Don’t leave the house for salad greens. Grow your own
No need for a May Day call of alert. Amidst the coronavirus pandemic shutdown, gardening is not canceled, and what you do this month can determine how many fewer trips to the grocery store you will need to make this summer.
May is the month for planting vegetables, and in Western Washington you need never buy greens for salads, smoothies or flavoring if you practice practical gardening. The basics: Grow what you would use the most and what would do best in your situation. Be it a balcony or backyard garden, you can grow food.
Example: All you have is a small balcony that gets only morning sun. You enjoy morning smoothies with “power greens” blended in with yogurt. What to plant: Leafy greens such as spinach, Swiss chard and kale can thrive with just half day of sun in a container as small as 12 inches deep. Harvest just a leaf or two each day and you’ll have summer-long greens. (Need a demo? Go to YouTube and put in my name “Marianne Binetti” )
Q. I would like to grow lettuce, as we enjoy a lot of salads and no longer feel comfortable visiting the grocery store as often as we once did. My question is, can we grow salad in the same garden bed as our trees and shrubs? In other words, we don’t want to dig up our lawn or start a vegetable garden area. M.B., Tacoma
A. Yes. All the luscious lettuce varieties thrive in our climate, and if you want to add a row of green and red lettuce leaves to a shrubby border it can be beautiful as well as bountiful. The secret is the soil. Loosen the soil to a depth of one foot if possible and work in rotted wood chips, leaves or bark, if you don’t have compost. Add a slow-release plant food before you plant lettuce starts or sow seeds. Salad greens like cool, moist soil and are one of the few veggies that don’t require full sun. Staying home this summer could be your ultimate salad days, so dig in.
Q. I want to grow tomatoes, basil and thyme. When is it safe to plant these? I. Email
A. Sounds like you have a pizza garden in mind or maybe Caprese salad? Now is the time to prepare the soil in a full sun location, but wait until June to set out heat-loving tomato and basil plants. They can be outdoors during the day. When the night temps fall below 50 degrees both tomatoes and basil become stunted from the slight chill. You can grow both in pots and move them to a protected location on cool nights. As for thyme, it is time. This herb is hardier. With many different types of thyme, some are ornamental enough to grow in pots with flowers or in the front yard. Many herbs can be grown wherever you have sunshine and good drainage. Tip: Thyme, lavender, rosemary and many other herbs do not need added fertilizer as they are not heavy feeders
Q. As a new gardener, I am thinking about planting some corn to enjoy fresh corn on the cob. I don’t have much space. Would corn stalks grow in a large container? P, Email
A. NO! You will have no return on your energy investment with those stalks. Corn is a hungry beast that needs lots of room and lots of company of fellow corn stalks. This is because it is wind-pollinated by fellow corn cousins growing nearby. Corn is also inexpensive to buy when in season and not a big player when it comes to nutrition. Better to grow bush beans or pole beans in a large container or patio tomatoes, bush zucchini, cucumbers, or the most nutritious and longest bearing vegetable of them all—Swiss chard.
This story was originally published May 2, 2020 at 11:01 AM.