Chapter 13
Planting the Basics
In This Chapter
• Growing salad greens
• Tomatoes straight from your garden
• The skinny on cucumbers
• All about squash and pumpkins
• Bountiful bean info
• Getting corn-y
Your idea of “basic” vegetables might differ from mine. It all has to do with what you grew up on and what you’ve become used to. So in this chapter, I’m going to make some generalizations. I think salad fixings are about as basic as you can get. And quite frankly, I can’t imagine a garden without at least one tomato plant. Corn and beans are also right up there as first-tier basic foods, as are squash varieties. In this chapter, we look at the art and science of growing these vegetables.
We also talk about soil requirements, planting techniques, and some of the idiosyncrasies that make growing these edibles so much fun.
Salad Stuff
We take our salads very seriously today. Think about it: many grocery stores and restaurants feature salad bars. And even McDonald’s offers a variety of salads on their menu.
Salad expert Karan Davis Cutler, a guest editor for the Brooklyn Botanic Garden’s publication Salad Gardens, discovered that salads have been around for a long time. She found a reference to an English salad recipe dating to 1390 that called for herbs, greens, onions, and leeks dressed with oil, vinegar, and salt. That sounds pretty familiar. Other recipes include even more raw ingredients like lettuce, sorrel, purslane, mustard, flower petals, and turnip greens.
In this section, we look at basic salad ingredients like lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, and radishes.
Let Us Grow Lettuce!
Food historians have found that the Babylonians grew lettuce more than 3,000 years ago. It might have been big with the pharaohs, and it was certainly a popular vegetable with the ancient Greeks. It’s even more popular today. On average, Americans eat more than 30 pounds of lettuce per person each year. If you grow it yourself, you might wind up eating even more than that.
Lettuce, whose Latin name is Lactuca sativa, falls into four general categories:
• Leaf or loose-leaf
• Semi-heading or soft-heading
• Heading or crisp-head
• Cos
Leaf lettuces are the easiest to grow. They’re quick to germinate and fast to mature. Some varieties can go from seed to salad bowl in as little as 3 weeks. Diverse varieties range from pale green to dark red and can be frilly, crinkly, knubbly, or smooth.
The most common varieties of soft-heading lettuces are Bibb, Boston, and Buttercrunch, which have small, loosely formed heads. Soft-heading lettuces are almost as easy to grow as loose-leaf varieties.
You can harvest semi-heading lettuce a few leaves at a time or by cutting the entire head at the base with a sharp knife.
Iceberg lettuce is the best-known crisp-head lettuce. It’s the one you see most in the grocery store and in plain-Jane salads. Cos lettuces include romaine and endive.
Dozens of varieties of lettuce fall into these four categories, including the following:
Grow a few different ones, or sow a mix of varieties together. You’ll want to grow like varieties together so that planting, maintenance, and harvesting are easier.
Garden Guru Says
To harvest loose-leaf lettuce, simply pick the largest leaves, breaking them off right at the base. You can also harvest individual leaves from soft-heading lettuces, taking just a few outer leaves at a time. Or pick the entire head by slicing it off at the base of the stem. Use the same procedure for harvesting crisp-heading varieties.
Large head lettuces like iceberg and romaine should be grown about 12 inches apart in rows that are 2 or 3 feet apart. Smaller head lettuces such as Bibb, Boston, and Butterhead and loose-leaf lettuces should also have about 1 foot between each plant. But the rows can be closer together, perhaps 1 or 2 feet. Loose-leaf lettuces can also be planted intensively with little or no spacing. Harvesting young, tender leaves provides room for the remaining leaves to grow.
Seedlings are readily available at nurseries and garden centers, but growing lettuce from seed is really easy. It also gives you the opportunity to experiment with many different varieties, especially the ones you’d never find at the grocery store.
Lettuce seeds require light to germinate, so sow them on the surface of a prepared bed of loose, rich soil with plenty of organic matter. Gently pat down the seeds, and water with a fine mist. Don’t allow the soil to dry out, but avoid letting it become soggy.
Sow new lettuce seeds every week or so until the weather gets very hot, and again when it starts to cool off. That way you’ll have a nearly continuous supply.
