Monday, August 24, 2015

Planting a Salad Bowl Garden

Now is a great time to plant seeds of vegetables that like growing in the cooler seasons. These include lettuce, kale, arugula, spinach, radish, carrots, beets, broccoli, cabbage, onions and garlic. You can also plant herbs such as parsley and chives.

You may wish to plant a theme garden, such as a "salad bowl garden". That could include lettuce, arugula, radishes, chives and parsley. This could be planted in a pot so you don't even need to have a garden!

If you're planting seeds, remember that it'll take a while before you can eat from your garden.  I plant Renee's Garden "Baby Mesclun Cut and Come Again". It's a seed mixture of various kinds of lettuce. Here is a video that describes planting the lettuce seeds: http://www.reneesgarden.com/articles/video-mesclun1.html.





Garden Workshop at Palisades Library

Last Saturday we held a garden workshop for children at the library. Fifteen kids from age 3 to 16 attended along with their parents. The parents got two handouts: a list of what to plant in August and September from the Master Gardeners and a back to school newsletter from Jessica Siegel of Gelson's.

Part One. After asking the attendees about their favorite vegetables we introduced the concept of warm season and cool season vegetables and showed examples. We highlighted tomatoes and zucchini as examples of warm season vegetables. Lettuce, kale, broccoli, carrots and sugar snap peas were the cool season vegetables which we displayed. After this part of the program, children sampled tomatoes, broccoli and sugar snap peas.

Part Two. The children planted seeds of cool season vegetables in biodegradable pots. They first filled a pot with seedling mix and then chose seeds to plant which included carrots, kale, arugula, broccoli, lettuce and sugar snap peas. They then misted the pot with water. They were to soak the pot in water and then keep the soil moist once they got home.

Part Three. Each child chose either a kale seedling or a sugar snap pea seedling to take home and plant.

Thanks to Amalia, Karen and Ella for volunteering to assist in the workshop.