yearofplenty

One important consideration for planning your garden is rotating crops to manage soil fertility and control insects and disease. For example tomato, potato, eggplant varieties should not be planted in the same place from one year to the next because they are all in the nightshade plant family. Plants in the same family are all susceptible to the same kinds of insects and diseases. Remnants of these insects and diseases are left over in the vicinity of last year's crop. If you move the crops around it keeps the insects and disease from building up year after year.

Rotation is also important for maintaining healthy soil. You want to follow heavy to medium feeders that draw a lot of nutrients from the soil (tomatoes, corn, cabbage, peppers) with either light feeders (carrots, beets, onions) or heavy givers (beans, peas) that actually will fix nitrogen in the soil and enrich it. I like the methodology explained here that recommends a rotation of heavy feeders followed with heavy givers which are then followed by light feeders. I also like the chart above from Better Hens and Gardens that explains the sometimes confusing logic of crop rotatio in an easy-to-understand infographic. 

Another key consideration in plotting out your garden plan is to consider what plants make good companions and like to be together and which plants are arch enemies and will fight each other all summer resulting in reduced yields.

You can go here for a run down on plants that are beneficial and antagonistic. I get kind of overwhelmed by all the information and different criteria for planting, so I have developed Craig's anecdotal, simplified companion planting plan.

Basil & Tomatoes: My first recommendation is interplant your tomatoes with basil, lots of basil. We discovered this two year's ago. We always had trouble with our basil going to seed because of the intense heat of summer, but when we interplanted them with the tomatoes the large tomato plants shaded the basil just enough to keep them in check. We had wonderful basil all summer and the tomatoes seem to really like it too.

Nasturtiums and Marigolds all around: These are my go to plants to intersperse in the veggie garden. Marigolds are legendary among organic gardeners for helping with aphids although there is some debate on this topic. One farmer friend told me about the summer he found the aphids actually feasting on the marigolds. Some people say ants will one day rule the world, I say aphids will offer stiff competition.

Plant a rainforest of peppers: Peppers are one of my most challenging crops to grow. They love the heat of summer but they also seem to like humidity which we don't have in Spokane. Planting them close together is the best trick I've learned to keep them happy.

Enlist volunteers: I have companion plants that I put in the garden every year and then I have volunteers that come back every year from previous crops. I thin them out or move them around, depending on the layout. These are known as self-seeding plants, meaning they do all the hard work of planting on their own. Some of my self-seeding companions are borage, calendula, dill, and purple coneflower. Some plants like mint are too good at self-seeding and could be considered invasive. Raspberry plants are also notorious for spreading via underground shoots. 

One last consideration for your garden plan, make sure to plant you're tall shade producing plants on the north side of your plot so they don't block the sun from your shorter plants. Lettuce on the other hand is good to plant in the semi shade of sunflowers to keep it from going to seed too quickly.

Another common question I get is, given a limited amount of space, what vegetables do I recommend people plant. A lot of my answer depends on the climate that you're gardening in and the length of the growing season.

In places like Houston, where I lived for awhile, the high humidity and mild temps allow for early and plentiful harvests of short-season vegetables like green beans, peas, summer squash, beans, and all kinds of greens. The challenge comes with long-season vegetables that require more days with fruit on the vine to ripen. The high humidity and abundance of insects in the heat of summer will wreak so much havoc that I would shy away from pumpkins and tomatoes that take longer to mature and focus on varieties that ripen over a short period of time. 

In the Inland Northwest where I garden it's the late and early freezes that we have to work around. We have a relatively short growing season that starts on May 15 with the traditional last-freeze date and concludes on September 15 with the traditional first-freeze date. That being said, the hot weather required for tomatoes, peppers, and other hot-season vegetables usually doesn't kick in until mid June. Last year my cucumber starts sat in the ground without growing until the beginning of July because it was so cool. 

Because of our limitations I usually look for varieties that require less time to mature. Take note that many of the heirloom varieties that are so tasty, like Brandywine tomatoes that take 85-100 days to mature, often have longer days to harvest. Many of the hybrids, like Early Girl tomatoes that mature in as little as 50 days, were developed to accommodate shorter growing season. The down side is that some of the hybrids don't taste as good. Early Girl tomatoes are, in my opinion, one such variety. It's always a balancing act but make sure you have enough time to get to harvest. Most seed packs include a number for "days to harvest" or "days to maturity and most plant starts have an information tab that also has this information.

Another key consideration is the growth habit of the particular plant variety you're growing. Most vegetable plants come in bush/determinate or vining/indeterminate growth habits. Bush varieties are compact and will only grow to a certain height and width and will stop setting fruit after awhile whereas indeterminate plants will continue to extend new growth and continue setting new fruit until freezing weather sets in. Going vertical with vining plants can be a great way to make use of limited space and bush varieties of pumpkins and summer squash can also be a good option for limited space.

