Veggie varieties for small spaces
Lack of room doesn’t mean reduced yields
MY ARTICLE from two weeks ago, espousing the merits of space-saving raised garden planters, demonstrated some solutions for growing vegetables where little or no garden space exists.
It’s important to understand that careful selection of space-saving vegetable varieties will help maximise the output from these smaller planting beds.
Before we plunge headlong into the list, it’s worth considering the pros and cons of these stand-alone gardens.
As some of the planters are fairly small, a few are quite portable when empty, enabling the owner to take them to a new property if moving.
When full, most are horrendously heavy, particularly the wicking bed planters! A smaller wicking bed of around 2 sqm can easily contain up to 200litres of water, plus the same quantity of moist soil, with a combined weight of maybe 300kg plus!
Also, no matter what the manufacturers may say, eventually the soil and the materials in the reservoir below (wood chip, straw etc.) will have to be replaced.
It’s also relatively easy to change the chemical properties, such as pH, of the soil in these planters, which gives the gardener greater control if some crops require specialised conditions such as an alkaline or acid soil.
So what are some varieties of veggies suitable for these smaller planting areas?
Looking at vegetables suitable for growing in the cooler months, let’s begin with beetroot.
If growing from seed, soak them for a few hours to get moisture through the corky outer covering for improved germination rates.
Best smaller varieties to try are ‘Baby Beets’, ‘Cylindra’ and ‘Mini Gourmet’, with the larger ‘Derwent Globe’ and ‘Detroit’ also good choices. Sow from early autumn to winter, and expect to fit up to 50 plants per square metre (sqm).
Cauliflower is a great cool season veggie, but some varieties are large and can take up to four months to mature. Smaller cultivars such as ‘Sixty Days’ (to maturity!), ‘Snowball’ (70 days) and ‘Mini’ (around 80-90 days) will mature faster and take up less room in the planters. You might fit up to six plants in a sqm (‘Mini’ – up to 20 plants!)
My favourite broccoli plants are the cut-and-come-again ‘Green Sprouting Calabrese’ and ‘Broccoli De Cicco’, mainly for their prolonged side-shoot harvest period (up to 6 months). Plant from late summer to late autumn. Some varieties are now heat tolerant for summer harvest. Expect to fit up to eight plants per sqm.
You can’t go past the ‘Sugarloaf’ variety of cabbage for quick growth and efficient use of space. Best grown from spring to autumn, you’ll fit around seven of these sweet-tasting cabbages in a sq. m.
It seems that the garden peas of old, that is, podded types requiring shelling, are losing favour to the whole pod varieties such as snowpea and sugarsnap. Both these varieties are available as dwarf, bushy plants, so will take up less room than those requiring a trellis or support. Look for seeds of snowpea ‘Oregon Sugar’, sugarsnap ‘Sugar Ann’ and ‘Dwarf’. Up to six plants in a sqm.
Some carrot varieties are good to plant nearly all year-round in our region.
It’s best to grow from seed as you’ll maximise the number of straight carrots this way. Look for ‘All Seasons’, ‘Topweight’, ‘Western Red’ and, of course, ‘Baby’ for planting in your space-saving planters.
Don’t add too much organic matter as this may increase ‘forking’ of the roots as well. You can cram up to 40 carrots in a square metre you know!
The warmer months are great for planting beans, and you’ll fit up to 24 dwarf bush beans in your square metre of planter bed.
Old favourites (only grow from seed) are ‘Gourmet Delight’ and ‘Pioneer’. Plant two seeds together for an almost double whammy!
Lettuce are usually a warm season salad green, but some are able to be grown all year round. Best varieties are ‘Royal Oakleaf’, ‘Mignonette’, ‘Buttercrunch’ and ‘Salad Bowl’ (red and green).
Lettuce are sweeter if grown quickly, so keep the water up to them in the warmer months.
This will also reduce the tendency to “bolt’ to seed as well. Around 10-20 per sqm.
Most gardeners wouldn’t consider cucumber as a space saving veggie, but two varieties, ‘Lebanese’ and the aptly-named ‘Spacemaster’ will produce ample cukes from a couple of plants per sqm. (grow them up a 1m trellis to save more space).
Spinach varieties have now been bred for warmer and cooler months.
Look for ‘Winter Giant’ for (you guessed it!) the cooler months, and ‘Summer Supreme’ (right again!) for the warmer times. Some clever placement will see up to 15 plants in each square metre of bed.
One can’t leave out a tomato plant or three in these raised planters.
Most tomato varieties are fairly large beasts, and only judicious pruning and staking will reduce their footprint in a small space.
However, one variety, ‘Patio’, will produce medium-sized fruit on a bush that shouldn’t need staking. Look for other varieties of tomato that are of the “determinate” type, as they generally don’t need staking. Two to three plants per sqm.
Happy small-space gardening!