Soak seeds of beets, Swiss chard, and peas for fifteen or twenty minutes before planting. Soak parsley, New Zealand spinach, and celery seed overnight to hasten germination.

Make multiple plantings of lettuce. “I make nine plantings of lettuce each season,” says a Vermont gardener. “Sometimes I scrape snow away to plant the first batch.” He plants only a couple of feet of each variety at a time. “I don’t try to salvage overmature lettuce,” he declares. “I turn it under and plant some more.” 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 »

Every garden needs a little mulch. Mulch is a thick blanket of material laid on the ground near plants or in the walkways. It blocks sunlight, keeps weeds from growing, holds moisture in the soil, and keeps the soil temperature steady and cool. Mulch is a must for many dry-country gardeners who are trying to cut down on their watering, and for folks who haven’t got the time to stir up the soil every week to stop weeds from getting started.

People use all kinds of organic matter and material for mulch—grass clippings, bark chips, peat moss, pine needles, leaves, sawdust, black plastic, and so on. Read the rest of this entry »

1. Gamble and Plant early

There’s more moisture in the soil in early spring than any other time of the year. As soon as you can work the soil and prepare seedbeds, gamble some seeds and plant some early crops. Push ahead your plantings of corn and potatoes, too. These crops take lots of water, and the more growth they can put on before dry weather, the better it is for you.

2. Don’t Fertilize too much early in the year

You’d be amazed at how few roots will develop in over- fertilized soils. Plants can get all the food they need close to the surface with just a small root system. So they don’t bother to go down deep. When a dry spell occurs, look out! They suffer quickly, you wind up watering them every day. It’s better for your crops if they have to work for their food and water. Let them develop far-reaching root systems which penetrate deep in the soil before you give them big helpings of plant food. Read the rest of this entry »

Start Transplants in the Garden

Three or four weeks before the planting dates for cabbage, broccoli, head lettuce, and cauliflower, I sprinkle their seeds in short wide rows out in the garden. It’s an easy (and cheap) way to grow a lot of transplants in a very small space.

For my fall garden, I choose the best-looking plants, dig them out of the short wide rows, and put them in another row with more room around them. Read the rest of this entry »

Beans have been the most important vegetable crop through the ages. They are the best vegetable source of life-giving protein, and today in many societies, beans are still the staple of life. Beans are also the one protein source you can keep for a long time without processing. And you can get a heavy harvest from a small amount of work.

Our family relied on dry beans when Iwas young. Every Saturday night (if not more often), the heart of our family meal, like the traditional New England Saturday supper, was baked beans. Read the rest of this entry »

Snap beans are the first beans to give me a harvest, about 45 days after they come up. I plant them early and often to get a continuous supply of fresh, tender pods. From early summer to the first fall frost, snap beans are ready to pick in my garden. I plant them every 2 weeks until about 8 weeks before the average first fall frost date. Snap beans are a good succession crop because they are so easy to plant and they sprout quickly in warm soil. When my spinach starts to go to seed in early summer, I till it under and plant a wide row of beans on the same day. A couple of weeks later when some of my early peas are finished, I till them in and plant another row of snap beans. Read the rest of this entry »

I blanch it with its own leaves

A thriving row of cauliflower is a spectacular sight in the vegetable garden, but few people think they can have great success with it. I think it’s as easy to grow as any cabbage family crop. Cauliflower is less tolerant to hot weather than its relatives, though, so it’s important to set your plants out very early or plan on a fall crop. If the heads mature in the heat, they’re apt to have a bitter taste or go by very quickly.

For your first crop, set out some plants 3 or 4 weeks before the average date of the last spring frost. Pinch off a couple of the lower leaves.

As cauliflower heads get to be 4 to 5 inches across, they should be blanched by preventing sunlight from reaching the heads. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s exciting to discover the first thumb-sized broccoli heads in the row and watch them grow. Sometimes they’ll get to be 6 or 8 inches wide at the top. Other times the heads will be quite small when it’s time to pick them.

