You ask for trouble if you use garden soil for indoor planting. It’s likely to be loaded with pathogens. Use sterile, commercial potting mix, or make your own:

• two parts soil
• one part compost or leaf mold
• one part sand, perlite, or vermiculite
• one tablespoon bone meal per quart

Sterilize it in a 150° oven for one-half hour (which may drive everyone out of the house holding his nose). To stay in your family’s good graces, use a microwave oven for speedy sterilization. Put the soil in a plastic bag in which you’ve punched a few holes. Bake it in the microwave for four or five minutes. Read the rest of this entry »

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 »

Your kitchen garden can be as simple as a few herbs in pots outside your back door, or a proper vegetable and herb garden.

The type of garden you choose will depend upon the space you have available, the amount of sun it gets, the time you have to spend in the garden, and to a certain extent, your own taste in food. A small-scale kitchen garden could perhaps consist of a few herbs and some tomatoes, lettuce and carrots. 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 »

Remember to cut Greens for a second and third Harvest

I force many of my greens to give me a second and third harvest. I never pick only the outside leaves of my lettuce, spinach, chard, or mustard. They’re the oldest and toughest on a plant. Instead, I give the row a clean cut, slicing the plants about 1 inch above the ground. This encourages the plants to send up new tender growth and to try again to develop seedpods. For the harvest, I have a pleasing combination of young, tender leaves from the center of the plant mixed with the older ones. Read the rest of this entry »

Too many people think head lettuce or Iceberg lettuce has to be bought at the market.

I grow wonderful crops of head lettuce and yet every year some new visitor looks at my bright green rows and says, “Hmmmm. I didn’t know you could grow that here.” Well, you can and it’s easy.

All you need is some cool weather in spring or fall. Get started early; head lettuce needs as much time as possible developing in cool weather, so the earlier you can set out some plants, the better. They will have the best chance to head up before the scorching days of summer.

Great Lakes, Iceberg, and Ithacavarieties have all done well in my garden. I start them indoors in shallow flats or pyramid planters about 6 to 8 weeks before the last expected frost date.

The most important step in early planting is to harden off the plants very well before setting them into the garden. After they are about 4 weeks old, I start giving them some time outdoors. That way they can handle unexpected cold snaps and even a light frost. Read the rest of this entry »

Five vegetables for winter/spring crops

The vegetable plot can be just as productive in winter or spring as in summer, especially if you grow the following staple crops for winter use.

• Kale ‘Thousand Headed’ Very hardy cabbage, producing an abundance of delicious leaves and shoots. Sow mid- to late spring, setting plants 45cm/18in apart each way. Best grown in fertile soil, but tolerates poor soils.

• Leeks Very hardy, long growing season. Leeks like fertile well-drained soil. Sow outdoors early to mid-spring, transplant in late spring or early summer. Plant 15cm/6in apart, in rows 30cm/12in apart. Drop each plant into 15cm/6in deep dibber hole; water well. Read the rest of this entry »