Tag Archives: container gardening

What to Grow in the Garden – Cucumbers

What to Grow in the Garden – Cucumbers

What’s a salad without cucumbers? We need them to add to the tomatoes and peppers. There’s nothing like a fresh cool cucumber sliced thin, salted and mixed with mayonnaise, and piled high between two slices of homemade bread. It’s a summer sandwich we wait months for and enjoy for such a short time.

Straight eight cucumber, cucumber, what to grow in the gardenYou can choose your cucumbers based on the amount of space you have if need be. There are bush varieties suitable for small spaces.  Short vined cucumbers work well in large hanging baskets or wrapped around tomato cages, and long vined varieties that do well on hog or cattle panels, clipped to twine or across trellis. And of course, if you’ve got the space, let them sprawl in the garden.

Cucumbers can be direct seeded in rows or mounds. Amend the soil before planting the seeds. If you’re planting in rows you’ll want to thin the plants to 18 to 24 inches apart. In mounds, plant three seeds in a two foot wide by one foot high mound and leave the two strongest seedlings to grow. If you have a blank spot you can use the third seedling to fill in. Mounds of soil warm faster and drain well but you’ll need to keep an eye on the moisture to be sure they don’t dry out before the roots have reached level ground.

If you want to get a head start on the season you can start your seeds indoors in seed starting medium about a month before you’ll transplant the seedlings. Transplant when the second set of true leaves is forming and before the plants become root bound. Root bound vine crops will be stunted. They are fussier about their roots than most other vegetables.

If you notice tiny cucumbers dying you’ve got a pollination problem. You can hand pollinate them buy moving pollen from a male flower (no cucumber at the base of the flower) to the female flower using a small paint brush or Q-tip.

Straight Eight is our all time favorite slicing cucumber. It’s an heirloom variety that requires about 65 days to maturity. It is prolific so you’ll want to check the plants for mature cucumbers every day or two. You may prune back new shoots on the vines to keep growth concentrated in the cucumbers. Straight Eight is a straight eight inch cucumber great for those cucumber sandwiches.

Water well. Cucumbers that don’t get enough water will be misshapen and bitter. They benefit from soaker hoses that slowly drip water close to the roots and keep the soil moist six to eight inches down. Over watering can lead to tasteless cucumbers but in the summer heat that’s usually not a problem.

To prolong the harvest I plant seeds one week after planting the cucumber transplants. When the transplants have played out the seeded plants will still be producing. Cover the plants when there’s a danger of frost as these plants are particularly susceptible to frost.

Homestead Planning – Will you want a garden?

Homestead Planning – Will you want a garden?

Gardening seems like a given on a homestead, but it isn’t. Not everyone likes to garden, or knows how to garden. None of us were born with everything we need to know about growing food. Don’t let that stop you!

If you’re starting from scratch I suggest you call your county’s Cooperative Extension and ask to speak to a Master Gardener. The local garden club and neighbors are also helpful. In the meantime, here are some things to think about when you’re considering a garden.

First things first. Be sure you are allowed to have a garden. As silly as that sounds, some home owners associations and subdivisions don’t allow vegetable gardening. Or, they might limit the garden to the back yard behind a fence. It’s considerate to ask a neighbor about their preferences to how close you garden to the shared property line. It’s possible that your town has a zoning law regarding how close you are allowed to be to the property line and sidewalk.

butternut squash, planning a garden, garden planning, gardening, homesteading

Butternut Squash

Is there room for a garden? You might be surprised at how little space it takes to grow a respectful amount of food. One tomato plant in a five gallon bucket may produce upwards of 20 pounds of tomatoes. That’s about $60 worth of tomatoes in exchange for a few dollars in the plant and soil. You can reuse the bucket from year to year. From container gardens to lining the sidewalk with vegetables to a full acre out back, you have options.

Are there large trees or buildings casting shade on the spot you’d have to use for a garden? The trees can probably be felled but moving a building probably won’t happen. You can use some shade to your advantage but there’s only so much you can do.

Is the garden spot convenient? We like to think we’ll be so excited about the garden that we’ll be there with bells on no matter where it is but let’s be honest – that’s not usually true. When it’s inconvenient we probably won’t make the time to walk the extra distance (let’s say a few hundred yards) to pull weeds for ten minutes. I don’t want to walk a few hundred yards for a cucumber.

How about water? Is it available? And convenient? You can run a hose just about anywhere if you have an outside faucet. The hose has to be moved out of the way to mow the lawn. It’s really not a big deal until it’s 90 degrees and you’ve had a long day.

Will you need to fence in the garden to keep out the pests? Deer and other large animals can do a lot of damage in a few minutes. Groundhogs and rabbits dig under fencing, deer jump over, squirrels squeeze through. If you’re going to need fencing I suggest having it ready to go sooner than later. You don’t want to lose your hard work to marauding bunnies over night.

Don’t be discouraged. Plan for the problem so it doesn’t become a problem! The taste of a warm, juicy, really ripe tomato from your garden makes it all worth it.

Container Gardening: Carrots

Anyone can grow something somewhere thanks to container gardening. How’s that for an abstract statement about a concrete subject? We can grow something somewhere. How about a pot of lettuce in the kitchen window, a celery stalk cut down and planted in a coffee mug, or carrots in a food storage container?

Carrot Container

Carrot Container

This container is 10 inches tall by eight inches across. I filled it with a 75/25 mix of ProMix and well-finished compost.

Choose a carrot variety that is at least an inch shorter than your container. I’m growing Napoli, a variety that grows up to seven inches long. They do well in containers, raised beds and in the regular garden.

Carrot seeds were planted one inch apart starting one inch from the outside of the container. You don’t need to measure. They’re carrots, they’re not that fussy. Carrot seeds must stay moist while germinating so I covered the container with plastic wrap.

