Learn all about spring planting! We’re answering some listener questions around harvesting, how to grow snap peas and lettuce in a small container, how to keep your garden alive during the winter, and more.
Learn all about spring planting! We’re answering some listener questions around harvesting, how to grow snap peas and lettuce in a small container, how to keep your garden alive during the winter, and more.
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Find episode transcript here: https://dig-it.simplecast.com/episodes/spring-planting
[MUSIC PLAYING] KELLY SMITH-TRIMBLE: Hi, this is Dig it! I'm Kelly Smith-Trimble. I'm a master gardener and the author of Vegetable Gardening Wisdom. I'm also the senior editorial director at hgtv.com. In this episode, it's all about spring planting. There's no time to waste in spring, so let's just dig in. Our first question is about asparagus.
Asparagus is a perennial, which means it comes back every year. So it needs a dedicated spot. Asparagus can be planted from seed. But it's much faster to grow from crowns, which are bare root plants. It takes about three or four years before you can start harvesting asparagus. I think people are sometimes surprised to see how asparagus grows. It just pops out of the soil, the way that you buy it at the grocery.
Marianne says, "For some reason, I cannot grow carrots. And I'm not sure why. What's the secret with carrots?"
I'm in Zone 7B, and I like to sow my carrots around mid-April, so that's mid-spring for me. If you sow any earlier, the cold might prevent your carrots from really germinating well. I also like to thin my carrot seedlings when they're about an inch tall. So I go back and snip back every other one and leave the rest to grow.
I like to plant my carrots near something that's going to get tall in the summer, like a tomato or a pepper. Carrots like mild weather. And so when things heat up, they need a little bit of shade. And a taller plant can provide that.
It's also important not to over fertilize carrots. If you fertilize with a lot of nitrogen, they'll grow really pretty green tops, but you won't get good roots down below.
[BIRDS CHIRPING]
Robin asked, "Can you plant potatoes with tomato plants?" She said, "I heard it causes potato blight. Is that true?"
So tomatoes and potatoes are in the same plant family. It's called the nightshade family. And peppers and eggplant are also in that family. Crops of the same plant family often battle the same diseases. So it's usually best not to plant them all near one another.
This includes potatoes and tomatoes, which both can get the disease called late blight. You can grow both tomatoes and potatoes in your garden, but spread them out. Rotate nightshade family crops around your garden, growing them in different spots each year. You can also prevent blight by watering tomato plants at the base, not getting the leaves wet, planting your tomatoes far enough apart so that there's good airflow, and planting varieties known to be blight resistant. One fun heirloom tomato plant that's blight resistant is called Mr. Stripey.
We also get a lot of general questions about spring planting like, "What can I plant now? And when can I get started?"
So my answer to that is snap peas. Snap peas are really easy to grow, and pretty much anyone in the country can plant them outdoors right now. Kids love to grow snap peas. So they're just a lot of fun.
If you live in an apartment, and you just have a balcony or something like that to grow on, you can try snap peas in containers. I recommend looking for varieties that are called dwarf snap peas. Those will grow shorter. So you won't need to trellis them. So definitely give peas a chance.
Sarah asks, "Can you grow lettuce in flower boxes on a balcony?"
And yes, you definitely can. Lettuce grows really well in containers. It grows great in pots. And it actually needs a little less sun than most vegetables. Most need about six hours or more a day. And lettuce can do with about four hours of sun a day. So if you get that much sun on your balcony or patio, you can definitely grow it in containers there.
Now, I want to talk about something I've been harvesting in my garden for a couple of months now, lettuce. Whenever anyone asks me about the easiest plants to grow or what to try first, I always say lettuce.
The heading lettuce varieties are harvested all at once and can be a little bit harder to grow. The other type is leaf lettuce. And it's my favorite. Leaf lettuces can be harvested continually by removing just the outer leaves. The plant will continue to produce more new leaves from the center.
I'm growing a red leaf lettuce called Hyper Red. Red leaf lettuces grow better in warmer weather than green leaf lettuces. This patch of lettuce has been growing since early spring. And I'm still harvesting from it, even though it's getting pretty hot around here.
Floyd has a question about radishes. And he asks, "What are your favorite radish varieties to grow?"
I love growing radishes in both spring and fall. They're so easy to grow. And they taste so much better than radishes that you get at the grocery.
One of my favorite varieties is called French Breakfast radish. It's a mild, pinky red, oblong shaped radish that you harvested about 1 to 2 inches long. Another radish I love is called Watermelon radish. And it's green on the outside, but bright pink on the inside just like a watermelon. Watermelon radishes are large and round, and you harvest them when they're 2 to 3 inches in diameter.
The other question I hear a lot is, "What can I grow to supplement my groceries?" Like, "What's really inexpensive to grow?"
It's definitely a good time to try to grow your own lettuce at home. Lettuce is really easy to grow. It grows really well in the spring, in cool seasons.
And particularly leaf lettuce, is very easy and very quick. You can grow it from transplants, like this. Or you can try growing it from seed, as well. And it is pretty easy and successful. So try lettuce and peas.
Paula said, "I'm growing Romaine for the first time but noticed little slug looking bugs on my lettuce. What to do?"
Those are indeed slugs. And they can damage your plants. But what you can do is pick them off by hand. If you don't want to smush them yourself, you can drop the slugs into a container of soapy water. If you pick them off often for a week or so, you shouldn't have as much trouble with them going forward.
There are also a few simple things you can put around your plants that may help. You can use coffee grounds or eggshells. And the rough surface of those can prevent the slugs from getting into your lettuce plants.
Christine said, "My potato leaves are dying. What should I do?"
