Vegetable Gardening (87 page)

Pansies

Red clover

Roses

Tulips

Violets

Although some flowers are edible, many others are poisonous. Make sure that you know what you're picking before you eat it. And don't let young children or pets eat flowers unattended.

For more information on edible flowers, check out the book
Edible Flowers: From Garden to Kitchen
by Kathy Brown (Aquamarine Publishers, 2008). A good publication on edible flowers and poisonous plants can be found at
attra.ncat.org/attra-pub/PDF/edibleflowers.pdf
.

Part III

In this part . . .

This part has all you need to know about seeds, soil, fertilizers, watering, pest controls, and harvesting. I also talk about some cool farmer techniques, such as succession cropping and interplanting. And for those with less space, I show you how to successfully grow vegetables in containers.

Chapter 13: On Your Mark, Get Set . . . Grow!

In This Chapter

Choosing a vegetable planting method: seeds or transplants

Determining whether to start seeds indoors or direct seed

Growing seedlings indoors

Moving your seedlings or starter plants to your garden

Planting seeds in your garden

Are you ready to plant some vegetables? Now the fun really starts. You can plant vegetables two different ways — from seed or by transplant:

When planting seeds, you either sow the seeds indoors and then transplant the young seedlings in your garden (when the time is right, of course), or you sow the seeds directly in your garden.

To skip the whole seed process altogether, you purchase young
transplants
(seedlings ready to be transplanted) at your local nursery or through the mail and then plant them directly into your garden.

Both methods have their advantages, and timing is critical to success. You can plant seeds quickly and without much thought. But working deliberately and carefully — whether planting indoors or out — pays off in sturdier, more vigorous plants. In this chapter, I guide you through the planting process, giving you information about correct seed spacing, planting depth, soil and germinating conditions, and fertilizing so you produce strong-growing, vigorous plants. I also show you how to plant transplants, whether you grow them yourself or buy them.

As I say throughout this book (maybe because my dad used to say it in all situations): Timing is everything when you plant vegetables. If you really want to be successful, you need to find out the planting dates for your area. Each vegetable has its own optimum growing conditions — a right soil temperature, daytime temperature, length of day, and so on — but all these factors vary greatly, depending on where you live. So make sure you check out Chapter 3 for important climate-specific information. Okay, I've made my point — on to the planting.

Choosing Seeds or Transplants

Whether you choose to grow vegetables from seeds or transplants, each planting method has its own advantages. Here are some advantages to starting from seed:

A wider choice of varieties:
Your local garden store or nursery may carry only three or four varieties of tomato transplants but offer a great selection of seeds. And mail-order seed catalogs (see the appendix for addresses) offer hundreds of varieties of seeds and specialty types, such as organically grown seed.

Healthy plants:
You don't have to settle for plants that are
leggy
(tall, weak, spindly stems) or
root-bound
(roots crammed into a small pot) and that may have been hanging out at the nursery too long. Such plants usually don't get off to a fast start when you plant them in the ground. Also, when you start from seed, you don't have to worry about introducing any insects or diseases into your garden that may be lurking on nursery-grown transplants.

Reduced cost:
Especially if you have a large garden, starting from seed can save you some dough. A six-pack of seedlings may cost you $3.00, whereas for the same price you can buy a seed packet with 100 seeds.