The Secret Garden

Article Tools

Image Gallery

Print

E-mail

Comments

RSS

All right, the category is "Plants That Can Be Eaten, Supposedly." For twenty points, name ten brassicas. Joy?

"Turnips, rutabagas, kohlrabi, cauliflower, collards, Chinese cabbage, kale, broccoli, brussel sprouts, and radishes. That's ten."

Let's ignore the first three, unless you've got some hungry pigs. But radishes are quite tasty, actually. You can grow three crops of radishes, and a couple of extra in the South, where it grows all winter. To avoid maggots, don't plant it where any member of the cabbage family has grown in the last three years. Cauliflower isn't bad with cheese sauce, and the best way to raise cauliflower is to plant late, around mid-June, spaced about a foot apart. Don't plant it in the same place as last year, or the year before that. Mulch heavily to keep the soil cool, and harvest before the individual buds begin to loosen. The cabbage worm will go after it, so slop on some Bacillusthuringiensis.

Alliums... like garlic and onions don't like clay soil. They prefer loosem fluffy loam.

People who tell you what to do... what the hell do they know or care? —Ruth Stout, the mother of mulch, Country Journal, October 1976

And finally, let's not forget good old broccoli, sometimes called "childbane." Surely your children will thank you if you plant some more broccoli 10 weeks before the last frost, and so will the flea beetles (who loved your radishes to death but still have an appetite). Stick it in the ground ten to twelve weeks before the last frost, 18" apart. It'll need less bug control in the late summer and fall than it did in the spring.

Aside from those, we do not need to further discuss the above brassicas, many of which may be eliminated from any meal without loss to the taste buds. Naturally, Joy disagrees, especially about Chinese cabbage, which can be planted the first day of August. A beet is not a brassica, but omit it as well because July 1 is about the latest planting date, and beets taste exactly like beets. Instead, let us concentrate on expanding our corn-and-tomato gardener horizons with other yummy food that may be grown in the fall garden. Garlic, to begin with.

If you live in New England, the mountains of Colorado, or the upper peninsula of Michigan, now is the time to move to a state with mild winters and plant garlic. Alternatively, you can remain where you are (Maine, Montana, Minnesota) and still have fresh garlic braids hanging in your kitchen next summer, if you plant in the fall and mulch it like crazy.

In fact, now is the ideal time to perform triage on your garden, deciding which plants to move to your heated greenhouse—build one of those against your house, and you'll never regret it. Many plants will get stomped by the first frost. Some, like garlic, can overwinter, even in cold climates, by burrowing down in the dirt under deep and massive mulching. I've heard of people who use entire bales of straw to protect their garlic; the bales will rot in time for a spring garden.

RSS | Comments | E-mail | Print