Plants for a Vegetable Garden

Great plants to include in your vegetable garden should be dictated by those vegetables that you enjoy eating as well as those vegetables and herbs that you use when cooking.

Tomatoes

Tomatoes are a popular favorite. If space is limited in your garden, try hanging tomato plants in which the tomatoes literally grow upside down. This may be a great way to have your tomatoes and grow them without taking up valuable real estate.

Greens

Summer gardens provide an excellent atmosphere for growing greens such as broccoli, lettuce, and cabbage. Collard greens, mustard greens, and turnip greens are also good vegetable garden inclusions.

You will need to plan carefully the placement of your vegetables and do research on individual watering and shade requirements. It helps to plant those that need partial sunlight in the shadow of those plants that will grow taller and provide shade for the smaller plants.

It also helps to keep the thirstier plants closer together and further away from those plants that require less water to sustain them.

Beans

Pole beans: These running beans can be trained along old fences and with little urging will run up the stalks of the tallest sunflowers. Plant these tall beans at the extreme rear end of each vegetable row. Make arches with supple tree limbs, binding them over to form the arch. Train the beans over these.

Beans like rich, warm, sandy soil. In order to assist the soil be sure to dig deeply, and work it over thoroughly for bean culture. An advantage in early digging of soil is that it brings to the surface eggs and larvae of insects. The birds eager for food will even follow the plough to pick from the soil these choice morsels.

Bush beans are planted in drills about eighteen inches apart, while the pole-bean rows should be three feet apart. The drills for the bush limas should be further apart than those for the other dwarf beans say three feet. This amount of space gives opportunity for cultivation with the hoe. If the running beans climb too high just pinch off the growing extreme end, and this will hold back the upward growth.

Among bush beans are the dwarf, snap or string beans, the wax beans, the bush limas, one variety of which is known as brittle beans.

The pole beans are the pole limas, wax and scarlet runner. The scarlet runner is a beauty for decorative effects. The flowers are scarlet and are fine against an old fence. When planting beans put the bean in the soil edgewise with the eye down.

Beets

Beets like rich, sandy loam, also. Beets should not be transplanted. If the rows are one foot apart there is ample space for cultivation. Whenever the weather is really settled, then these seeds may be planted. Young beet tops make fine greens. Greater care should be taken in handling beets than usually is shown. When beets are to be boiled, if the tip of the root and the tops are cut off, the beet bleeds. This means a loss of good material. Pinching off such parts with the fingers and doing this not too closely to the beet itself is the proper method of handling.

Cabbage Family

The cabbage family is a large one. There is the cabbage proper, then cauliflower, broccoli or a more hardy cauliflower, kale, Brussels sprouts and kohlrabi, a cabbage-turnip combination. There are big coarse members of the beet and cabbage families called the mangel wurzel and rutabaga.

Cauliflower is a kind of refined, high-toned cabbage relative. It needs a little richer soil than cabbage and cannot stand the frost. The outer leaves must be bent over, as in the case of the young cabbage, in order to get the white head. The dwarf varieties are rather the best to plant.

Kale is not quite so particular a cousin. It can stand frost. Rich soil is necessary, and early spring planting, because of slow maturing. It may be planted in September for early spring work.

Brussels sprouts are a very popular member of this family. Brussels sprouts are interesting in their growth. The plant stalk runs skyward. At the top, umbrella like, is a close head of leaves, but this is not what we eat. Shaded by the umbrella and packed all along the stalk are delicious little cabbages or sprouts. Like the rest of the family a rich soil is needed and plenty of water during the growing period. The seed should be planted in May, and the little plants transplanted into rich soil in late July. The rows should be eighteen inches apart, and the plants one foot apart in the rows.

Kohlrabi is a go-between in the families of cabbage and turnip. It is sometimes called the turnip-root cabbage. Just above the ground the stem of this plant swells into a turnip-like vegetable. In the true turnip the swelling is underground, but like the cabbage, kohlrabi forms its edible part above ground. It is easy to grow. Sow out as early as possible; or sow inside in March and transplant to the open. Plant in drills about two feet apart. Set the plants about one foot apart, or thin out to this distance. To plant one hundred feet of drill buy half an ounce of seed. Seed goes a long way, you see. Kohlrabi is served and prepared like turnip.

Savoy cabbage is an excellent variety to try. It should always have an early planting under cover, say in February, and then be transplanted into open beds in March or April. If the land is poor where you are to grow cabbage, then by all means choose Savoy.

Carrots

Carrots are of two general kinds: those with long roots, and those with short roots. If long-rooted varieties are chosen, then the soil must be worked down to a depth of eighteen inches.

