How to Make Money Growing Baby Vegetables

Image Gallery The Mighty Midget pea is so midget it produces peas on plants that stand about 6" high and bear a lot of plump 3 1/2" pods in only 60 days. PHOTO: MOTHER EARTH NEWS STAFF

Growing some of the novel new baby vegetables, also known as midget vegetables, in your garden next summer can give you a cash crop that will have practically no competitors, for miniature produce is almost completely unknown on the market. Growing it, however, takes no more nor different care than standard vegetables need.

The midgets' difference lies entirely in size; usually both the plant and the part you eat are smaller than standard varieties. This miniature-appeal is their strong point in making sales . . . though they have some other advantages too, such as earlier maturity (a big plus if you live in a short-summer climate).

Yes, many of the midgets do develop much faster than standard-sized produce. And remember that these little vegetables are ripe and fully flavored . . . not small because they're under-developed.

Four-inch cantaloupes, for instance, are both ready for the table in only 60 days (when their standard-sized big brothers still have a month or so to go) and are noted for sweetness and down-to-the-rind goodness. Golden Midget watermelon ripens in just 65 days . . . and its earliness certainly makes it seem golden in sales value. Little Midget watermelon weighs only 10 pounds, is extremely sweet and is table-ready in 75 days. Start all these melon plants under Hotkaps in April and have them ready in plenty of time for the Fourth of July trade. (A Hotkap is a commercial plant protector, consisting of a waxed-paper dome about the size of a mixing bowl. A substitute is a little tent of shower-curtain plastic held up by four sticks in the ground and anchored all around with earth.)

We know from experience that three extremely popular vegetables with women who like to do fancy canning are two of the midget carrots and the midget beet. Tiny Sweet carrot has a perfect cone shape and deep color at its three-inch-long full maturity and Red Apple carrot has great appeal because of its solid, blocky little form and fine flavor. Also a treasure for the home canner, Spinel beet reaches its ping-pong ball size in about 50 days and is made-to-order for pickling.

Miniatures whose deliciousness will do their own advertising for you are Dwarf Green Long Pod okra, and the edible-podded Dwarf Gray sugar pea.

This sugar pea is lavishly productive, crisp and garden-delicate. It's a vegetable few people know about . . . but one that almost anyone can appreciate. Dwarf Gray sugar peas are splendid for customers with freezers, although they're available at only a few markets at prices ranging up to $3.00 a pound, and of quality far inferior to those fresh from an organic garden.