The center head must be cut before it blossoms, even if it’s on the small side. How do you tell when the head is ready to blossom? A head of broccoli is a cluster of flower buds. When the head is young, its individual buds are packed very tightly. Rub your thumb over them and you will feel that tightness. As long as the buds stay tight, let the head grow. But when the buds loosen up and spread out, they are about to pop up and produce little yellow flowers. Again, pass your thumb across the top of the head—if the buds are loose, you’d better harvest. Read the rest of this entry »

Chard has a lot going for it. You can plant it as soon as you can work your garden in the spring, and it will provide tasty, nutritious greens for months. Through cold weather or hot, it won’t get bitter, tough, or strong as long as you keep it harvested.

With wide rows you can get basket after basket of chard to can or freeze for the winter. To me, it’s the perfect green for a wintertime meal. It tastes good, it’s nutritious, and it’s a lot cheaper than store-bought greens. Read the rest of this entry »

Nine years ago I planted one packet of white bunching onion seeds, and I’m still eating from the row. Each year I get the tastiest, earliest scallions you can imagine. I don’t do a thing all season except pull a few weeds now and then.

It’s important to plant a “bunching” onion variety because these onions will not form a bulb. The bottoms stay thin all year long. Plant them where you won’t be tilling, such as next door to a perennial planting. I have mine near my black raspberries.

Plant the seeds thickly in early spring. Thin them a little with a rake when they come up, then let them grow. Harvest some of them when the stems are as big as a pencil, but leave plenty alone. Let them go right into the fall and winter. Don’t mulch them—they don’t need it. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s easy to grow a lot of them in wide rows. And their flavors— from the strong yellow keeping onions to the subtle shallots—go with almost everything. How can you cook without them?

Onions, garlic, and shallots will store for many months, and you don’t need a root cellar either. Leeks won’t hold out like the others but they can be kept in my “perennial patch” in the garden or for a week or two in the refrigerator. The onion family is with us 12 months a year. Jan and I never have to buy any.

There are lots of fun ways to grow these crops in the garden. How about a multiplying shallot patch so you never have to buy expensive shallots again? Or a no-work “Eternal Yield” square of bunching onions to get the earliest scallions every spring? Or a big row of giant sweet onions? 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 »

Garlic: Break into doves to plant

I can’t imagine spaghetti sauce without garlic, and I can’t imagine my garden without it either. There’s nothing better than fresh garlic from the garden—it’s a must for our pickles.

Buy a few garlic bulbs from a garden store or supermarket and break each one into individual cloves.

Plant each clove 3 or 4 inches from the next one in a wide row. Push them in to their full depth, pointed end up. Plant them as early as you can, like onion sets, and give them two or three side- dressings during the season. Keep the soil loose around them, and don’t let them get dry. Read the rest of this entry »

Peppers are the prettiest plants in the garden, especially when they’re loaded with dozens of red, green, orange, and yellow peppers.

Peppers are easy to grow, but people have trouble with peppers because they push them too hard. Giving them too much fertilizer is the number one mistake. I have a big stack of letters from people who say, “My plants are tall and dark green, but I don’t have any peppers yet!” This is a sure sign of too much fertilizer.

Peppers don’t need much fertilizer, and what they get should come in small doses. Give them a teaspoon of a complete fertilizer like 5-10-10 at planting time and no more than a teaspoon or two at blossom time.

Each year I grow pepper plants that at first glance seem awfully small, yet when you look closely you discover 15 or 20 peppers on each plant. Read the rest of this entry »

A good potato crop starts with good seed potatoes. Get the best ones you can because you don’t have many chances at planting time. A garden store will have certified seed potatoes that are free of disease. These are the best. Don’t rely on old potatoes from your root cellar because they could be carrying disease organisms without showing it.