The shorter ones will do well in eight inches of well-worked sandy soil. Another point in carrot culture is one concerning the thinning process. As the little seedlings come up you will find that they are much, much too close together. Wait a bit, thin a little at a time, so that young, tiny carrots may be used on the home table.

Cucumber

A light, sandy and rich soil is needed, rich in the sense of richness in organic matter. When cucumbers are grown outdoors, they are planted in hills.

Sow the seed inside, cover with one inch of rich soil. In a little space of six inches diameter, plant six seeds. Place like a bean seed with the germinating end in the soil. When all danger of frost is over, each set of six little plants, soil and all, should be planted in the open. Later, when danger of insect pests is over, thin out to three plants in a hill. The hills should be about four feet apart on all sides.

Lettuce

Lettuce may be tucked into the garden almost anywhere. It is surely one of the most decorative of vegetables.

As the summer advances and as the early sowings of lettuce get old they tend to go to seed. To avoid this, pull them up. To have lettuce in mid and late summer is possible only by frequent plantings of seed. If seed is planted every ten days or two weeks all summer, you can have tender lettuce all the season. When lettuce gets old it becomes bitter and tough.

Melons

Melon vines are trained upward rather than allowed to lie prone. As the melons grow large in the hot, dry atmosphere, they become too heavy for the vine to hold up. They are held by little bags of netting, like a tennis net in size of mesh. The bags are supported on nails or pegs.

Melons are planted in hills. Eight seeds are placed two inches apart and an inch deep. The hills should have a four foot sweep on all sides.

Watermelon hills should have an allowance of eight to ten feet. Make the soil for these hills very rich. As the little plants get sizable say about four inches in height reduce the number of plants to two in a hill. Always in such work choose the very sturdiest plants to keep. Cut the others down close to or a little below the surface of the ground.

When the melon plant has reached a length of a foot, pinch off the end of it. This pinch means this to the plant: just stop growing long, take time now to grow branches.

Zucchini

Part of the summer squash family, zucchini is called by the nickname Italian Squash. Many of the nutrients have been shown to be helpful for the prevention of atherosclerosis and diabetic heart disease. All summer squash are perfect diet foods — low in calories, sodium, fat-free, and provide a source of fiber. All parts of the zucchini are edible.

It is a type of narrow squash that resembles a cucumber in size and shape. It has smooth, thin skin that is either yellow or green in color and can be striped or speckled. Its tender flesh is creamy white in color and features numerous seeds. Its edible flowers are often used in French and Italian cooking.

How To Grow: Zucchini can be planted by direct seeding or by transplanting young plants that have been started indoors. Seed directly into the ground as soon as the soil reaches temperatures of 60 degrees. Fill the holes with compost and mound slightly. Plant seeds 1 inch deep.

Select a sheltered spot, and prepare holes about 12 inches in diameter and 12 inches deep. Measuring from the center, space the holes 36 inches apart for bush types, 6 feet apart for vines. To conserve space, squash can be trained over a sturdy trellis, in which case 2 feet between plants is enough.

Zucchini grows best when exposed to 6-8 hours of direct sunlight each day. Regular watering is essential for summer squash. Feed the plants with a high-potassium organic liquid feed to produce a higher yield. Thick mulch added after planting will preserve moisture and keep the fruits from touching the ground where they will become soiled and be exposed to insects and diseases.

Harvesting: The flavor of zucchini is best when it is less than six inches long. They should be firm, but not hard. Zucchini are prolific producers and regular harvesting will promote continued yield throughout the growing season. Harvest by cutting the stems from the plants gently with a paring knife. As they are composed mainly of water, summer squashes dehydrate rapidly. Harvest just before cooking and keep in the refrigerator in a perforated plastic bag until cooking. Don't forget that squash blossoms are delicious to eat.

Small summer squashes are used skin and all. Larger squash need their skin and seeds removed. Slice lengthwise and scoop out the seeds with a spoon.

In the kitchen, zucchini can be steamed, sautéed, boiled, baked, fried, grilled, and stuffed. Some ideas include: serve raw as an appetizer with a vegetable dip or salad dressing, grate and sauté with thinly sliced garlic, add to breads, muffins, cakes, stews, casseroles, soups, sprinkle grated zucchini or other summer squash on salads or sandwiches. It can be preserved by canning, freezing, and drying.

Pumpkin

In planting pumpkins, the same general directions hold good which were given for melons. Use these same directions for squash-planting, too. But do not plant the two cousins together, for they have a tendency to run together. Plant the pumpkins in between the hills of corn and let the squashes go in some other part of the garden.

Try growing these crops in your vegetable garden, as some are the easiest vegetables to grow. Make written notes on what vegetable plants you had great success with for reference for the next year of planting.