Choosing Your Vegetables

I'm assuming you read the last blog entry: Choosing Your Plot. So hopefully you've already decided (more or less) on what garden area or containers you are going to grow in. Now it's time to decide what to plant and how to fit it in to your garden.

Here is the shortlist of easy-to-grow and tasty vegetables: 

Early spring planting:

• Mizuna
• Arugula
• Mustard Greens
• Chicory
• Chard
• Peas
• Chives

Late spring planting:

• Climbing Beans
• Bush Beans
• Cherry Tomatoes
• Basil
• Nasturtiums

Some may be unfamiliar. You can read more about them on the short list page, or look them up elsewhere if you're unsure.

The next task is to choose which ones to grow and plan how they are going to fit in your space. We don't have to figure out the exact details in advance, but we do have to figure out the general layout. A rough plan on paper helps because:

• Some plants need to be planted early (they grow well in cool weather), and some plants need to be planted later (they can't tolerate cold weather).
• Some plants grow tall and will shade out smaller plants unless they are positioned behind them relative to the sun.
• Some plants take up a lot of room, and will leave no room for anything else if you plant too much of them!

So all that takes a little bit of working out. Maybe you'll need as much as an hour to piece this all together the first time.

Once we have a rough plan, we can be pretty relaxed. The plan ensures you know what will fit where, in your containers or your area of earth, so that you don't buy seeds or seedlings you don't have room for.

1. To start with, list the vegetables from the short list that you really want to grow. Or if you're growing something else that's not on the list, put that down. Substitutions are fine with me, as long as you don't mind doing some figuring out for them on your own! You can let me know in the comments what you're growing, and I'll help out if I can.

Most of all remember that one of our guiding principles is: only grow what you really want to grow. See the How We Keep It Simple page for the zucchini story if you need to be reminded why.

2. Now sketch your containers or garden patch on a piece of paper or in a notebook, with some rough indication of the size of the containers or plot. For containers, try to make the positions of the containers relative to each other fairly accurate on the diagram. That's because we have to plan for light and shade with taller plants and shorter plants.

Is it clear to you which direction the main daytime sun will be coming from? Where most of your sun will be coming from depends on where you are planting: for example if you're on a west-facing balcony, most of the sun will probably be coming from the south-west diagonal. In a wide open area, the strongest sun will be coming from the south.

Once you've figured this out, indicate the main direction of day time sun on the diagram. If you're having trouble with this, it will probably help to go out to the location and look at the situation from right there. This doesn't have to be extremely precise, but should be mostly right so you can position your tall and short plants in such a way that the tall ones won't shade out the short ones.

Next we will lay out the plants in the sketch.

3. Position the climbers first.

Sketch out the areas of your plot or containers that will contain the climbers. The climbing plants from the short list are peas, cherry tomatoes, and climbing beans.

If you are growing climbing plants (which need some kind of tall support), they have to be in a place where they won't shade out the other ones. That is, they need to be behind the other plants, from the point of view of the daytime sun, which hopefully you already drew on your diagram.

Peas and beans are planted quite close together (a few inches apart) in a row or group where they will climb the support you provide: a fence, or very tall strong stakes and strings.

Cherry tomatoes are planted individually, further apart - at least 6 inches apart, or one per pot. They will also need strong, tall support.

Using those distances, figure out approximately how many plants you will have of each type.

4. Now fill in the self-supporting plants. These rest of the plants in our list support themselves, so they are just planted to fill an area at their preferred spacing, like dots in a grid. But some of them can be planted closer together than others.

So what you do now is sketch out the areas of your plot or containers that will contain each of these plants.

There's lots of factors you can consider when you decide to lay these ones out. It's a bit harder to plant the late spring plants behind early spring plants, for one thing (because the early spring ones will be in place and growing already). For another placement example, I harvest spring greens often (like whenever I make a sandwich), so for me it's nice if they're near the edge, very easy to reach.

Here is a table to help summarize the planting needs of each plant. Still, don't worry about it too much. Plants are not perfectionists.

