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 »

Have you selected a new garden site, and now you want to prepare it? You can spade it, but that’s hard work. Try covering it with black plastic. In one month, and often less, all plant life under the plastic will die, and the soil will have a delightfully soft, moist quality. For a much more thorough job, put a hog or two in the area. Pigs will prepare the area more completely than a rototiller. They will eat all the weeds and their roots and will turn over the soil — and fertilize it. Read the rest of this entry »

How to avoid thinning or how to thin easily small-seeded vegetables like carrots, lettuce, and parsley is a problem all gardeners face. There is more than one solution:

Broadcast plantings can be thinned with a rake. Draw a metal garden rake across the wide row or raised bed when seedlings are little — under one inch tall. Let the rake tines penetrate the soil one-quarter to one-half inch. 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 »

If you have a root cellar, keep it cool in the fall when it’s full of produce by opening ventilators on brisk nights and closing them on warm, sunny days. That’s an easy way to keep the temperature and humidity at ideal levels.

Choose to grow thin-necked varieties of onions rather than thick-necked ones, and you’ll have less incidence of onion-neck rot in storage. Cure them in sun for a week or two after harvest, then lay screens in the rafters of your garage or attic and spread the onions one layer thick. Leave them there for a month or so. Make sure onion necks are thoroughly dry before clipping to an inch or two. Store in a cool, dry place with good ventilation. Read the rest of this entry »

BROCCOLI

Side-dress when the head begins to form. It may be only the size of a fifty-cent piece when you notice it, but go ahead and side-dress. Amount needed: 1 to 2 tablespoons complete fertilizer per plant.

BRUSSELS SPROUTS

I usually side-dress brussels sprouts when I harvest the first small marble-size sprouts. Amount: 1 tablespoon complete fertilizer per plant.

CABBAGE

The best time to side-dress cabbage is when it starts to form a head. In my wide rows of cabbage, that’s when the leaves of the plants are about to completely shade the row. Amount needed: 1 tablespoon of complete fertilizer per plant. Read the rest of this entry »

A few summers ago I taught a short course on gardening for the University of Vermont. The classes were held at my test gardens. During a discussion about root crops, Willie, one of the students, said, “Dick, I grow real nice carrots, but I don’t like them too much. I can hardly eat them; they seem so woody.”

“How big do you grow them?” I asked.

Willie smiled, “Oh, they get real good size. I’ve got nice loose soil for them.” Read the rest of this entry »

The only things I worry about with succession crops are getting seeds to germinate in hot, dry weather and keeping transplants watered so they’ll root quickly with no moisture stress.

When it’s hot and dry and the soil doesn’t have much moisture, seeds can start to germinate only to run out of moisture. That kills them.

To avoid this, plant seeds a little bit deeper, an extra 1/4 to 1/2 inch for small seeds, an extra 1/2 to ³ inch for larger seeds. The very top of the soil may be dry, but you’d be amazed at how well seeds use the small amounts of moisture beneath the soil surface. Also, I time my succession crops so that they’re sown just before or just after a rain. With clay soil it’s wise to plant before a rain. Read the rest of this entry »

I plant them early, at least 3 or 4 weeks before the last spring frost date, and also later in the season so they can mature in the cool weather of fall.

A couple of years ago, Jan and I picked our first heads of broccoli a few days before Memorial Day, and cut the last ones from our fall planting on Thanksgiving Day. If you live south of my homestead, you can easily get a longer season of cabbage family crops—especially in the fall. 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 »

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 »

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 »

Peas are the ultimate crop for the lazy gardener. Using my wide row method, you can plant them in minutes and come back weeks later to harvest them. There’s no weeding, side-dressing, staking，or hilling. . .there’s just no work at all to growing tasty fresh peas anywhere in any climate.

People in the South often complain to me, “Dick, it’s just too hot down here to grow English peas. They start growing okay when the weather is cool but then it gets hot and the peas don’t produce.” My wide row method solves this problem.

I once brought 2 bushels of fresh-picked peas from my Florida test garden to a class I was giving nearby. I set the peas down in the middle of the crowd and said, “Taste for yourself.” These Florida gardeners sampled the peas and said, “They’re great!” 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 »

Down-to-earth storage

It’s easy to keep root crops from the fall garden for months in your root cellar. Keep these points in mind:

Your late crop should be as late as possible. The later you can harvest and store them, the longer they’ll keep.

Pull or dig your storage crop after 2 or 3 days of dry weather. Leave the crop out in the sun for an hour. The vegetables will dry quickly and the soil on them will fall off easily.

Don’t wash or brush the vegetables. As soon as you dig them, “top” them right in the garden, but don’t cut the tail roots of your carrots or beets. Leave about an inch of stem on beets so they don’t bleed. Cut the tops close on other root crops. Wash the roots when you’re going to use them, not before. Read the rest of this entry »

There’s a guaranteed way to get hard-to- germinate parsnips and carrots to come up in a few days!

Parsnips, carrots, and other slow-germinating seeds take so long to come up—often 2 weeks or more—that weeds often overtake the row.

If you’d like to get these slowpoke crops to come up in just a few days (or if you want to speed up other crops such as onions, lettuce, beets, etc.), my wide-row seed tape planting idea is for you.

1. Roll out one layer of reinforced paper towel. Get the toughest towels you can. The cheap brands fall apart during the sprouting stage.
2. Moisten the paper towel, using a spray bottle. 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 »

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 »