Knowing that gardening is always an iffy proposition, understand that some seeds can tolerate frost and grow in the cold–and take a gamble by planting them early in spring or even the fall before. Chard, spinach, kale, broccoli, fava beans and peas can all be direct-sown in March. It it’s cold they’ll wait to germinate, if it warms up you’ve got a great jump on the growing season. Broccoli and fava beans can be sown a little deeper than usual to protect them from a late cold snap.
Archive for the ‘Vegetables’ Category
Guide to Avant Gardening: Part 13 ~ Plant Cold Tolerant Seeds
Monday, March 1st, 2010Winter Veggies
Thursday, October 22nd, 2009Once a good hard frost has nuked your cukes, it’s time to get out there and clean house. There’s no greather pleasure than to walk out in spring and find a well-fertilized, perfectly raked and shaped bed in which to plant.
So now’s the time to rip out all the dead vegetation, add manure and compost, till,rake smooth and await the spring. Wtih cold frames and row cover you can extend your current season and get a jump on your next.
It’s always a good idea to sow some spinach, chard, kale, peas and even brococoli in the fall and cover them with row cover or a light mulch of straw. They’ll come up in their own sweet time, often much earlier than you’d expect. A good resource is Elliot Coleman’s The Four-Season Garden. Even he’s reduced to blanching endive in late winter, but there are a lot of good tips on extending your growing season.
Watering Stress
Saturday, July 25th, 2009Watering stress cuts both ways when growing plants. Too much water and they yellow and die. Too little and they shrivel and brown. But letting them get a little stressed can have benefits. Letting the plants go a little limp drives their root systems in search of water, resulting in a stronger plant. If you let your carrots go a little flat they’ll send their taproots deeper, resulting in longer, straighter carrots. One thing to keep in mind is that when you set out your seedlings is that their roots have been literally running around in circles in the inside of the pot. Teasing the roots out a bit will get them going out into the larger garden faster. On the down side, plants like cauliflower and broccoli tend to develop aphids when not given enough water.
Guide to Avant Gardening: Part 9 ~ Warm-Weather Vegetables
Monday, May 18th, 2009Snap Beans: 60-80 days. Planted 8″ apart in warm soil in late May. There are two varieties: pole beans and bush beans. Pole beans are vines which can reach to 6′ or more, but need netting or a trellis to support them. They begin producing a little later but can bear pods for up to 2 months. Bush beans are freestanding and earlier but produce only for 2-3 weeks. Solve this problem by planting more than once. Most people harvest their beans too late-pick them when they are the diameter of a pencil or less. In full swing they can be picked every three days. They come in many colors.
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Tomato Tips
Friday, May 15th, 2009
These tips are also great for peppers and eggplants.
Plant when the weather warms up the soil: usually the last two weeks in May.
Remove the bottom sets of leaves and plant tomatoes deeper. This increases the root mass and means more tomatoes.
Harden off your seedlings by exposing them to increasing amounts of sunlight before planting. A few hours in the shade the frist day, then increase their exposure. Plant them on a cloudy day or in the evening.
For each plant, dig a hole at least 12″ in diameter and 10″ deep. Even bigger is better. Backfill with a misture of 50% top soil, 40% compost, 10% manure.
Pinch off the first few sets of blossoms to encourage better rooting, growth, and, ultimately, yields.
Fertilize every two weeks with a relatively low-nitrogen, high-phosphorous fertilizer. Water with 1 tablespoon Epsom salts/1 gallon water every two weeks. Liquid iron and Super Thrive are also good ideas.
The more often you pick, the better your plants will yield.
Always water at the base of your plants in the morning. Soaking the entire plant increases potential for disease later on.
Guide to Avant Gardening: Part 8 ~ Tomatoes, Squash, and Pumpkins
Monday, May 11th, 2009Tomatoes: 45 to 120 days. Grown from starts planted around Memorial Day. Few plants engender such passion as tomatoes. They’ve traveled the world from their origin in northern South America. And the best thing that ever happened to tomato lovers was the collapse of the Soviet Union. When the Wall came down dozens of terrific tasting varieties came running out. Tomatoes are classified as either determinate or indeterminate. Determinate tomatoes produce all their fruit at once. Indeterminate tomatoes produce their fruit over an entire season, with clusters of fruit ripening sequentially. Indeterminate plants tend to produce more fruit.