	Height	Planting Time	Spacing
Peas	climber	early spring	close row or group (3cm)
Climbing Beans	climber	late spring	close row or group (5cm)
Cherry Tomatoes	climber	late spring	wide (15cm)
Mustard Greens	tall (1m)	early spring	close (5cm)
Basil	tall (1m)	late spring	med (10cm)
Mizuna	low	early spring	close (5cm)
Arugula	low	early spring	close (5cm)
Chicory	low	early spring	close (5cm)
Chard	low	early spring	med (8cm)
Chives	low	early spring	close group (1cm)
Bush Beans	low	late spring	med (10cm)
Nasturtium	low	late spring	close group (3cm)

Basil and mustard greens are both quite tall, so you should consider the shade issue again - they should be behind any lower plants (from the point of view of the sun), so they don't shade shorter plants. Basil is traditionally grown beside the tomatoes to ward off tomato pests. Basil and mustard greens should both be planted to fill their areas at spacings of about 4 to 6 inches apart.

Some of the greens - arugula, mizuna, and chicory - are grown very close together in their area, about 2 - 3 inches apart.

Bush beans and chard need a bit more space: they should fill their area at 4 to 6 inches apart.

Nasturtiums and chives will both eventually form bigger clumps, so you just need to find one spot or a few spots for each of these, with some space around for them to spread into.

As you sketch in where each of your vegetables will go, also note down approximately how many of each plant will fit into that space you've allotted.

5. Don't worry. Sure, it can get complicated and confusing, but it doesn't matter that much. Believe me, stuff will grow and it will taste good. So let's just keep this fun and interesting and low stress! That's why we call this "side plot", and not "melodrama" or "tragicomedy".

6. Keep your list somewhere safe. No, no, it's not secret, you don't have to hide it. Just don't lose it, that's all I'm saying.

Choosing Your Plot

Where to Grow?

Your task now is to choose your garden plot - or your pots, containers, buckets, or wherever you are going to grow. There are lots of options. Furthermore, small is good: a few big pots or a planting container can make a great garden.

Maybe you already have a place, or maybe you already have a place in mind. Still, it might be worth giving it another think.

By the way, despite the weather, make sure to go out and actually look at the spot while you are thinking about it. It's much easier to visualize things if you are right there.

When it comes to choosing a spot, here are the key points, in order of importance:

1. Keep it small!  Keep it small!  Keep it small!

We're aiming for total manageability, and zero intimidation/procrastination. So how small is small? I suggest trying for something like 1 metre by 1 meter, or maybe 1 metre by 2 metres.

That probably sounds pretty small. But you can actually grow quite a lot in that, and it will be way better to do a small patch successfully than to have trouble keeping up with a larger patch and then get discouraged. Unless you have a lot of time and you are a really good follow-through person, you probably don't need to go any bigger than that your first time around.

But you could go even smaller. One or two deep pots or buckets, or one deep planter, or one sunny corner of your flower bed - a little spot can be fun and easy.

To me, small, intense, organic vegetable gardens are the most beautiful gardens of all, a profound alignment of human thought and effort with the complex natural systems to which we belong.

2. Lots of sun is important.  

When you're thinking about where to plant, think about how the sun moves during the day and as the seasons change. (But remember, as you look now, that the sun will be much higher in a few months.)

Most vegetables will do fine as long they get at least 4 or 5 hours of full (unshaded) sun between 10 am and 4 pm. More is better, but that is usually enough. Note that sunshine early or late in the day is not as powerful.

You can get clever with some things: for example, spring greens can be planted early and start growing before the leaves are on the trees, and once established will do fine in a spot that gets somewhat less sun when the leaves are on the trees.

Also remember that on the Toronto street plan, an "east" exposure is really north-east, and so an east balcony won't get very much sun - though people sometimes make it work. A Toronto "west" exposure is really south-west, and will be just fine for growing - but you'll have to keep up on the watering, because it gets very hot on that side: pots and containers in particular will dry out very fast.

