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With the beautiful weather and many of us at home more than usual, it is a great time to garden. Here's what you'll need to know for our annual seed handout tomorrow.
When: Saturday, April 11th, 11:00 a.m. - 1:00 p.m.
Where: 17660 SW Shawnee Trail, Tualatin
What: Onion starts, seed potatoes and many types of vegetable seeds
Details: Vegetable seeds and starts will be offered for those interested in gardening with Neighbor's Nourishing Communities and donating 20% of their harvest to the Tualatin Food Pantry or other food donation center of choice.
We will be ensuring spatial distancing of at least 6 feet, and are therefore allowing two individuals to register and pick up seeds at any given time. When you arrive, we are asking that if there are already two people picking up seeds, you remain in your car until at least one person leaves. We typically only have a few people at a time during our seed handouts, so this should be an easy accommodation. Thank you in advance for your understanding. We look forward to seeing you tomorrow.
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How to get more from a small garden space
Many of us have limited space and are trying to maximize our harvest. Here are some tips for packing more into a small garden.
- If you are maximizing the growing season, sow seeds indoors and transplant them into the garden throughout the season. Crops will occupy the garden space for less time than if they were sown directly into the garden. You can use this method to start successive plantings of crops as well.
- Use a trellis and grow your crops vertically. Some plants like cucumbers that sprawl, can fit into a much smaller footprint when trained to grow up. Trellis peas or beans upwards, so that you can plant something shorter such as carrots below.
- Use a method called relay planting, where plants that mature at different times are grown adjacent to each other and can utilize the same space at different times. Growing garlic or early salad greens alongside tomatoes or carrots that won’t mature until later in the season for example.
- Grow leaf lettuces and salad greens that enable harvesting leaves rather than the entire head – this enables continued harvesting from a single planting.
- Tuck vegetables into potted plants on your patio for added garden space. Many garden plants including tomatoes and lettuce do well in pots.
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Quick Returns - Some Fast Growing Crops
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Our harvests are usually most bountiful during the summer, however here are some vegetable options that can provide some quick returns. Now that we are past the danger of frost for our area, these plants can be sowed directly in your garden and will be ready for harvest in no time.
- Salad greens such as lettuce, arugula, baby kale, and spinach – many of these are ready to harvest the leaves within 30 – 50 days. Look on the seed package for quick harvest options. When you harvest the outer leaves and leave the growing center intact, you will be able to harvest fresh greens for a few months from the same plants - and can have a continuous supply if you stagger some plantings.
- Some options that will be ready for harvest in 50 – 60 days include beets, swarf snap peas, broccoli, collards, turnips, bush beans, and some varieties of small, fast cabbages.
- Steve Albert on the Harvest to Table website has a good post at the following link: Quick-Growing Vegetable Crops. It includes recommended fast-growing varieties of 29 crops.
How to get crops growing faster?
- Start plants indoors where the temperature is warmer, and then transplant outside. You’ll get bigger plants sooner as they won’t have to weather the chilly nights.
- If you have a planting area that is a warmer microclimate, such as in front of a south-facing wall or area that receives sunshine and is sheltered from cold and wind, your plants will reward you with quicker growth.
- Make a row-cover or low tunnel to create your own warmer microclimate.
- Use dark mulch or black plastic to absorb the sun’s rays and keep the soil warm around plants.
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Newsletter Signup
Please forward our newsletter to others who may be interested in gardening with us. If you are interested in receiving our newsletters and not currently on our subscriber list, please contact us at neighborsnc@gmail.com.
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Neighbors Nourishing Communities (NNC) is an organization of neighbors gardening to raise fresh produce for local families in need of food support. We provide plants, seeds, instruction and site consultations in exchange for 20% of the produce raised. Visit our website at www.neighborsnc.org.
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