You Say Tomato, I Say Tomahto
Tomatoes (Lycopersicon lypersicum) might very well be the favorite vegetable of American gardeners. Yet as late as 1820, many people believed tomatoes were poisonous. Thomas Jefferson was one of the first people to grow tomatoes as an edible rather than an ornamental. If I could grow only one vegetable in my garden it would be a tomato plant. There’s nothing like picking a ripe tomato on a hot day and eating it right there in the garden.
Plant breeders have been messing around with tomatoes for years. They’ve managed to make faster-growing, uniformly shaped, and pest-resistant varieties, but the resulting tomatoes have also become less and less tasty. This is particularly true of commercially grown tomatoes. Fortunately, many of the tomatoes available for home gardeners still retain the flavors we like so much, including some of the rediscovered heirloom varieties.
Tomatoes fall into a number of categories, described more or less by use (slicing, plum or paste, and cherry or grape), by season (early, mid, and late), and by vine type (determinate or indeterminate). The characteristics for determinate and indeterminate varieties are as follows:
Tomatoes are also differentiated by color, ranging from yellow to orange, and pink to burgundy. When selecting tomatoes to grow in your garden, you’ll want to consider all these factors.
To start tomatoes indoors, sow seeds about 8 to 10 weeks before the last predicted frost date in your area. Then harden off for about 2 weeks. (Remember hardening off from Chapter 11?)
Plant seedlings, whether your own or store-bought plants, with 2 or 3 inches of stem under the soil. The stem will soon sprout roots that help stabilize the plant and make it stronger. Place the plants from 1½ to 3 feet apart, depending on the variety.
The number of days from planting to maturity can range from a short 59 days (Early Girl) to as long as 95 (Aunt Ruby’s Green). Maturation times for other popular varieties include 78 (Big Boy), 70 (Super Sweet 100), and 80 days (Viva Italia).
Tomatoes are heavy feeders and need fertilizer every 2 or 3 weeks. Use the formula suggested on the fertilizer packaging.
Cool as a Cucumber
Cucumbers are members of the cucurbit family, whose relatives include melons, squash, chayote, and gourds. A native of India, cucumbers arrived in the New World with Christopher Columbus and are now, of course, a salad staple. In fact, according to a report by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Americans eat more than 3 billion pounds of cucumbers a year!
Prof. Price’s Pointers
Cucumber vines produce both male and female flowers. The first flowers are staminate, or male, and simply fall from the plant without becoming fruit. The second flowers are both staminate and pistillate, or female, allowing pollination to occur. Some newer varieties are gynoecious or only female. These plants need some staminate plants planted nearby for pollination to occur.
Although popular with backyard gardeners, cukes aren’t the easiest veggie to grow. They’re a bit fussy about soil, need a lot of water, and are susceptible to pests and disease problems. But even with those few negatives, growing cucumbers can be very satisfying.
There are three basic types of cucumbers: slicing, pickling (both Cucumis sativus), and gherkin (Cucumis anguria). Slicing and pickling varieties are available in bush and vining form, although vines are far more common. Slicing varieties tend to have thicker skins than the pickling types and are generally larger.
Garden Guru Says
Thicker skins contribute to cucumbers’ “burp” factor. Some gardeners favor the “burpless” varieties, which are usually longer and thinner than standard cukes and have a thinner skin.
Plant cucumber seeds or seedlings outdoors after all danger of frost has passed. They like very rich, well-cultivated soil with a pH in the 6.0 to 7.0 range. Cucumbers don’t take kindly to transplanting. If you start seeds indoors, use biodegradable planting pots so you don’t disturb the tiny roots when it’s time to set them out.
Sow cucumbers in hills with about 4 or 5 seeds or plants per hill. Seeds should be planted about ½ to ¾ inch deep. Allow 4 to 6 feet between hills. If you prefer row planting, allow the same distance between rows with about 2 or 3 feet between each plant. Cukes can also be trained to grow up a trellis or netting. Or you can use tomato cages; in that case, make smaller hills with just 1 plant per hill.
Expect cucumbers to take about 40 to 60 days from seed to maturity, depending on the variety.