Carrot seedling

Carrot seedling

You shouldn’t have to deal with many weeds when container gardening but just in case, this is a carrot seedling.

Carrot Container

Carrot Container

I moved the container outdoors as soon as the weather warmed enough during the day, bringing it inside on cold nights. Small containers like this one are easy to move around as necessary. On cold days that kept the container in the house I moved it to follow the sun if I walked by.

Napoli carrots grown in a container

Napoli carrots grown in a container.

Thin the plants as they grow. If you managed to get just one tiny carrot seed per inch you are my carrot-planting hero and I hope you’ll share your seed-spacing tips. I plan to pull every other carrot as they run out of room but it doesn’t always work out that way. Pull the carrots that need to be pulled. They should all be ready to pull within 10 days of each other.

If you’d like to start again you can dump the growing medium out, amend it with compost and replant. I use the same growing medium two or three times for carrots and once for a leafy green before dumping it into the garden and starting again.

Have questions? Leave a comment and we’ll come back to help.

 

Getting Started with Container Gardening

Our food supply becomes a little less stable and more expensive each day because of drought and flooding, transportation costs and world issues. Everyone can grow at least a little bit of their own food. It’s simple to do, doesn’t cost a lot of money, takes little time, and can take up little space. Let’s get started.

Containers can be small clay pots, large wooden planters, plastic saved from your kitchen, and everything in between. Short term, we like to start with recycled containers. Any plastic container you can poke drainage holes in should work.

Container Gardening, salad container

Salad container used for leaf lettuce.

This is a container from mixed greens purchased in the grocery store. A few inches of seed starting medium mixed with a cup of worm castings is all it takes to support this cut-and-come-again salad mix. Notice the tomato seedling in the left corner? It will be transplanted into its own pot.

Container Gardening, Coral Shell Pea

Coral Shell Pea

This is a Coral shell pea. It’s a small plant that with vines only two feet long, perfect for a six inch clay pot. It will stand up straight until it’s seven or eight inches tall then lean over and hang over the edge. Choose a short vine variety for small containers.

Do you have extra coffee mugs cluttering your cupboard? As long as you avoid over watering or can drill a hole through the bottom they make great containers. This mug holds store bought celery. It will develop roots and continue to grow.

Container Gardening, Coffee Mug

This coffee mug holds celery.

Transplant seedlings into containers with the same guidelines as if you were planting them into the garden. Each plant must have enough room for its roots to spread. The container should be heavy enough with soil and plants to keep it from tipping over if you move it outside.

Look in your seed catalogs for a note or other indication marking varieties suitable for containers. It’s become such a popular way to grow vegetables now that many companies point these out to us. These are some of our favorites:

  • Cucumber – Salad Bush, Space Master. Two plants per one gallon container. Look for words like Bush and Space in their name.
  • Bush Beans – Tendercrop, Derby. Three plants per one gallon container.
  • Tomatoes – Determinate varieties stop growing when they reach their maximum height. A five gallon container will hold one tomato plant. Super Bush is an excellent choice. It maxes out at three feet tall, is very frost hardy, and has three inch tomatoes. The stem is dense and keeps the plant upright with little or no staking. Tomatoes love the additional warmth containers offer.
  • Peppers – Probably the least picky plants we’ve grown in containers. Provide a minimum of a two gallon container. Pepper plants have large roots when they have enough roots and might be more than four feet tall in good soil. Jalepeno and Ace bell varieties do very well.
  • Swiss chard – Peppermint and Bright Lights are tasty and attractive. Two plants fit well in a one gallon container. You can choose a container that is wider than it is deep. Avoid over heating these cool weather plants.
  • Tatsoi and Boc Choi do well in containers. Choose a “baby” variety of Boc Choi such as Purple or Shuko. You can combine tatsoi and boc choi together in one container to add a variety of color and make the container attractive. Avoid over heating.
  • Cabbage – Little Jade or other Napa varieties do well in container gardens. Be sure to place them toward the back or in a partly shady area so their roots don’t over heat.
  • Zucchini – who knew! Astia zucchini has performed well in an 18″ container every year for us. Hand pollinating is recommended for good production.
  • Leaf Lettuce does well in containers. For variety, choose different colors and leaf textures. Leaf lettuce can be cut and left to grow again for another harvest. Salad Bowl, Red Sails, and Black Seeded Simpson do well with container gardening.
Leaf lettuce in a hanging basket

Leaf lettuce in a hanging basket

Container gardening outdoors requires some attention. Soil can dry out quickly in the heat and wind, or become flooded in heavy rain. Check them now and then to be sure roots haven’t grown out of or soil hasn’t blocked drainage holes.

Use a soilless mix or part soil mix for your containers. Avoid using 100% garden soil as it will compact over time, blocking good drainage and make it difficult for roots to spread. Your garden center will be able to show you what they offer and explain which brand might be best for your particular containers. It will contain vermiculite or perlite, and have a fertilizer such as composted cow manure in its mix. If you live in a hot and/or windy area you’ll want a mix with soil because it retains moisture better than soilless mixes.

Pole beans in a container garden

Pole beans need a trellis to attach themselves to.

Carrots are a great vegetable for kids. Seeds placed around the outer edge of the container will be able to be seen before they reach maturity and are pulled. Choose a container at least 12 inches deep, or grow a miniature variety.

You can avoid poor soil and space issues and still grow a lot of food by grouping containers together. Keep like plants together, such as tomatoes or peppers, to aid in pollination. Place containers wherever you have room. They don’t have all have to be together. Is there room for pots at the base of your mailbox? How about on your steps?

Do you have questions? Suggestions? Something to add? Comments are open!