One of my rules for selecting plants is to choose varieties are different than what is usually available at the grocery store. Instead of Russett potatoes plant Yukon Gold or French Fingerlings. Instead of iceberg-type lettuce plant a Mesculun mix or Red-Speckled Leaf varieties. Instead of planting Jack-O-Lantern pumpkins plant Wyatt's Wonder, one of my favorites. Instead of the old standard Black Beauty zucchini plant the Armenian or Golden varieties, that are much tastier. A big part of the fun of growing your own food is to try new foods.

In a limited space I would recommend the following:

1. Green beans - Bush or vining are easy to grow and provide abundant food. Stagger several plantings every two weeks for continual harvest. The Royal Purple variety is a fun one to grow. I usually prefer bush varieties.

2. Zucchini - Zucchini gets a bad wrap. We've all heard the one about locking your doors during the summer so people don't unload their unwanted zucchini on you, but we always plant a lot and have never had too much. The trick is to harvest them when they are small and tender, about the size of a banana. Don't let them grow to the size of a small tank.

3. Peas - My favorite is snap peas and they are best grown on a trellis or tepee.

4. Carrots - They don't need much room. Wait to harvest until the first freeze hits and they will be sweet and crunchy.

5. Kohl Rabi - These don't require as much room as cabbage and are tasty when they are baseball size. They get woody when they get much larger than that. I prefer the white variety.

6. Cucumbers - These can be grown on a trellis but, in my experience, are best grown on the ground where they have some room to roam. There are some bush varieties that work well too. Marketmores are good keepers but have thick skin. We grew a long skinny Chinese variety last summer that was awesome. I avoid pickling cucumbers because their window of opportunity to harvest before they turn into mini watermelons is too tight for my lazy harvesting habits.

7. Winter Squash (if you have room) - I love winter squash so I always make room for these. My favorites are Spaghetti Squash and Butternut. They also come in bush varieties.

8. Greens - Fill in the gaps of the garden with different greens. We love spinach, kale, and Mesculin Mix lettuce. 

9. Tomatoes - If you've only got room for one or two tomato plants I recommend Sun Gold cherry tomatoes. They are the best tasting, off-the-vine tomatoes I've ever had. Their small size means that short seasons won't be a problem and they will keep producing and growing until frost sets in. They need some room to spread out because they are an indeterminate variety.

Those are my recommendations and I would set the priority based on what you like to eat. I guess I should also fess up that you need some substantial space to do all of the above which leads me to another conversation I'd love to have about why you should make more room to grow vegetables. Maybe that can be the next post in this series. 

(The picture is from the Smithsonian collection of vintage seed packs and seed catalogs.)

I'm planting my first seeds today and to do that I'll need to mix up a new batch of seed-starting soil mix. If you're starting your own seeds in trays like me you need to use a soil "medium" that is sterile, meaning that it doesn't have fungus and bacteria that will be hard on your tender little seedlings, especially in the humid conditions that are ideal for seed starting. 

You can buy seed starting mix at your local garden supply store or, as I've learned, you can make your own that is just as good if not better. It will take an initial investment but if you're going to get into starting plants I think it's worth it and if have a large volume of seeds to start and transplant as they grow you'll save some money by making your own.

To get started you need to buy three basic ingredients:

    - Vermiculite

    - Perlite

    - Peat Moss

I buy the big bags of each for around $25 each at Northwest Seed and Pet, and those usually last me two growing seasons, with the perlite and vermiculite lasting longer. I find that I don't need much soil medium to start the seeds, but when I transplant the growing plants into larger pots I really use a lot of soil medium.

The basic mix is 3 parts peat moss, 1 part perlite and 1 part vermiculite. I make my batches by using a plastic pitcher, and I use a dedicated garbage can to mix 9 pitchers full of peat moss, 3 of perlite and 3 of vermiculite. Note: use a particle mask while doing this. I usually wet it down a little before mixing it to keep the dust down.

Make sure to mix it up well, wet it all down so it's damp, but not soggy, and it's ready to load into your planting trays. It's much easier filling plastic trays with soil that already has the proper moisture content.

I learned this mix from Bruce at . He sells this medium with some other goodies added in for a great price. If you're only starting a couple of trays you might want to go that route.

Seedlings supply their own fertilizer for the first week or so as they feed off the remnants of the seed. After this you will need to use a regular regimen of fertilizer to help them grow. Take note that peat moss is slightly acidic so, depending on the sensitivity of the plants you're starting, you may want to compensate in your fertilizing to neutralize the acidity.

I've used this seed-starting mix for four years with great success. Let me know if you have any questions.

Photo: From an amazing photo collection of vintage seed packs and catalogues at the Smithsonian.