Plan on a fertilizing program beginning with an application about 1 week after the first flowers appear and continuing every 3 or 4 weeks. Keep your cucumbers well irrigated, and never let them dry out. A thick mulch around the roots helps hold moisture in and keeps the soil a little cooler when the weather gets steamy.
Be sure to harvest your cucumbers as they mature. If you leave ripe fruit on the vine, the plants will stop producing.
Rows and Rows of Radishes
One of the fastest-growing vegetables, and great for introducing kids to the joys of gardening, radishes are also among the easiest vegetables to grow.
Radishes are almost always grown from seed. They prefer cool weather, so it’s best to plant them as soon as you can work the soil in the spring. The soil should have a pH of 5.8 to 6.8 and it should be well cultivated and well drained. If you plan to grow the long varieties like daikon, white icicle, salad rose, or Chinese white, be sure to cultivate the soil down at least 8 to 10 inches.
Plant seeds in shallow furrows, about ¼ to ½ inch deep. If you plant more than 1 row, make the rows about 1 or 2 feet apart. Radish seeds are very small and are usually sold in large quantities (Burpee packs about 300 to 400 seeds per packet, for example), so you can sow them in a slow dribble along the furrow. Then when the seeds begin to sprout (it usually takes less than a week), you can thin the seedlings to about 8 to 10 inches apart.
Sow additional radish seeds every week until the weather gets hot. Then start again in the late summer or early fall for fall harvesting. Harvest them before they become woody and overly hot.
The Three Sisters
In Chapter 12, we talked a little about the three sisters, the Native American concept of growing squash, beans, and corn together. In this section, we take a closer look at these three plants.
Squish, Squash
Pumpkins and all kinds of squash are members of the cucurbit family and relatives of melons and cucumbers. They’re generally vining plants and tend to grow very large.
Just about all squash (and we use that term to include pumpkins for our purposes here) require a fair amount of growing room.
In American gardens, the most commonly grown squash types include summer and winter varieties. The summer types mature earlier in the season and tend to have thinner skins than the winter varieties. Many of the winter varieties, including pumpkins, can be stored for several weeks or even months, which is one of the reasons they were an essential staple of Native Americans and early settlers in America. The following list should help you understand the summer and winter types:
Squash are relatively easy plants to grow; many varieties are downright prolific. The vines grow from 6 to 15 feet long, depending on the variety. Although many of the summer varieties grow in bush form, they still need a lot of space.
Squash are generally grown on large hills with 2 or 3 seeds or seedlings per hill. Give each hill about 6 to 8 feet of space all the way around the hill. Summer squash needs about 40 to 50 days from seed to maturity. The winter varieties take much longer, with maturation times of 70 to 100 days, depending on the variety. The soil must be nice and warm when seeds or plants are first planted.
All types of squash require regular watering and should never be allowed to dry out. About a month after planting, feed the plants with a low-nitrogen fertilizer. Then follow up with a feeding every 2 or 3 weeks.
Bushels of Beans
Beans are another one of those really easy vegetables to grow. No garden should be without a crop of them. There are three types of beans: snap beans, shell beans, and dry beans.
Beans probably originated in South America and have become a staple all over the world. The dry beans—like kidney, pinto, great northern, navy, and black eye—are fully mature bean seeds that are harvested and dried for future use. They’re not generally grown in home gardens but rather as crops on farms. Snap beans are young beans harvested before their seeds mature, whereas shell beans are harvested when the seeds are almost mature but still tender. We limit our discussion here to snap and shell beans.
Prof. Price’s Pointers
Snap bean is the newer name for what we used to call string beans. Plant breeders have bred beans without the strings that used to run along the “seam” between the two halves of the beans, so now they are more or less stringless and have a new name.
Both shell and snap beans are available in bush or pole (climbing) varieties. They aren’t particularly fussy about soil, as long as the drainage is good. The pH should be in the 5.8 to 6.3 range. Sow the bean seeds in shallow furrows about 1 inch deep and 2 or 3 inches apart. Water gently. Don’t worry about fertilizing unless the leaves begin to yellow or if the plants don’t seem to prosper.