If you planted your potatoes in spring, and now in summer the plants are starting to die back. That means your potatoes are ready. So it's time to dig them up. You can do it really carefully with a shovel or with your hands so you don't injure the potatoes.
Now, Kelly has a question about snap peas. She says, "What kind of trellis do you use to grow your peas?"
I've tried a lot of different trellises for growing peas. And I don't really have a favorite. But I'll tell you what I'm using this year.
For a few years, I grew on willow trellises, which are really pretty. But they only lasted a few seasons. So this year, I'm growing on a trellis made out of concrete reinforcement wire and metal stakes. And it looks really good.
Peas are vines. So they really need a trellis or string to grow up. The blooms are really beautiful. And then they develop into peas. This year, I'm growing a purple variety called Sugar Magnolia. The flowers are bright lavender. And the pea pods are really deep striking purple color.
Here's a question about potatoes. Michelle asked, "Where do you plant your potatoes? I've seen potato grow bags, but didn't know if they were a good idea or not."
I've grown potatoes a lot of different ways, including in the ground and in containers. But my favorite way to grow them is in the fabric potato grow bags.
They're made out of a breathable fabric. They're easy to move around. And they're easy to store in the winter, when you're not using them. You can even grow in the potato grow bags, if you don't have a garden.
When you plant potatoes, use certified seed potatoes with the eyes starting to sprout. You can plant small potatoes whole. Or if you have larger ones, you're going to want to cut those up and plant them individually. But make sure that each piece has one eye already starting to sprout.
When you cut those potatoes, you want to let them dry out for a day or so before you actually plant them, which will help you avoid them rotting. You'll plant your potato pieces about 3 inches below the soil with the eye, pointing up.
A few of you asked about potatoes, and how to know when they're ready to harvest. So you'll know when they're ready to harvest when the plant above the soil starts turning yellow and dying back. That means the roots are about ready to dig up. So digging up potatoes is actually really fun. And it's a great project with kids.
Onions are another great topic for spring. In my garden, I find them really easy and satisfying to grow. Here are some hacks for these alliums we love so much.
So onions can be planted from seed. And they can be planted from sets, which are small bulbs. But I plant mine from bare root bundles, which you can find in spring at garden centers. They're just small onions, and they're very easy to plant.
So you just separate out the individual onions. And then, you plant them about an inch down. So the bulb portion is below the soil. I plant them about 6 inches apart for mature onions. You can also plant them more closely together, if you would just want to harvest them as scallions.
I always mulch and water plants just after planting. For full size onions, these will take a couple of months to grow. But you can also harvest them as scallions in a month or so.
So Marianne asks, "When do when root vegetables are ready to harvest?"
And today, I'll focus on beets, and carrots, and radishes. So after you seed them, what you see most of the time is the greens. You see the top of the plant above the ground. And you don't know whether the root is ready or not. But you'll start to see it, kind of pushing up out of the ground. You'll see the top of the beet or the top of the carrot. And when you really start seeing that popping up, that's when you are ready to harvest.
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AUDIENCE: Hey, Kelly. I planted this strawberry plant in the spring when it was a very little plant. And obviously, it's grown pretty well during the summer. I want to keep it alive in the winter. So I can hopefully have lots of great strawberries again, next spring. But what should I do? Should I bring it inside? Thanks for your help.
KELLY SMITH-TRIMBLE: Strawberries grow really well in containers. And they are perennials. So they'll come back year after year. But if you get freezes in your area, it is a good idea to bring your containers inside, somewhere warmer, maybe a garage or even just up against the house.
You don't want it to completely dry out though. So you're going to have to water them every few weeks. Another option is to actually remove the plants from the containers, plant them in a landscape bed over the winter, cover with mulch and they'll stay warmer that way. And then in the spring, you can take them back out and put them in your containers.
There are two types of strawberry plants, June-bearing plants and everbearing plants. June-bearing plants usually produce a crop around May or June for two or three weeks. The fruit on June-bearing plants is usually pretty large. Everbearing strawberry plants also start producing in May or June. But they continue producing strawberries all summer. The fruit on everbearing plants isn't typically as large as the one on June-bearing plants.
Strawberries are perennials. So plant them in a spot where they can come back year after year.
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One thing that can be tough for new gardeners is growing celery. It's a great crop to have in the garden. But some people say they've tried it and can't get it past the seedling stage. Here are some of my tricks.
So celery is a cool season crop. So it grows best in spring and fall. It can be really hard to find seedlings. And it can also be hard to start outdoors from seeds. So it's really best if you start it from seed indoors, and then transplant outside.
I actually did find transplants this year at my local garden center and planted these in early spring. Once it's growing, celery is pretty trouble free as long as you give it plenty of water and compost fertilizer. The stalks of your garden grown celery are probably not going to be as thick as what you buy at the grocery. But I think, they taste a lot better.
When you're harvesting your celery, you can either cut the stalks individually and the plant will keep growing from the center. Or you can just cut the whole plant and harvest it. When you are cooking with it, just be sure to save those leafy tops. That's where a lot of the flavor with celery is.
Someone also asked last time about planting onions. So I'm going to show you some of the leek and onion seedlings that I've grown indoors, and hardened off to be transplanted outside.
Start by separating out each seedling to plant individually. Be careful with them. And just gently plant the root end in the ground and cover with soil. Space a few inches apart. That's it.
I planted leeks this way last year very early in the season. And I was harvesting huge, full-sized leeks all summer and into fall. Fingers crossed that it works for my onions this year too.
If you don't start onions from seed, you can buy seedlings at your garden center and plant them outdoors. You'll plant them the same way. They're just going to be larger and actually easier to transplant.
For more gardening info, tips, and hacks, check out hgtv.com/digit. I'm Kelly Smith-Trimble. Happy gardening.