When you buy seed potatoes, you’ll get some small ones. Plant these whole. Cut the bigger ones into two or three blocky pieces, being sure to cut them so that each piece has two or three buds, or “eyes.” I cut up seed potatoes a day or two before planting and leave them in a warm place. This gives the cut surfaces time to heal over and dry out a little.

I also douse seed potatoes with sulfur immediately after cutting them up. Sulfur powder is a cheap, natural protectant available at most drug stores. Two ounces will protect 10 pounds of seed potatoes. Put the cut and whole potatoes in a paper bag. Add 1 or 2 tablespoons of sulfur and shake the bag. The powder sticks to the potatoes and helps keep out rot organisms. This sulfur also will lower the soil pH around the potatoes a bit. That’s good because potatoes like an acid soil. Read the rest of this entry »

Plant Slips on Raised Beds for big Potatoes

To grow sweet potatoes, start with “slips,” which are tiny plants sprouted from sweet potatoes. Here’s how I grow the slips I need each spring.

About 7 to 8 weeks before the average last frost date I get some sweet potatoes from the market. I cut them in half lengthwise and lay the pieces cut-side-down in aluminum cake plates filled with moist peat moss. I put a shallow covering of moist peat moss over the potato pieces and wrap the works in a plastic bag.

As soon as the slips appear, I take off the plastic and put the plants in a sunny window. After our last frost date, I pull each slip and plant it separately. It will grow to a full-sized sweet potato plant.

You can also get slips by sprouting a section of sweet potato in a jar of water. Like sprouting an avocado pit, most of each piece should be submerged in water on the kitchen windowsill. Read the rest of this entry »

Building your rows up to form raised beds can help you grow better root crops. Sometimes in heavy clay or shallow soils it’s a hassle getting long, straight carrots or parsnips, or large, well- shaped beets. The answer is to create a raised bed and heap extra topsoil onto the row from the walkways. It sounds like a lot of work but it’s not.

No matter what kind of soil you plant root crops in, get the seedbed smooth and as free of clods and rocks as possible. In rocky, clumpy ground, all the seeds won’t poke through the soil at the same time. This is a problem when you rake-thin and weed the first time.

Coaxing carrots with 0-20-0

To coax the best root crops possible from your soil, add a little phosphorus fertilizer to the seedbeds before planting. Broadcast a common commercial fertilizer such as 5-10-10. Use about 1 quart for each 100 square feet and mix it in the top 2 or 3 inches of soil. Read the rest of this entry »

My grandson Brian is a real carrot fan. When he sees the feathery carrot tops in the garden he can hardly wait to start pulling up his orange snacks. Kids like discovering buried treasure and I’ve taught Brian how to find the biggest carrots in the row—by looking for the darkest green tops. (Works almost every time.) To get the most of your carrots‘ vitamin A and other minerals, don’t peel them. A good scrubbing with a vegetable brush is all they need.

I try a lot of carrot varieties each year, all lengths and shapes. My friend Ed told me about the Danversvariety which I grow every year. He said it was developed a long time ago in the area around Danvers, Massachusetts. When he was a kid he weeded carrot fields there by hand for a summer job and received $4 a week! Read the rest of this entry »

It’s not necessary to prune tomatoes. However, in my garden all the tomato plants get a little pruning. Staked and trellised plants need the most because you want them to grow only one or two main stems which will make the plants easier to tie up.

Pruning means pinching off the shoots, or “suckers,” that grow out from stems right above leaf branches. By restricting the vine growth somewhat, you’ll get bigger tomatoes. If you let these suckers grow, each becomes another big stem with its own branches, blossoms, and fruits— even its own suckers. I prune my plants in cages and those growing freely early in the season, and then I let them grow. You should go on sucker patrol at least twice a week during the heavy growing season to keep your staked plants from getting hard to control.

In a very hot, sunny area, you can let some of the suckers put on a couple of leaves and then pinch out the top to stop its growth. The extra foliage will help the plant manufacture food and will help shade tomatoes. Read the rest of this entry »