It’s Mid-March and time to get my vegetable containers planted. Every year I plant tall pots filled with vegetables such as beets, carrots, kale, lettuce, pak choi, peas, and radishes. It’s easy, and just a few pots can yield a lot of produce. Here’s how.
“With which of your products does one prep the soil for winter crops in a mini greenhouse, type Cold Frame Mini Green House by Juwel (I just got one)? It will face South-East. Any experience growing with this method? Any easy crop recommendations?” Question from Judy of Yarmouth Port, Massachusetts
Answer: Thank you for your questions. I have gardened in a cold frame and observed successful and unsuccessful cold-frame gardening. In your northern garden, I would place the cold frame in a sunny south-facing spot close to your home. The reflective heat from the house will provide some winter protection, and the warm sun will help heat the cold frame. If you can, I would also recommend sinking the cold frame a few inches below the soil level, even though I see that the frame you have purchased has clear sides. Really good cold frames are set below the soil level to better hold heat in winter. On unexpectedly hot fall or winter days, be sure to prop the top open to keep the internal temperature from getting too hot.
As far as soil, I would amend your ground soil at the base of the frame with good compost, like Black Gold Garden Compost Blend, at a 1:2 ratio of soil to mulch. The addition of earthworm castings would also be enriching. The lighter and more fertile your soil, the better your veggies will grow. Adding a layer of compost as a protective mulch would also be helpful. (Click here to learn more about creating the best soil for raised beds.)
It is essential to grow cool-season, frost-resistant crops. These are largely winter greens and root crops. The greens that I recommend include mâche, kale, lettuce, and spinach. The best root crops include winter carrots, radishes, and turnips. Parsley and chives are good herbs to try. (Click the following link to learn more about growing winter root crops and click this link to learn more about growing cool-season greens.)
I hope that this information helps!
Happy gardening,
Jessie Keith
“I live in SW, Florida – what is the best time of year for growing vegetables? Question from Colleen of Englewood, Florida
Answer: I see that your summers are sweltering, humid, long, and can be cloudy while your winters are short, cool, and sunnier. What you grow in these times depends on the crop and season.
In the “cooler” winter months, you can grow root and cole crops. Late winter and fall are good times to start many warm-season vegetables that don’t thrive in raging heat. In high summer, grow super heat-loving vegetables, like Southeast Asian eggplant and okra.
Here are some crops that I would recommend for each season:
Winter: cole crops, greens, and root crops. (Click here to read more about the best vegetables for fall and winter gardens in the South. And, click here to learn more about root crop growing. )
Late-Winter and Spring: beans, cucumbers, early tomatoes, and summer squash. (Watch the video below to learn more about growing cucumbers.)
Summer: okra, eggplant, peppers, and other heat-loving varieties and crops. (Click here to read more about heat-loving vegetables and here to read more about tomatoes for Florida.)
Fall: Plant as you would in spring.
Strawberries are also great for growing in Florida. To learn more about strawberries for Florida, read this article.
I hope that this information helps!
Happy gardening,
Jessie
“What is the pollinator for summer squash? I stopped trying to grow them after getting zero fruits last summer!” Question from Robin of Warner, New Hampshire
Answer: It is frustrating when squash do not set fruits. There can be several reasons why, but the primary reason is lack of pollination. The main pollinators are bees or all types, but squash (Cucurbita spp.) are native American plants, so they have unique native American bees specialized for pollinating them. Squash bees are small and come in two groups (Peponapis species and Xenoglossa species). They are solitary, meaning that they do not create hives, and they ONLY pollinate squash.
Your squash should be enough to encourage squash bees, but if they are not abundant in your area, then you will need to rely on other bees to do the job. One way to encourage more bees to visit your vegetable garden is to plant swaths of garden flowers for bees nearby. Surrounding your garden with flowers is a great method. Bees love easy flowers like zinnias, cosmos, marigolds, sunflowers, and black-eyed-Susans. (Watch the video below to learn more about flowers for bees.)
It is also essential to refrain from using toxic pesticides in your garden. These kill bees that happen to land on a sprayed spot. Harsh chemicals in the garden aren’t worth it.
Sometimes fertilizer imbalance can contribute to poor production. Be sure to feed your squash with a quality fertilizer formulated for vegetables. Low light can also cause poor fruit set, so give your plants full-day sun. For additional information, I recommend that you read this article: Why Aren’t My Squash Bearing Fruit and Do They Have Borers?
Happy Gardening!
