Wide Rows

After preparing the seedbed, run string attached to two stakes across the garden. Line up one edge of a steel garden rake next to the string and drag it the length of the row For a wider row, lay out two strings to the desired width and drag the rake between them.

Broadcast seed in the raked area, slightly closer together than you would in a conventional row. Press into soil with the back of a hoe or rake. With the rake or hoe, pull soil from outside the row to cover the seed. Read the rest of this entry »

For your perennial vegetables and fruits, pick a spot separate from or on the edge of (second best) the main vegetable garden. The easiest way to get a bed started is to stake it out the season before you plant. Cover existing sod with a thick layer of newspapers, magazines, or cardboard. A friend of mine declares that covering sod is the best use she’s found for cast-off issues of the Congressional Record. “They’re so thick nothing will grow through them,” she says. So they don’t blow away, pile something on top —hay, wood chips, sawdust, branches, whatever. By spring, the sod will have decomposed and added green manure to the soil without a struggle. Read the rest of this entry »

“Black plastic has freed me from hours of weeding. I never used to finish that chore,” explains a Massachusetts gardener. “I resisted black plastic because it looks so awful, but we put dirt along the edges and scatter some on top, and that helps. We use three‑foot-wide rolls in our entire vegetable garden. We plant a row, lay the plastic, anchor the edges with dirt, plant another row, and so on. The weeding always had hung over me. Now I just hand-weed in the row itself, and we have more time to canoe or play tennis.” Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve never had as much fun and satisfaction growing onions as I have since I began using home-grown sets. I grow about 45 pounds of sets each year in an area 3 feet by 5 feet and it takes only 1 ounce of seeds. The seeds cost about $3, but the sets I get are worth 20 times that!

You probably can’t use 45 pounds of sets in your garden, of course, but I bet you have neighbors and friends who would gladly buy some from you in the spring.

Here’s how I get such a big, money-saving harvest from a 3- by 5-foot area: Read the rest of this entry »

I have a new technique for coaxing my horseradish bed to produce the straightest roots I’ve ever seen. Straight roots are the easiest to clean and process.

First, let me explain that I harvest most of my horseradish roots quite early in the spring.

The taste is real hot in spring and I like hot horseradish.

I fertilize after the harvest and let the plants get about 6 inches tall. Then I till half the bed as deeply as I can. This chops up the roots and mixes the pieces into the soil. Many of the pieces are near the surface where they will quickly sprout and grow again. The important thing is that my roto-tiller leaves the soil so soft and fluffy that the roots have an easy, unobstructed path down into it. Read the rest of this entry »

The best way to grow an asparagus bed is to plant 2-year-old roots which you can order from a seed catalog or pick up at a garden store. One-year-old roots may be cheaper, but the savings are not worth waiting an extra year for your first harvest. I think the 2-year-old roots are more reliable in transplanting.

If you live in the North, set out asparagus roots in the early spring. In the South, set them out in the fall because it can be so dry and hot in the summer that the plants may not make it through.

Asparagus will grow in most types of soil, but since it must have dry feet, it does best in soil that drains well. Place the plants about 2 feet apart with 5 feet between rows. Twenty-five to 30 crowns will produce enough asparagus for a family of four once the bed is established, which takes three seasons. Read the rest of this entry »

Keep your berries weed-free. Mulching is the best way to beat weeds in a strawberry patch. Build up a 4- to 6-inch layer of a weed-free mulch such as wheat straw, chopped cornstalks, or a late cut of hay.

Place a little mulch around the young plants early in the season and add more as it packs down. A 2-inch layer of composted mulch should do the job of keeping the weeds down and still allow daughter plants to root.

In early summer, shallow cultivation between rows will get rid of small weeds. If you spot large weeds next to the plants, pull them carefully so that the berry roots are not disturbed. Read the rest of this entry »

I’m essentially a lazy gardener and if there is a way to tend plants at a comfortable height, rather than at ground level, then I’m all for it. But this is just one of the advantages of raised-bed gardening. Raised beds give young plants a much- needed boost, soften the hard line of an adjoining wall, can double as occasional seats, become an integral part of steps or ramps or temporarily provide a children’s sand-pit. You can use them to contain a given area such as a patio or vegetable garden, and remember that the soil in a raised bed can be quite different from that in another part of the garden. This will allow you to grow plants that would not normally thrive in the immediate vicinity — for example ericaceous plants could be grown in an acidic bed in an otherwise chalky garden. Read the rest of this entry »