Step 6A - Get the garden in

May 6, 2009 in Grow It Yourself | No comments

The soil has warmed up and so have the days and nights, so it’s time to get the garden in!

The best time to plant is either early or late in the day when it is a bit cool and plants won’t get stressed by heat and blazing sun. A slightly overcast day is actually ideal seeding and planting conditions, but let’s face it - you get the garden in when you have time to get the garden in, and that’s just fine.

Supplies

The first thing you need to do is assemble your plants, seeds, and trusty tools (garden knife or trowel, gloves, shovel). If you are planting tomatoes and beans, grab your fertilizer and bean inoculant, too.

Now, maybe you’ve already sketched out your garden layout with a sharp pencil - to scale - on a fresh sheet of graph paper and know exactly where your plants and seeds are going to go. Or, if you’re like us, you stand and stare at the garden for the better part of an hour, and then make your move.

When deciding where to locate your plants and seeds, here’s what you need to think about:

Height: How tall will each plant get? You don’t want tall plants to shade out shorter ones, so put the tall ones at the back and the short ones at the front. Consult your seed pack or plant tag for size at maturity. If it’s not on there, check out our guidelines or do a search on the wide wide world o’ web.

Spacing: How far apart do you need to plant your seeds and plants? Your seed pack should tell you this. Also check out our guidelines.

Companion planting: Some plants just make a good team. Sometimes one attracts a pollinator that another one needs, or one chases away a pest that likes to attack another. Lettuce likes green onion. Tomatoes like basil and marigolds.

Convenience: It only makes sense: put the plants that you will be picking the most in the most convenient and accessible place. When you want to run out of the house and snip some lettuce and chives for supper, you shouldn’t have to reach across to the middle of the bed or take a lot of extra steps to reach. Plants like potatoes that aren’t picked frequently can be located in a spot that is more out of the way.

Ah, beauty: What colours, textures, and shapes will look good together? Will you group plants in a circle or a square, or in a wavy row? Saying goodbye to traditional, straight rows makes things more interesting and lets you pack in the plants.

After much staring and pondering with hands on hips, here’s what we decided:

We would locate the herbs - parsley, chives, thyme, basil, and oregano - at the front of the bed because they a) are short, b) should be handy for supper picking. A late-breaking addition to the herb garden - mostly for prettiness - is Pineapple Sage (the bright yellow one). This will throw out red flowers that will attract hummingbirds and serve as a bit of a break between the herb section and the vegetable section.

The lettuce would be planted together in 18″ square blocks surrounding the stepping stone. Each block would contain a different type and colour of lettuce, and we saw this in a book once and thought it was real cute. We would put in plants and throw some seed down in between the plants so that we have one crop now and one crop later.

The green onions (in the blue bag) would be planted in circular clumps and square blocks outside the lettuce blocks.

The tomatoes would be planted 3 to 4 feet apart along the edges of the garden. The one that would mature first and the cherry tomato would be located along the path where they would be handy for picking. The ones that would be planted at the back are indeterminate tomatoes - these kinds keep growing taller and taller throughout the season. The ones planted at the front are determinate - they grow to a certain size and stop, so they are shorter.

The three different kinds of potatoes would be planted in 3 short rows down the middle of the bed in between the tomatoes and behind the stepping stone.

The two varieties of beans would be planted in straight rows both in front of and behind the trellis. One variety would be planted on the left side of the trellis and the other on the right, resulting in a half-and-half situation.

The flowers (violas) would be planted along the edges of the garden bed in the lettuce and herb areas, and will spill over the bricks.

Before you start putting things in the ground, set the plants in place, then adjust, making sure you are leaving enough room for the plants to grow to their full potential, get enough sun (not get shaded by bigger plants), be convenient for picking, and look real nice.

That’s the plan, folks.

One more thing. When you take your plants out of their pots and put them in the ground, they have to adjust to a different environment and conditions, so they go through a bit of shock. Make it easy on them by watering them prior to planting.