Jessie Keith
Black Gold Horticulturist
“When creating no-till garden beds, do you think it’s best to till once and never again, or just use a never till method?” Question from Anthony of Bentonville, Arkansas
Answer: There are lots of benefits to going no-till with vegetable beds, especially when it comes to weed and weed seed control and the encouragement of soil beneficials. For me, creating a good no-till garden started with a big investment. I dug deep, enriched my beds to the hilt, and lifted and bermed my planting areas. (Lifting soil is especially important if your garden’s topography is low.)
Here’s my five-step method for starting a no-till garden.
Each year, I clean up and refresh the walkways and add fresh compost as a mulch. Invest in your no-till garden like this in the beginning, and you will be wowed by the results.
Happy gardening!
Jessie Keith
Black Gold Horticulturist
“Which is the natural and most efficient solution against pests, aphids, white powder, etc. that year after year destroy our vegetables?” Question from Doina of Bothell, Washington
Answer: I wish that I could give you a simple answer. There are so many vegetables and so many pests and diseases that attack them that it is impossible to know where to start. You specifically mention aphids and powdery mildew, so I will give you guidelines for managing these. It will be followed up by two general steps that you can take to discourage veggie pests and diseases.
Aphids are slow-moving insects that suck the juices out of tender plant parts, like stem tips and leaves. When aphid populations are high, they cover the tips of growing plants in masses. It looks creepy and can seem overwhelming. Lucky for you, they are easy to manage organically.
I always start by putting my hose setting on jet or center, then I spray. Aphids are delicate and can be spritzed off a plant in no time. To keep them from returning, follow up by spraying your plants with an insecticidal soap that is OMRI Listed for organic gardening. Keep them spritzed as you see more aphids. This method will put them in check quickly.
This one is really simple! Powdery mildew is a leaf surface mold that can be removed with all-natural products containing the mild chemical potassium bicarbonate, which is similar to baking soda. GreenCure® is one of the most popular commercial examples on the market. Just spray your mildew-ridden squash or cucumber leaves with these products and the spots disappear. It’s a remarkable transformation.
Here are two more steps towards protecting your plants from pests and diseases. Both may sound deceivingly obvious.
1. Don’t stress your vegetables. When plants become stressed, they create stress chemicals that are detected by insect pests that are then attracted to the plants. What’s worst is that many common pests, like cucumber beetles and leafhoppers, spread common vegetable diseases. Stress also makes plants far more susceptible to disease. Weak plants have weakened immunity. So, grow your plants in well-fortified soil (see our long list of Black Gold soil amendments), provide them with good fertilizer throughout the season, and keep them well watered.
2. Choose resistant vegetable varieties (!!!). Choosing good varieties is the single most important way to protect your crops. When selecting varieties to grow in your garden, look for descriptions of pest and disease resistance. Award-winning plants also tend to be resistant and robust. Plants bred for resistance are the easiest to care for naturally and organically.
I also suggest you read the Fafard (our sister brand) article, Beating Vegetable Garden Pests Naturally, as well. It has even more information to help you. I hope that these tips help!
Happy gardening,
Jessie Keith
Black Gold Horticulturist
“I have put up a fence, a scarecrow, dog hair, a windmill, aluminum pans, liquid fence and still the deer come in at night and eat off my peas, cukes, and beans. I just called today to talk to wildlife pro from the county to see if they can do something as I live in town and the deer don’t belong here. What else can I do? Thanks for any help you can provide.” Question from Sylvia of Belle Plaine, Minnesota
Answer: Deer are such a nuisance and will eat up crops down to the ground quickly if given the chance. Physical barriers are better than any available chemical deer repellent, so opt for these if you want to really protect food crops from these monstrous four-legged pests.
Was your deer fence tall enough? Fences are truly the most effective means of control, but they have to be considerably tall (7-8 feet high) to keep deer out. If your fence was shorter, then I would try fencing again. A rugged, permanent fence, like a chainlink fence, will be expensive, but there are other less expensive options. Poly deer fencing is reputed to be very good and pretty affordable. You could also take a comparable but even less expensive route and create a wood-framed fence to support a mesh of lightweight deer fencing. This type of fence will work well as long as the fence and entryways are fully secured.
This means surrounding your vegetable rows or trellises with surrounding supports and covering them with strong netting or floating garden fabric secured well around the plants. Movable hoop frames covered with summer-weight garden fabric offer great cover to bushy or low-growing veggies in rows. Vining crops along the ground can simply be covered with garden fabric and firmly secured along the edges. You may get a few hoofprints around your cucumbers, but the deer should not be able to get through if the garden fabric edges are held down well.
For added protection, you may try a couple more highly reputed deer repellents to use in conjunction with fencing and/or covers. One that gets rave reviews is Deer Mace. It can’t hurt.
