Leaf Crop ABC's
By: National Gardening editors
Most greens crops thrive in cool spring and fall weather (50oF to 60oF). Just compare the crisp, flavorful lettuce leaves harvested in spring with the often bitter leaves of a summer cutting and you'll agree. A few greens can handle summer heat, but most of them prefer the cooler temperatures of spring and fall.
A steady flow of moisture and nutrients is important for good greens growth. And for some greens, these supplies have to be near the surface. The roots of lettuce, for example, are close to the surface. They don't grow deep in the soil to search out food and water. If you've gardened in dry times, you know lettuce isn't very drought-resistant. Big-leaved plants give off a lot of moisture. When it's dry, they get very thirsty!
Nitrogen for Greens
Leafy crops need plenty of nitrogen, too. That's the key element in the good growth of leaves and it influences the crispness and quality of leafy crops, as well.
The one thing most greens don't need is a lot of heat. Spinach, for example, will quickly develop a seedstalk and start to stretch upward when it gets too warm. This is known as going to seed or "bolting." When it happens, spinach leaves begin to lose some of their flavor. A long hot spell can spoil heads of iceberg-type lettuce, too. The heat loosens the leaves of the head, and they get soft and sometimes bitter. If you can shade some of these crops as hot weather approaches, you can often keep the harvest going a few weeks longer.
Plant Greens in Wide Rows
By: National Gardening editors
Wide-row planting involves broadcasting seeds in a wide band, thus creating thicker rows with fewer paths in between. Not all vegetables, of course, are meant for wide rows. Squashes, tomatoes, cucumbers and melons are examples of crops that need room to run. But for greens - including head lettuce, collards and kale - wide rows offer many advantages. Most important, you can harvest more than half again as much from wide rows as from single rows using the same space. However, there are other reasons for growing green in wide rows, too:
• Wide rows mean less weeding because after the closely planted greens grow up to shade the ground, they create a "living mulch" or ground cover that blocks out light from weeds, thus checking their growth. Some hand weeding is still necessary, but the living mulch in wide rows take care of most weeding.
• Living mulch shades the soil, keeping it cool and moist, which is very important for crops like lettuce and spinach that get bitter and bolt when the weather warms up. Wide-row growing extends the harvest into summer because the soil in the row stays cooler. The cooler the soil, the better-flavored your crop will taste.
With summer greens like Swiss chard, the moist soil of a wide row helps maintain continuous growth. There's less drying out of the soil, and consequently, less stop-and-go growth.
• Planting is quick and simple. You scatter seed over the wide seedbed with no worry about straight lines or precise spacing.
• Wide rows are proven space-savers. You can do away with long single rows of one variety and plant more varieties of your favorite crops. For example, in a 10-foot-long row, 15 inches wide, you can grow three or four kinds of lettuce.
• Harvesting is fast because you can reach so many more plants from one spot without moving. It sure beats the nonstop stooping and straightening it takes to harvest or weed single rows.
Planting Wide Rows
After you've prepared and fertilized your soil on planting day, follow these easy steps to plant your wide rows of greens and salad crops: Mark the wide row. Stretch a string between two stakes close to the ground for the length of row you want.
Smooth the planting bed. With an iron garden rake, smooth the soil along one side of the string. The rake will mark the width of the row. Don't pack the seedbed down by stepping on it. Always do your work from the side of the row.
Sprinkle the seeds onto the seedbed. Roll seeds off the ends of your fingers with your thumb. Try to scatter them across the seedbed as evenly as you can. The spacing of crops will vary a bit. Lettuce seeds can be planted much thicker than kale or collard seeds, for example. Don't worry if you plant too thickly, thinning will correct that. To give you an idea of how much seed you need, the average packet of lettuce seed will cover three to six feet of a row that's 15 inches wide.
Sprinkle in a few radish seeds. After you've broadcast the main crop, sprinkle some radish seeds down the row. They'll come up quickly and mark the row. Use about five percent as much radish seed as the main seed. You can either pull up the radishes while they're small or harvest them after you pick your crop of greens.
Firm the seeds into the soil with a hoe, so the seeds make good contact with the earth.
Cover the seeds with soil from the sides of the row, pulling it up with your rake. The rule of thumb for the amount of soil to cover seeds is two to four times the diameter of the seed. So for most seeds in the greens group, that's about 1/4 to 1/2 inch of soil. In midsummer or late-summer plantings, an extra 1/4 inch of soil will help keep the seeds from drying out.
Finally, firm the soil once more with the back of a hoe and water gently if the soil is dry.
Single-Row Planting
Use a string to plant a single row, too. Rake the seedbed smooth right over the string and with the handle end of your rake, make a shallow furrow or planting line along the string.
