Veggies Round 1

March 26th, 2010

  More than half of my vegetable garden is planted… how about you?

   Cool-season crops tolerate frosts. End of March is normally not too soon to plant onion sets, cabbage and broccoli plants, and seeds of radishes, spinach, peas, lettuce and mesclun.

Me filling a Wall-o-Water.

   I also planted eyes of ‘Red Norland’ potatoes and even two tomato plants under Wall-o-Water plant protectors. Wall-o-Waters are circular plastic gizmos with foot-and-a-half-tall cylinders that you fill with water. Place it around a tomato, and it makes a little teepee-like portable greenhouse. The water warms during the day and keeps the plants above freezing at night inside.

   I’ve used Wall-o-Waters for 20 years and have never lost a tomato yet, even though I set the plants out April 1 or sooner. You don’t get fruits 6 weeks early, but the protection usually gives me ripe tomatoes by late June. I start my own early tomatoes under lights in the basement in late January and speed ripening by using cherry tomatoes and a very early variety (i.e. ‘Early Girl’ or ‘Ultimate Opener’) for my Wall-o-Water starts.

   Garden centers usually carry Wall-o-Waters (at least some of the time), and they’re also available through most seed and garden-product catalogs. Here’s a link to Planet Natural’s page listing them at three for $8.95: http://www.planetnatural.com/site/wallo-water.html.

   In the next two weeks, I’ll be planting seeds of red beets and carrots plus transplants of cauliflower, radicchio, chard and leeks that I started inside under the basement plant lights. Round 3 happens in mid-May when I plant the main-season tomatoes plus peppers, hot peppers, cucumbers, melons, beans and squash.

   There was a time not long ago when just about everybody had vegetable gardens. In the last 20 years, though, they’ve become almost rare around here. If I see them in one out of every 10 yards, that’d be pushing it.

   It’s been heartening to see veggies making a comeback. Lots of newbies gave it a shot last year, and I’m getting even more questions from people interested in starting edible gardens this year. I don’t think this was a 1-year fad. Hopefully it’s not just a 2-year fad either.

   Now’s a good time to dig up some of the lawn and put it to better use. Here’s a link to a past column that has some basic, get-started veggie info: https://georgeweigel.net/favorite-past-garden-columns/edibles/vegetable-gardening-rebirth.

   I just ran into a retired Hershey fellow who’s just started a business in which he’ll come out to your house and dig and install a raised-bed garden for you. His name is Jerry McNeal, and here’s a link for more info on his service: http://inadaygardens.com. The cost is $165 for a 4-by-4 garden and $259 for a 4-by-8, including materials, soil, labor and some seeds to get you started.

   Haven’t seen any groundhogs yet…