Guide to Avant Gardening: Part 7 ~ More Cool-Weather Vegetables
Friday, May 8th, 2009Lettuce: 40-90 days. From seed in April and every two weeks thereafter until mid May. Start a fall crop in mid-late August. Plant 1″ apart and harvest every other immature plant for microgreens. Finish with plants 6″-8″ apart. Or simply designate an area, sprinkle seeds evenly and use a rake to integrate seed into soil. Few vegetables vary as much as lettuce. From the almost inedible iceberg to the tiny butter crunch to a delicious red romaine, lettuce’s looks, tastes and textures are all over the map. It thrives in cool weather.
Guide to Avant Gardening: Part 6 ~ More Cool-Weather Vegetables
Wednesday, May 6th, 2009Cabbage: 60-180 days. Grown from seed or starts. Cultivation is similar to broccoli. Plant 12″-18″ apart. Heavy rains may cause heads to crack, especially in late summer. Growing a large cabbage insures that you’re going to be eating cabbage for a long, long time. It’s better to harvest the head when it’s the size of softball by pressing the leaves down, cutting the head free but carefully leaving the stalk and leaves intact. Anywhere from 2 to 6 mini-cabbage heads will grow from the edges of the stump, which can be harvested as needed. In terms of dollar value per acre, cabbage brings financial returns second only to marijuana. Try growing savoy varieties, which have delightfully crinkled leaves and tight heads. Or plant a variety called January King-it features gloriously colored leaves, green with red veins, all flecked with white.
Guide to Avant Gardening: Part 5 ~ Cool-Weather Vegetables
Tuesday, May 5th, 2009Cool Weather Vegetables-March 1 to April 15
Asparagus: Grown from roots planted 18″ apart. Won’t reliably produce spears until the third year, but can produce for twenty years or more. Asparagus plants take up a lot of room in a garden and may better suited for your perennial beds. The ferny plant makes a great accent to rose bushes and other tall perennials. To plant, dig a trench 15 inches deep and line with two inches of manure and compost, topped with an inch of topsoil. Lay the root, crown side up, and cover with two inches of soil. As the plant grows, backfill with soil until level with the rest of the garden. For the first three years do not harvest spears. First up will be male spears, about as thick as you index finger. Later in the season will come the female spears, the diameter of your little finger. Never pick the female spears. All-male cultivars have been developed. One good old-time variety is Jersey Giant. There’s also a purple variety, which reverts to green when cooked. Europeans also heavily mulch asparagus, to blanch it, producing white spears.
Beets: 50-80 days. Grown from seed, planted as soon as the soil can be worked. Sow seeds 2″ apart, thin to 6″ by eating the smaller, slower plants fresh or boiled. Harvest when roots reach 2″ diameter. Repeat sowing every two weeks for summer-long harvest. Of the many varieties, golden beets are among the tastiest.
Broccoli: 55 to 100 days. Grown from seeds or starts. Plant 18″-24″ apart. Can be planted as soon as ground can be worked and again in late summer. Heat is the great enemy of broccoli, causing the heads to bolt-turning from a tight green head to a cluster of flowers. Some types are grown for heads and, once harvested, side shoots. Some are grown for side shoots alone. Broccoli raab is a member of another plant family, can tolerate more heat, has a sharp, distinct flavor and is usually sautéed. Plants grown from seed offer some advantages. They tend to have better root systems and can tolerate heat waves and water shortages better. The two most common problems are aphids and cabbage loopers. Aphids can be hosed off followed by an insecticidal soap spray. Cabbage loopers-small green caterpillars-can devour leaves but can be treated with the bacterial powder Bt. Just for fun try growing Romanesco broccoli, which looks like a plant designed by M.C. Escher. The head is a cluster of tiny, spiraling minarets, it’s flavor somewhere between broccoli and cauliflower.
Brussels Sprouts
80-90 days. Grown from seeds or starts. Plant12″-18″ apart. Care is much the same a broccoli. Sprouts form from the bottom up and harvests can last up to 8 weeks, if you pinch the topmost growth the sprouts will develop all at once. Tolerates heat better then broccoli.
To read all of Todd’s Avant Gardening posts, see the Avant Gardening Series category.