Sprinkle the seeds in the shallow furrow, and walk by a second time and drop radish seeds every five or six inches. After firming the seeds into the soil, cover them with 1/4 to 1/2 inch of soil and firm down gently again. Mark the row with the seed packet or a small sign, remove stakes and string and proceed to the next row to be planted.
Double or Triple Rows
The double-row planting system is two single rows separated by four to five inches. It's a garden space-saver, and it's easier to irrigate, which is very important for gardeners in the West and South.
A simple irrigation system can be made by placing a soaker hose between the two rows. A soaker hose has many tiny holes in it so water oozes gradually from it, irrigating only the soil around your plants. This is a big watersaving advantage over sprinklers, which tend to water the walkways, too. You can even put three or four single rows four to five inches from each other and move the soaker hose to each aisle to water all the plants. This arrangement has the space-saving characteristics of wide-row growing and lets you water all the plants evenly, too.
Cultivating Greens
By: National Gardening editors
Weeds are green and while some, like lamb's quarters and purslane, can be eaten as greens, you really don't want them growing in among your salad crops. They steal moisture, fertilizer and sunlight. Some of the slower-growing greens can be shaded out of your garden forever by weeds.
Weed Prevention
There are ways to avoid weed problems in any garden - even if you've suffered from weeding fits in the past:
* Try to plant your fine-seeded greens in a section of garden that was relatively weed-free the season before. For example, where your thick, weed-smothering wide rows of beans grew.
* Work the soil with a shovel, rake or tiller a couple of times the week or so before planting. This uproots the tiniest weed seedlings and kills them or buries them (which kills them, too).
To Win - Thin!
Whether you plant in wide, single, double or multiple rows, you'll need to thin your greens to have a really successful crop. Because the seeds of most greens are so tiny, we inevitably plant a little too thickly. That's not bad, though - it helps guarantee a good stand of plants.
You just have to thin out the crowd, so your plants will have enough room to grow without too much competition from their neighbors. Thinning also provides good air circulation around plants to keep them from staying wet and becoming diseased. You can spend hours thinning by hand, or you can spend one minute using an iron rake. To thin a row, simply pull the rake across it - with the teeth digging into the soil only about 1/4 inch. The teeth remove just enough seedlings, leaving the remaining ones properly spaced. They'll look a little beat up, but don't panic. The plants will snap back quickly and get growing again, better than ever. Rake thinning also gets rid of many small weeds that may have started to germinate, again saving you tedious hand-weeding time.
To thin by hand, simply bend over and gently pull up enough plants so the remaining ones are spaced correctly. For example, in the case of leaf lettuce, the plants should stand three to four inches apart; butterhead lettuce, four to eight inches (six to 10 inches if you want a bigger head). Leave six to 10 inches between plants if you're thinning collards, kale or mustard.
The First Thinning
Make your first thinning timely. When your vegetable seedlings are 1/4 to 1/2 inch tall, drag an iron rake across the row, as described above. This thins the plants, of course, but it's also your first weeding effort. Hand weed as often as necessary until the wide-row greens develop enough foliage to shade out further weed growth. Remember, the more weeding you do early on, the less you'll have to do later.
If you set out lettuce, collards or other transplants, work the soil before planting them, and wait a week or so for them to take hold before you cultivate near them. In the first few weeks after being transplanted, the plant's roots are quite close to the surface and gaining strength by the day. Don't be careless with a hoe and risk slowing them down or killing them. Keep all cultivation very shallow, 1/2 to one inch deep at most.
Mulching
Use a good mulch "or soil covering" to stop weeds around head lettuce plants, collards or plants in a single row. Hay, straw or other organic matter will stop most weeds except some stubborn perennials, which will grow through it. Pull those by hand.
Pull weeds when they're small. Don't even wait till they come up out of the ground. After a rain, which will cause some weed seeds to germinate, allow the soil to dry slightly and then lightly stir it up with your rake or weeding tool. You'll kill many weeds before they even appear.
Harvesting Greens
By: National Gardening editors
Harvesting is one of the nicest chores of the gardening season. It's easy to do right:
When To Harvest
Start harvesting when there's something to eat. Gardens are for eating, so as soon as your endive, spinach, celery, lettuce or whatever is big enough to toss in a salad - harvest. There will be plenty more to come.
Harvest at peak flavor and freshness. Young greens are the tastiest and most nutritious. Don't wait for prize-winning heads of lettuce - start picking them when they're softball size, still crisp and flavorful.
Preserving Greens
If you're freezing or canning spinach, chard or beet greens, harvest the choicest leaves and plants and process them right away for the best quality. Harvest lettuce and other greens close to meal time to retain as much quality and food value as possible.
Try for two, three or even four cuttings. Leaf lettuce and chard are the best examples of crops that "come again" after you harvest: Cut them an inch above the ground and the plants will send out new, fresh growth in an effort to make seed. A long serrated bread knife is the best tool for harvesting wide rows of greens.
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