3. Grow your garden close at hand.  

The best place to grow is somewhere you will see, be in, or pass by often. This has two benefits. Your garden stays present in mind because you see it all the time, so you remember to do the watering, weeding, or whatever needs to be done next. And you also get more pleasure and satisfaction because you notice it more.

It's really, really worth doing a little extra work at the beginning to make this principle work for you. For example, if you are growing on a balcony, try to position the plants so they'll be very visible from where you sit inside. Raise them up on crates or bricks if that helps. If you live in a house, consider planting your vegetables in the front landscaping that you pass by whenever you come and go, instead of in the back garden (if you don't use the back very much). These days, chard in the landscaping is all the rage, so you can be both convenient and stylish that way.

4. Climbing room for vine plants is ideal.  

Peas, climbing beans, tomatoes and cucumbers, among others, need to be or do best grown as vines on tall supports. Growing against a south-facing or west-facing wall or tall fence will be great, if you have that option. Otherwise, to grow climbers you will need to provide some structure for them to climb, and it needs to be tall and somewhat strong and stable, so it doesn't fall over in a wind or just from the weight of the plants (which get pretty heavy as they grow).

5. Containers or pots should be deep and wide, and must have drainage holes.

This is one aspect in which bigger is actually better. Soil in bigger containers will dry out much more slowly than small ones, and will go through less extreme heat fluctuations as well. And depth is also important, so that deep-rooted plants have lots of room to expand their root systems. Big, foodsafe plastic buckets are a good size and material, but lots of other things will do fine - commercial pots, or whatever you think is good. (But toxic materials: not so good!)

No matter what you use, drainage holes in the bottom are necessary to avoid drowning or rotting your plants' roots. You will probably need to put your own holes in containers that aren't already meant for growing plants in.

Drainage also means you will need some kind of underlying dish or outer pot to capture runoff, if you need to keep your growing area dry, neat, or picturesque. Actually, an outer pot is good for another reason: it's an extra buffer to reduce extreme summer heat that will stress your plants and dry out the soil fast.

6. Easy Access

Accessibility matters. You need to be able to reach all parts of the garden without straining too much for your own physical condition. If it causes you pain to garden, that will probably be the end of your gardening!

You also need to be able to reach only from the edges without stepping on the dirt. Compacted soil is very poor for growing in, so try never to step on your planting dirt, even out of season.

Typically for garden patches, this means they can't be bigger than 3 or 4 feet in one direction, with access both sides so you can reach the whole patch easily. In a larger garden area, you put in pathways to make a number of smaller patches. But if you are keeping it small, so that won't be necessary.

7. Preparing new ground is the hardest work.

One last issue might be considering the work to prepare new ground. If you're thinking of turning some existing lawn or a heavily overgrown area that hasn't been gardened recently into a garden patch, that's probably going to be some hard work with a shovel.

If you have an easier option, maybe that's better. Still, if you are following principle number 1 and keeping things small, it won't be too bad, as long as you are physically capable of some hard digging - or you have an able and willing helper for that part.


A Note About Soil Quality

Generally, I wouldn't worry too much about soil quality. Gardening books will often talk about soil quality and soil testing. But soil is easy to improve on a small scale - another advantage of keeping it small. (Not so easy on a huge farm.)  Using lots of compost is the main thing. I'll talk about a few things that help improve soil, especially in the long term, when we get to the soil preparation step.

However, do make sure your soil is not outright poisonous. Plants are what they eat, too. If you're on old industrial land, this is an important point. Toronto has some very contaminated old industrial areas. If you're in doubt about your location, I recommend growing your vegetables in containers with organic soil you buy. Or get your soil tested in that case, if you want to know for sure.

Summing it all up, in order of importance:

• Keep it small!
• Lots of sun.  
• Close at hand.  
• Vine plants need climbing room (tomatoes, beans, peas).  
• Containers or pots should be deep and wide.
• Easy access to work on all parts of the garden.
• Creating a brand new garden patch is hard shovel work.

So now go ahead and choose your plot.

