We're going to talk about vegetables and herbs. One of the great things about vegetables and herbs is that they can be intermixed within a garden. Vegetables are going to produce a fruit during their life cycle. That fruit was a flower that has been pollinated. For example, like a tomato, right? That's going to produce a fruit throughout the whole season. Herbs, on the other hand, are really nice, because you're going to be taking the foliage and using them for various things.
Something to consider is that when you are not growing your plants from seed you're going to want to go buy a plant. Purchase a cucumber that's been started from seed in a greenhouse, then you're going to have the plant. This gains you probably about four to six weeks and, in some cases, two months of growth. This is really great because you can get a tomato plant now, and within a shorter period of time that tomato will be providing you fruit. You're paying for time, not “thyme”, but time. You can buy just about anything in a plant form except for carrots and celery and things like that, which need to be started from seed in ground. Once that ground temperature gets around that 60 degrees, which is going to be around when lilacs are blooming, that's a great time to start putting your garden into the ground.
Some people are really into either canning or they just want that occasional tomato for a burger or a BLT. When you're picking out your tomato be looking at is how much they produce, how big the plant, how big the fruit gets and then which ones are specifically good for canning. A lot of the tags will say what type of tomato is great for canning. Whereas some other ones are going to be better for that slice on the burger, the slice on your BLT.
One tomato plant is going to produce a lot of tomatoes. That's one thing to do the think about when you're picking those out. You may want to get one for cutting, one for canning and the other one to be using at dinner time. Cherry tomatoes are great producers. They will produce tomatoes daily for people. You could coordinate with a neighbor, “Hey, you know what? I'm going to grow this tomato, you grow this tomato,” And then that's share them.
The best place for a zucchini plant is in your neighbor's garden, because they will produce, and they're very, very prolific. Make sure that you get those zucchinis off the vine before they've turned into big, huge zucchinis.
Something to consider once your garden is really starting to develop is weed control. Weed control is very, very important is that a weed will grow faster and it'll take away the nutrients that is good beneficial for your garden. So, make sure to pull those weeds out when they're small. They'll come out easier, you're not going to do damage to the other plants.
If you want to put some type of mulch down, it helps keep the soil in place and keep things from eroding. Some people will use ground up lawn clippings that came off the lawn that have not been had any type of chemical product used on them. That works well. Remember, mulch is good when it's maybe about one inch thick. Don't put too much on, otherwise that will actually work against you in it'll heat up the soil. Then you'll have what's called anaerobic activity. That starves the soil and then it starts to damage the plant.
A lot of people use paper or newspaper or they'll use a black paper or a weed barrier. You plant through that. That works very well. It also helps up to warm up the soil.
Erik Helland visits with Lori Walsh on In the Moment each Thursday. Please share questions that you may have, join the conversation:
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