
Know what is better to plant from seed and what to buy from your local garden center. Herbs have a difficult time germinating, so definitely purchase them as plants. When you buy plants, buy them in 4.5 inch containers and make certain that the roots are not coming out of the bottom of containers. This means the plant is already stressed before you get it in your garden and it may not perform as well. Below is a representative list…
SEED
Cucumber, Zucchini, Lettuce, Spinach, Beans, Radishes, Carrots, Melons, Squash
PLANTS
All herbs, broccoli, leeks, onions from sets, peppers, tomatoes
Moisture
Vegetables like a constant even supply moisture throughout the season so you don’t get misshapen vegetables.
NEXT WEEK: MY FAVORITE PLANTS, RIGHT NOW
posted by Donna Vignocchi at
2:39 PM
1 Comments:
Loved this post. My mother father still have a garden that is roughly one acre, and a greenhouse that is larger than their home which houses fruit trees of all kinds. Yes, even here in Alaska my mother has found a way to produce nectarines, peaches, pears, plums, blackberries... and the list goes on and on. I, however, am struggling to get going with a meager amount of pots with vegetables near my front door.
This year my mother gave me frozen packages of berry juice to make jams and jellies. I've housed them in my freezer this entire winter. The deal was that I would make the jams/jellies if she gave me the supplies. I would make a batch every few months. She got tired of waiting for her jelly and came 2 1/2 hours to my home to help me make up all 10 batches of jelly this weekend with me. It was amazing to see her work in my kitchen so fast and furious. Meanwhile I tended our nine mo. old as well as our other children and visually was having difficulty keeping up with her frantic pace. She was spinning circles around me. :) I am in awe of her abilities in the garden and in the kitchen.
Do you think we will ever get to our parent's level of gardening or cooking skills? Or are we just a different breed? :)
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