And remember,  most of all, keep it small! If that drives you crazy, I promise to let you have more next year. Fair?

Next week we'll go through choosing your vegetables and planning the layout.

Starting Out

This blog is to help make vegetable gardening easy for people who haven't done it before, or people who did try it and didn't find it easy.

Gardening books have often given me information overload, and they are often intimidatingly perfectionist. On the other hand, web sites are mostly jumbled and confusing and contradict each other.

So to make growing a garden easy, and to avoid information overload, this blog proceeds step by step, week by week, just telling you what you need to do next.

To help keep it simple, we:

• keep it small (keeps the work load down)
• go week by week (keeps the mental work load down)
• grow only easy plants (see the short list)
• use easy, natural methods (effective modern organic approaches)

You can grow lots of different, as long as there's enough sun: on a balcony, in your flower beds, in pots on your porch - those can all be good options.

So if you'd like to grow some vegetables but think it's too hard, follow along, and I'll take you step by step through the gardening year. 

I'll be timing the instructions for Toronto - taking into account the weather and so forth. But if you're somewhere outside of the Toronto area, let me know in the comments, and I'll try to give you some hints about what to do differently.

What now?

Want to get started?  It's still only February, but you could take a look at the easy vegetables short list.

Or do you doubt it can really be easy?  Read more about how we keep it simple.

Want to know more about container gardening?  This Toronto book project proposal includes some video footage which might give you ideas.  You can find the book itself for sale by the author here.

Or just check back next week for the first step: Choosing your plot.

2012 season coming soon...

I'll be starting up this blog again soon for 2012.

Just like last year, I'll help new gardeners through the year step by step, keeping things as simple and straightforward as I can.

Freezing Temperatures Tonight (pick your tomatoes)

It's kind of late for this - I wish I'd thought to post about this a few days ago - but freezing temperatures are forecast for tonight.

Plants that were fine to plant in early spring should also be fine now at these temperatures, e.g. chard, arugula, mizuna, mustard greens.  (Chard is the only one that will still be around from spring, but you might have planted more of the others later or have "volunteers" growing from the left-over seeds.)

However, if you have basil outside or still have tomatoes on the vine, you probably should pick them right now (I mean: right now, before you go to bed!), even if they are still green.  Otherwise, they may be destroyed outside tonight.

Even picked green, larger tomatoes will usually ripen inside in a few days or weeks, if they're weren't extremely green. Just leave them sitting out at room temperature, and use them as they ripen.  (I have found cherry tomatoes don't ripen as well, but if they are already partly changed colour, they will probably make it.)  Green or partially ripe tomatoes can also be good cooked or preserved in various ways - you'll find lots of recipes online, of course.

Note that depending on your location, you may not actually hit the forecast low.  The urban heat effect can make a few degrees of difference - often it seems like my location at Bloor and Dufferin gets milder temperatures than the Environment Canada forecasts, and further east, past Christie from Bloor southwards often seems noticeably even warmer.

You may also be able cover your plants with a blanket, and that might be enough to protect them.

I picked mine just as it was getting dark, and then realized I should write this.  But now you'll need a flashlight.

Winding Down

Usually my gardening winds down by this time of year.  The work is mainly harvesting, rather than weeding and watering.  (And, it seems, not much blogging either.)

From the short list vegetables, you will probably still be able to harvest climbing beans, chard, chicory, cherry tomatoes, basil, and nasturtiums - all right until the first frost, which usually doesn't arrive in Toronto until October; or even later some years.  Chard and chicory will usually survive longer, until things really start to freeze hard in November some time.  One year, I was still getting greens in December, but that's unusual.

If you grew arugula, mustard greens, or mizuna in the spring, and they went to seed, you may have small volunteer seedlings growing in the same place now.  They are likely to grow quite well and give you some fall greens to eat.

This year, by the way, we are getting very little fall rain, so you probably should be watering if you still have vegetables out there.

For myself, I am doing more fall gardening this year, because I've done fall plantings of some of the spring vegetables.  Many people say it works great, but I haven't usually done it.  Depending on the results this year, I may include that in next year's version of this blog.


