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Vegetables 101

Vegetables straight from the garden to your plate are hard to resist. Not only do they taste better, you know where they came from and what went into their production. Are you thinking about starting a vegetable garden to save money, to feel assured that your produce is pesticide free, or just because you want to? Here are some basics to get you growing.

Pick a site that receives at least 6 hours of sun per day, is protected from the wind, and keep it close to a convenient supply of water. Provide your bed with deep, easily worked, well drained soil containing at least 5% organic matter. Most vegetables do well with a pH of 6.2 to 6.8 which is slightly acid. If your soil is high in clay, consider building raised beds. Now comes the fun part.

Here in the Pacific Northwest, except for the winter of 2008, we are blessed with a climate that allows us to grow something edible almost 12 months out of the year. Sometimes, the hard part is selecting the vegetables and varieties that are appropriate for the season. Our teaser days of sun in March or April, the early garden shows and retailers entice us into planting those warm season tomatoes, peppers, beans or basil too early. Inevitably, the cool wet weather returns and our transplants suffer.

Each type of plant has its own optimum air temperature at which it performs the best. Warmer nighttime temperatures are most critical for fruit set on peppers, tomatoes, cucumber and melons. Soil temperature also plays a key role in determining the rate of germination for direct sown seeds and plant growth. The nitrogen cycle, which is important in making nutrients available to plants, is inactive below 40 degrees F and most active between 80–90 degrees F. Generally, we have a 50–50 chance of being frost free after April 20th up until October 15th with an average of around 177 frost free days. With this in mind, the following chart summarizes basic information regarding planting dates and approximate time to harvest for many popular vegetables. You will notice that many vegetables are suitable for both early spring (cool season) and late fall planting and harvesting. Keep in mind that this is generalized information and may not fit your particular site or our current weather patterns.

When selecting your plants, look for disease resistant varieties that are bred for our climate conditions. Catalogs like Territorial Seed Company, and Nichols Garden Nursery located in the Northwest are great resources for varieties particularly adapted to our area. With an existing bed, practice crop rotation. Crops in the same family may host the same diseases, so rotate families, not just species. For example, foliar blights are common diseases of tomatoes and potatoes, and can severely damage both crops. Snap beans, cabbages, and cucumbers (any vegetable not in the Solananceae/Nightshade family) would be a better choice. Once your vegetables are off to a good start, keep them healthy with adequate moisture, feeding, and weeding.

There are myriads of variations on design and layout of the vegetable garden, based on space available, interest level, and maintenance - the possibilities are limited only by imagination. Intensive gardening techniques such as close planting to shade out weeds, raised beds, vertical gardening, interplanting, and succession planting are means to coax maximum harvest out of minimal spaces. These methods all merit separate discussion. Many vegetable varieties are suitable for deck planters. For a comprehensive discussion of container vegetable gardening, complete with directions for a self watering planter check out this University of Maryland Cooperative website. Whether you are a beginner or a veteran the delights of home grown vegetables can be yours to enjoy.

References

http://www.territorialseed.com/

http://www.nicholsgardennursery.com/

Sunset Books, ed. Western Garden Book, 5th ed., Menlo Park, Lane Publishing, 1989.

Pat Patterson. Vegetable Gardening. In Sustainable Gardening, the Oregon-Washington Master Gardener Handbook, OSU, reprinted December, 2004.