Deer troubles in the vegetable garden are tough and terrible; there is no such thing as a deer-resistant vegetable (maybe some deer-resistant herbs). So, fortify your barriers, double up, and hopefully, the deer will have no chance of reaching your homegrown vegetables.
Happy gardening,
Jessie Keith
Black Gold Horticulturist
“What are the best plants and/or flowers to deter insects from a vegetable garden?” Question from Vesta of Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia
Answer: Research has shown that some companion plantings will reduce the number of insect pests that attack specific vegetable crops. These companions fall under two categories: trap crops and insect-repelling companion plants. Trap crops are plantings that attract insect pests, luring them away from favorite vegetables. These take up a lot of space and are not practical for most home gardeners, so I will just cover repellent companion plants that have been shown to really help ward off vegetable pests.
These are plants that emit chemicals that deter insects. Repelling plants will never totally protect vegetables from the pests that attack them, but they can reduce pest numbers. Here are a few good examples of vegetable pests and the companion plants that repel them.
Some culinary herbs have been shown to offer repellent protection to specific veggies. For example, plantings of tall basil (Ocimum basilicum) can reduce the number of tomato hornworms on tomatoes and thrips on flowers. Plant-damaging moths, aphids, and mites may also be repelled by chives and other onion (Allium spp.) relatives. These pests attack a wide host of vegetable plants, such as brassicas (collards, cabbage, broccoli, and cauliflower), beans, and squash, so a border of chives might be really helpful in the garden. Sage (Salvia officinalis), rosemary (Rosmarinus officinalis), hyssop (Hyssop officinalis), thyme (Thymus vulgaris), dill (Anethum graveolens), and chamomile (Chamaemelum nobile) may also provide brassicas some protection against common pests.
Catnip (Nepeta cataria), wormwood (Artemisia absinthium), southernwood (Artemisia abrotanum), and tansy (Tanacetum vulgare) reduce damage by flea beetles, a pest that attacks eggplant, brassicas, tomatoes, and other common crops. One downside is to these repellent plants is that they tend to spread and become weedy. Of these, I recommend catnip the most. Just clip it back occasionally to keep it from flowering and setting seed.
A few common garden flowers also have repelling qualities. Nasturtiums (Tropaeolum majus) may help brassica crops, and marigolds help tomatoes by repelling the tomato root-knot nematode, a debilitating underground pest. (Click here to learn more about how marigolds help tomatoes.)
All of the companion herbs and flowers mentioned will flourish in soil amended with fertilizer-enriched Black Gold Garden Soil. I hope that some of these tips. When planting to protect, it is most helpful to plant a close row or ring of repelling plants near the vegetables that you want to protect.
Happy gardening!
Jessie Keith
Black Gold Horticulturist
Can you plant annual flowers and vegetables in the same raised bed? Question from Diane or Newark, Ohio
Answer: Sure! In many cases, annuals can be beneficial to vegetables by warding off pests (click here to read about the protective power of marigolds) and/or attract pollinators. Compact flowers that will not compete for too much sunlight or water are best. Here are some of my favorite flowers to plant in my vegetable garden for beauty, cut flowers, and to feed pollinators. These sun-lovers are all effortless to grow.
Try adding any of these pretty annuals to your vegetable garden this season for functional color.
Happy gardening!
Jessie Keith
Black Gold Horticulturist
“When is the best time to plant fruits and vegetables?” Question from Brittany or Pound, Virginia
Answer: It depends on the fruits or vegetables you are planting, their preferred weather, life cycle, and how long they take to bear harvestable produce. Overall, annual fruits and vegetables are divided into cool-season and warm-season categories.
Cool-season annual vegetables grow best in the spring and fall when growing conditions are mild. Vegetables in the category include lettuce, peas, radishes, spinach, cabbage, broccoli, carrots, and turnips, among others. All of these grow pretty quickly, meaning they grow from seed to harvest in as little as one to three months. Start them in either early spring, for spring harvest, or late summer, for fall harvest.
Warm-season annual fruits and vegetables require warm growing conditions to produce well and generally require more days before they bear produce. These need to be started in spring and planted after the threat of frost has passed and garden soils have warmed up. During the hot days of summer, they will start to produce. Vegetables in this category include corn, tomatoes, peppers, winter and summer squash, beans, melons, sweet potatoes and cucumbers. Keep in mind that some of these, like pumpkins, can take as many as 110 harvest days before bearing fruit.
Perennial fruits and veggies for the garden, like strawberries, rhubarb, and asparagus, can be planted in spring or fall.
To learn more, I recommend you read some of the following Black Gold articles and videos about growing fruits and vegetables!