Feedback

Finally, I'd really love to have feedback about this blog, to help me improve it for next year.

My main goal is to make it very easy for new gardeners to garden successfully for the first time, without having to learn a lot in advance.  How do you think I could do that better?

It would help me a lot to hear what you think.  You can add comments here, or email me at sideplot@gmail.com to let me know.

Watering, Harvesting, Collecting Mustard Seed

If you are growing bush beans, chances are you have seen the first small white or pink flowers, and maybe small beans are already forming. If you are growing tomatoes, the plants likely have small green fruit, or perhaps even ripening ones if you planted quite large seedlings.

Basil plants are probably large now if you bought seedlings, or maybe even if you grew your own from seed. You can start to pick occasionally from your basil plant once it's a foot high or so, and more as it gets larger. A few fresh leaves are amazing chopped raw into a salad or in a sandwich. Rather than pick the lower leaves, it's actually good to pick an end cluster of basil leaves at the top of a stem (especially when flowers start to form there). Pick off the top part of a stem, just above a pair of healthy leaves below. When you do that, new stems will start to grow from the where that lower pair of large leaves join the stem. The replacement stems will be more numerous than what you picked first, and your plant will become nice and bushy, rather than tall and spindly as it would be if you picked the lower leaves first.

Watering Needed

In this weather, you should be watering things deeply at least once a week, possibly more. Obviously if plants are wilting, they need more! On the other hand, watering too much causes problems. (Okay, I don't know what those problems are: too much care has never been one of my gardening problems.)

For plants growing in the ground, once your plants are large so that they are fully shading their own ground, evaporation will be less, and they should have a well-developed root system. The ones on the short list will be fine with a deep watering once a week or so. As I mentioned before, a deep watering means enough water to soak deeply into the soil. You might find a different way, but I use a bucket, and a small container to pour water from the bucket around each plant. I make a small pool, and each time the small pool soaks in completely I pour some more, until I've percolated water down 2 or 3 times for each large plant. I do just use my intuition for how much - if you need more guidance, I'm not a good source!

For plants in containers, with the high heat and unusually dry weather (for Toronto) we've been having, you may need to water more often, perhaps every few days. Poking into the soil can give you some sense of how much moisture is retained. This is when pots within pots can provide a little protection from the worst heat.

Collecting Mustard Family Seeds

If you let them grow out, then your mustard family plants: arugula, mizuna, and mustard, by now will probably have ripened seed pods. Some may not yet: usually mizuna is first, arugula is second, and mustard is last.

If you want to keep seed for next year, you can collect seed when the pods have dried out enough to pop open almost at a touch.  I rarely buy seeds for these three, since they are very easy to collect and the seeds keep very well. The seeds I collect always sprout well for me the next spring.

Hold a round container (like a large plastic yoghurt container, for example) right beneath the pods hanging from their stems. Roll the pods between your fingers. As the pods open, some will drop their seeds; other pods will open but fall into the container themselves. When you have a container full of tiny black or brown seeds and dry pods, roll the pods in the container with your fingers some more to get all the seeds out of them.

The seeds now should be settled mainly on the bottom of the container, and the pods on top of them. You can pick out the pods, but that is a bit tedious. What's more fun is to blow (very gently at first!) slightly downwards along the inside of one side of the container. Your breath will circle around in the container and swirl the dry pods right up and out of container surprisingly quickly, while the small seeds will stay in the bottom as long as you don't blow too hard. (Okay, I always get some pods in my face. It always happens faster than I think.)

After you separate the seeds, you should leave them out in an open bowl or container on a shelf for several weeks to make sure they have time to dry fully. After that you can put them in a paper envelope and store them in a basically dry place. Make sure to label each envelope with the type of plant and the year. It's probably impossible to tell from looking whether it's mustard, mizuna, or arugula seed, and you also want to make sure that each year you are planting the previous year's seed. (If you collect from several of these, and they are sitting in bowls drying at the same time, you may also need to label the bowls.)