Incredible Edibles & Square Watermelons

Incredible Edibles
March 2011

Greetings!

Like many of you, I watched in horror last Friday as the tsunami swept across Japan. The beauty of the internet is that you can watch things over and over and I found myself repeatedly watching the video that showed the destruction of the greenhouse range. Several of my friends in the horticultural community on Facebook wondered- was there anyone in there at the time? What was being produced in them? What will the impact be?

At 2:45 on a Friday afternoon, unless they had heeded the warnings, there were most probably workers inside. The general feeling from people who know more than I do about that region of Japan, is that the most likely crops were food, not necessarily ornamental flower production. If what was being produced was food for the region, the impact could be staggering.

Something many of you don't know about me is that my college degree isn't in horticulture. It's in International Relations. But out of respect for my previous life, I like to keep my hand in world affairs when they relate to my current life. The tragedy in Japan is a direct link to what I had already planned to write about this month- home food production.

What prompted this issue were a couple of things. The freeze in Mexico that has left us tomato-less for part of the winter. The salmonella scare of a few years ago. My ever spiraling grocery bills. Last week cucumbers were $1.44/lb. Outraged, I came back to the garden center and immediately planted cucumbers, several squash varieties and a few other things. Those seeds are now 3" tall seedlings, all in the space of one week, and I'll have fresh produce probably in about 6 weeks. All done in a small space, indoors. The fact is that food is becoming a concern, globally, as well as locally for many reasons.

I invite you to read on for ideas about how you can grow your own food in a small space to help lower your grocery bills and increase the quality of your food.

Incredible Edibles Square Watermelon

If nothing else, you have to admire the people of Japan for one thing- they've gotten it right when it comes to making things work in small spaces. Cars, electronics, housing, and yes, even food. In order to conserve space, watermelons are grown in molds that shape them into perfect squares so that they will fit into the small apartment refrigerators commonly used in that country. So if your excuse is that you don't have room to grow your own food, think again. Many folks don't have the room for large gardens so this month I'm going to give you ideas and methods for producing incredible edibles in small spaces.

There are two factors that need to be considered when planning your garden. The first would be location and the second would be the plants themselves.

Small space gardening in the yard can be done in several ways. The first is simply a small bed. A second way would be to use the popular "square foot" method, where you build a grid and plant one variety in each square foot. This could contain as many square feet as you wish. Another way to accomplish small space gardening in your yard is to use raised beds. Raised beds are attractive for those of us whose aching backs are starting to let us know that bending over isn't as much fun as it used to be!

But if planting in the dirt is still your calling and working in your yard isn't practical or even feasible if you live in an apartment, then consider vegetable gardening in containers. Get innovative! Practically any type of container can be used- a decorative plastic pot, whiskey barrels, Earthboxes, old tubs -- just about anything that will hold soil and water will work. If you don't have a place to set containers, then go vertical. Strawberries, cherry tomatoes, and other small space fruits and vegetables can be planted and harvested successfully in hanging baskets or topsy turvy planters. Give a gardener the opportunity and they will find the way to make it work! And the beauty of container gardening is that usually, you can get through the season with very little, if any, weeding.

Many vegetables can be grown in a limited amount of space. Crops such as lettuce, kale, spinach, mustard or any kind of greens work well. Lettuce can even be planted in a decorative "salad bowl" that can be grown in a sunny window, or put outside during the day and moved indoors to protect it from cool nighttime temperatures.

If you are planting in the yard, beets, turnips, carrots, radishes, garlic, celery, onions, chard and other leafy or oriental vegetables work well. Read the seed packages when you select your varieties- they will tell you what selections work best for small space areas. In many cases, spacing can be cut to about half of what's recommended. Select "bush" varieties rather than "pole" unless you have a pole to run the vines up. Pole beans, for instance, will work well if you have a fence or other vertical place to plant them, without taking up too much horizontal space. Trellises or tomato cages can even be used in containers to support vining plants, provided whatever they are producing won't be too heavy once it matures. Pumpkins, for instance, would not be a good choice for trellising or caging.

Succession planting is the practice of planting a crop in an area as soon as one is finished. This extends the life of the garden by producing several different kinds of vegetables from the same space over the course of the season. You'll have to watch your maturity dates and timing if you want to try this. Interplanting methods can also be used. This means planting one slow maturing along with one faster maturing crop in the same area. The short season crop should be one that takes less space, such as radishes, whereas the longer maturing one might be potatoes. Once the radishes are harvested, this allows additional room for the potatoes to grow, but you've only utilized one area of your garden for both crops.

For more ideas, stop by and visit with us. We can share some of our other customer's success stories and we'll be happy to show you the best varieties for your particular area and space. It's time to get your garden on!

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