susan lowman-thomas april 2011. no pesticides better taste exercise

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!