susan lowman-thomas april 2011. no pesticides better taste exercise
TRANSCRIPT
Build Your Own Salad!
Susan Lowman-ThomasApril 2011
What’s not to like?
No pesticid
es
Better taste
Exercise
Help your kids and grandkids!
• Teach them where food comes from• Give them an
outside experience• Help them
exercise• Help them eat
better• Pass gardening to
another generation
Color!
Want these in YOUR body?????
90% of all fungicides & 30% of all insecticides are potentially cancer-causing agents
Where to start…
Germination Guide (Plant twice as deep as seed size)
Beans (dwarf) 7-10Beans (climbing) 7-10Beetroot 10-14Broad beans 10-14Broccoli 6-10Brussels Sprouts 6-10Cabbage 6-10Capsicum (Peppers) 10-14 Carrots 10-21Cauliflower 6-10Celery 14-21Chinese Cabbage 6-10
Cucumber 6-10Eggplant 10-14Endive 10-14Leeks 10-14Lettuce 6-10Marrow 6-10Melons 6-10Okra 10-14Onions 10-14Onions (Spring) 10-14Parsnip 21-28
Peas (Dwarf) 7-10Pumpkin 6-10Radish 5-8Rhubarb 10-21Silverbeet 10-14Spinach 14-21Squash 6-10Swedes 6-10Sweet Corn 6-10Tomato 10-14Turnips 6-10
Elements
Square Foot Gardening
4 x 8 Salad Garden
4 x 8 Salad Garden
• 2 tomato plants• 4 lettuce plants (head lettuce such
as Mesa)• 12 radishes• 4 lettuce plants (leaf lettuce such as
Romaine)• 1 bell pepper or other pepper plant• 2 baby spinach plants• 1 cucumber plant• 2 arugula plants• 2 radicchio plants• 5 onions or shallots• 1 Swiss chard plant
2 sq ft Batavia or romaine lettuce (2 plants)
2 sq ft loose-leaf lettuce (8 plants)
2 sq ft mixed greens; tatsoi, mizuna, arugula, etc. (8 plants)
1 sq ft spinach (4 plants)
1 sq ft Swiss chard or broccoli (1 plant)
2 sq ft sugar snap peas
3 sq ft radishes, carrots, green onions, baby beets, etc.
3 sq ft herbs and edible flowers
4 x 4 Garden
Take It Easy !
Lettuce
• 4 types: looseleaf, butterhead, romaine, and crisphead • All can be planted in early spring• Can be started indoors 4 to 6 weeks
earlier• For small space salad gardens,
looseleafs are good
Lettuce likes: • Spring• A shady spot in the hotter months• Fertile, well-draining soil, with organic
matter• Radishes, strawberries and cucumbers
Lettuce dislikes:• Getting too hot in full sunshine • Being watered in the evening
• Overcrowding • Slugs and snails
Radishes• Go from seed to harvest in just 30 days• Sow the seed outdoors as soon as the
soil can be worked• Replant new seeds every 10 days• Plant radishes in narrow bands by themselves or • Mix them with lettuce and spinach
Spinach• Like other salad
crops, spinach prefers to grow and develop while the weather is still cool and moist.
• In the early spring, sow the seeds directly in the garden and thin the young plants to stand three or four inches apart.
ChivesPerennial member of the
onion familyProduces masses of
fresh greens from early spring till late fall
The flowers are edible Plant chives in a corner
of the garden where they won’t be disturbed when you do spring soil preparation
Cabbage, Broccoli, Cauliflower, Brussels Sprouts
• Start indoors under grow lights about 6 to 8 weeks before planting
• Protect your plants from caterpillars by covering with row covers
• Or spray the plants at weekly intervals with Bacillus thuringiensis
• Cauliflower and Brussels sprouts often do better as fall crops so start them in midsummer
Swiss Chard• Swiss chard is one of the best kept secrets in the
salad garden• Members of the beet family• Grow quickly from seed and look as home in the
flower border as they do in the vegetable garden• Very heat tolerant so you can harvest Swiss chard
throughout the summer
Carrots
• “Hardest" salad crop for many gardeners to grow
• Seeds can be slow to germinate • Difficult to thin• Sow a handful of carrot seeds in
4-inch plastic pots and starts them under grow lights
• Transplant each pot of carrot seedlings directly into the garden as whole units, spacing the clumps about 12 inches apart
• Carrots don’t seem to mind being crowded into their small units
Carrots like: Cool, wet weather, and can be sown before the
last frost has passed Lots of sunshine - choose a sunny spot but keep
them well watered Fertile, sandy and well-draining soil, without loads of stones in it Onions, chives, radishes, sage and rosemary
Carrots dislike:Long, hot, dry spells which bakes the ground hard Soil which is heavy, consists largely of clay or is full of stones Ground that has been prepared with manure or compost Too much nitrogen - it spoils their taste
Add Flowers!
• Nasturiums• Roses• Violets• Calendulas• Daylilies• Sage• Dianthus• Chrysanthemu
m• Borage
Tips for Salad Gardens in Pots
• Use the right pots • Use fresh potting soil every year • Grow vertically• Use bamboo spiral stakes• Dangle from a wire basket that
hangs on the fence• Choose easy crops, like cherry
tomatoes or herbs• Harvest regularly • Move containers around as needed
Cilantro
1. Select a container at least 18 x 82. Fill the pot with a fast-draining potting soil
& organic fertilizer3. Before seeding, moisten the soil. Mix
seeds in a bowl with sand (3:1, sand:seed) so they'll disperse more evenly.
4. Sow the seeds, then cover lightly with soil. 5. Gently mist the soil so as not to displace
the seeds. 6. Place containers in full sun or light shade.
Seeds should germinate in 7 to 10 days. 7. Harvest at least weekly
LoveThose Tomatoes!
Unusual Veggie Gardenswww.instructables.com
Potato Towers – Sunset Magazine
March 13 — I snagged a bunch of reed screening from the nearest Home Depot and chopped it into smaller sizes (it came 12' tall!).
I found that I needed to wrap it around last year's tomato cages to give it some shape.
Rebar stakes secure the cages to the ground.
Grow Year-Round
•Covered raised beds•Cold frames•Containers
Frugality Rocks!
• Veggies in bags• Blinds for labels• Garden cloches (bell jars) out of bottles• Toilet paper roll or newspaper pots• Toilet paper seed tape• Curtain row-covers
Questions? Google or Bing!