SUMMER HARVEST
Five easy veggies to grow at home
My vegetable garden is loaded with fresh produce for many months each season. My list of favourite vegetables includes some obvious choices, but my reason for choosing them is not always so obvious.
TOMATOES
My recipe for the best possible tomato crop:
1 Size matters. If you’re buying your plants from the garden centre, buy the shorter ones. The stockier the better and look for dark green foliage.
2 Prepare the soil. Dig a hole, about three shovelfuls. Fill the hole with triple mix or vegetable soil.
3 Plant deeply. Bury the plant up to the second set of leaves. Push the soil firmly around the main stem to ensure good contact between the soil and plant. The stem at the bottom of the plant, which is now submerged in soil, will develop roots that will help to anchor it.
4 Water preferably with a compost-tea solution. This works well if you have a composter and a rain barrel. Simply take an old pillow case and half fill it with compost. Drop it into your rain barrel and leave it there for 24 to 48 hours. The water will be infused with nutrients from the compost.
5 Water deeply in the morning and at the soil level. Wet leaves are very susceptible to blight.
6 Stake: Getting your tomatoes off the ground will double your crop. It is best to do this in mid-June using a spiral stake. Staking your tomatoes helps to increase air circulation (drier leaves).
7 Fertilize. Tomatoes are heavy feeders. Throughout the season, you will need to fertilize them either with the compost-tea water or a tomato fertilizer.
8 Bordo mixture is used as a blight prevention tactic. Bordo is a natural product, with copper as an active ingredient. This is important. Start applications early in the summer and repeat every 10 days to two weeks to avoid blight in August.
9 Harvest often. The more often that you pick your ripe tomatoes, the more tomatoes the plant will produce. True for all “fruiting” plants, including beans. Favourite varieties: Big Boy, Sweet One Million (small, cherry type) Brandywine (Heritage) and San Marzano (paste/cooking)
PEPPERS
Peppers are members of the tomato family (solanaceae family, meaning sun loving) and they love heat. Grow peppers as you would tomatoes (see above instructions). Space the plant 60 centimetres apart, but there is no need to stake them or apply Bordo since unlike tomatoes, they are not susceptible to blight.
Peppers ripen more slowly than tomatoes, but when they do start to produce, they keep on going until frost. I usually pick my first pepper in early August. Favourite variety: California Wonder
SNAP BEANS
Snap beans are easy to grow in small gardens as they bush up into compact plants that produce a generous quantity of beans. One plant will “crop” for up to two weeks. Sow successive crops — one every 10 days to two weeks — beginning as soon as the soil is warm (about 18C) until late July. Favourite varieties: Prevail green, Dusky green, Slender wax yellow and Gold Rush yellow.
CARROTS
Why would you not grow carrots? They are easy to grow, take up little space in the garden and generally only demand two important things: a deep, loose, well-drained soil and sun. Make sure you add generous quantities of sand to your soil before planting — at least 50 cm deep — otherwise, your carrots will bend and split and end up looking like they belong in the circus.
When you sow carrot seeds, be sure to mix them into a small container of dry sand. They are easier to spread evenly that way. Sow seeds about three cm apart for best results. Favourite varieties: Bilbo hybrid and Juno hybrid (Canadian)
RADISHES AND BEETS
I put these two veggies in the same category as they grow so similarly. They are root crops, are easy to grow (virtually every seed you sow will produce a plant) and they mature quickly, though none more quickly than radishes.
Get the kids involved when you sow radishes as children are generally impatient green thumbs.
From sowing to harvest is seldom more than 30 days (beets 45 to 60 days).
As with all root crops, make sure the soil is well drained. Radishes and beets are best sown in successive crops about 10 days apart, beginning in late April through to late June. Favourites varieties: Radish: Easter Egg; Beets: Kestrel hybrid