Snap beans include green or string beans, wax beans, Italian snap beans, filet beans, and scarlet runner beans. You could start them indoors, but there’s really no need to. Snap beans are incredibly quick to germinate, emerging 7 to 10 days after planting. Just be sure to wait a week or two after your last predicted frost to plant. These beans take about 40 to 50 days from seed to harvest.
The most commonly grown shell beans are limas and favas. They are grown the same way snap beans are, although their maturation time is considerably longer—about 70 to 85 days, depending on the variety.
Beans produce more if you harvest them diligently. The more you pick, the more prolific they become. And beans have a tendency to mature all at once, so it’s a good idea to plant several varieties with varying maturation rates, or to sow new seeds every week for a month or so. This prolongs the harvest.
Everybody Loves Edamame
Edamame is growing in popularity as a home garden crop. Edamame is a soybean that’s harvested while still green and is often served in Japanese restaurants. It’s delicious as a snack food (boil them in the pod in salted water and then pop out the seeds) or can be used like a lima bean in soups or stews or as a side dish.
Planting edamame is similar to planting bush beans. Edamame likes rich soil with lots of organic matter. Because the plants’ roots are able to fix nitrogen, which means they can take nitrogen from the atmosphere and convert it to a more usable form like nitrates, you won’t have to feed them much during the growing season. The key is in inoculating the seeds—that is, treating the seeds with a bacteria that allows the roots to fix nitrogen. You can buy the seeds already inoculated or do it yourself.
Edamame is ready for harvest when the pods are slightly rounded with seed.
©iStockphoto.com/Brian Wathen
For more information on growing edamame, go the National Soybean Research Laboratory’s website at www.nsrl.uiuc.edu/aboutsoy/edamame.html.
Can-Do Corn
An all-American meal isn’t complete without corn on the cob. And I don’t mean just modern America. Corn, which is, by the way, a member of the grass family, was the main staple for Native Americans going back centuries. It’s thought to have originated in Central America some 80,000 years ago and was one of the first crops to be cultivated in the New World.
Today’s corn is very different from that early native corn. Plant breeders have developed new varieties that are sweeter, bigger, more prolific, and more resistant to pests and diseases than ever before.
Corn is grown as three types that are genetically different: normal sugary, sugary enhancer, and supersweet. They each contain genes that control the sugar content and texture, tenderness, and color of the kernels. Many varieties must be isolated from each other so that cross-pollination doesn’t cause the plants to revert to undesirable characteristics. Generally speaking, home gardeners prefer the sugary enhancer hybrids because of their high sugar content and the pleasing texture and tenderness of the kernels—and because they don’t need to be isolated from other types of corn.
Garden Guru Says
Most corn is wind pollinated. To be sure the pollen blows onto all the tassels of your corn crop, make short rows in a block rather than just a few long rows.
Corn is a relatively heavy feeder so be sure to amend your soil with manure or a nitrogen-supplying cover crop. Because of its need for nitrogen, corn is not the most eco-friendly crop you can grow. If you plan to have corn, think about planting a green manure, otherwise known as a cover crop, in that part of your garden to help reduce the amount of nitrogen you’d otherwise need to add to the soil.
Good drainage is important, too. Plant seed corn in furrows about 1 inch deep when the soil has reached at least 60 degrees Fahrenheit. Corn is one plant that doesn’t mind really hot weather, so you can keep planting every week or so well into the summer. Just keep in mind that you’ll need 60 to 90 days until the corn is ready to harvest.
Although corn will survive dryer weather than many vegetables, it must have regular irrigation. Weed control is also important, but use care when cultivating around corn plants, as the roots damage easily.
The Least You Need to Know
• Leaf lettuces are easy to grow. Sow new seeds every week or so as long as the weather isn’t hot for a long harvest season.
• By providing tomato plants with a soil rich in organic matter, you’ll have a healthy crop to harvest.
• Keep cucumbers well watered for the best cuke results.
• Radishes are easy to grow.
• Give squash plenty of room to spread out, and they’ll be happy plants.
• Keep up with bean harvesting to encourage the plants to continue production.
• Early Americans grew corn, and so can you—with some care and tending.