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Garden  Basics

Two Gardens in One

7/12/2021

3 Comments

 
Picture
A nursery bed is like a magic trick--allowing you to harvest twice as much from your space.

Most gardeners now recognize that having a steady supply of cool-weather veggies through fall and winter is just as important as the summer garden. But where can you put all of those fall vegetables?
Many people wait until tomatoes and corn are over, so they have enough space--but by then it is too late and the plants never size up before the winter days get short.

Using a nursery bed is a trick that can give you two gardens at once--your summer garden still in the ground, and your winter garden waiting its turn. Because the plants in the nursery bed are young, they are spaced closer than they will be later, so they take much less garden space.

How to Make It
A nursery bed is just a piece of ground cultivated to a crumbly texture so that seedlings can grow well. Add compost, which contains substances that trigger germination and growth. Your nursery bed can be an unused bed in the regular garden, a raised box made of wood or blocks, or even a large tub. In hot-summer climates, afternoon shade is good, so either site it to the east of something tall--like a house, shed, or row of corn--or use shade netting.

How to Use It
You can use a nursery bed, or part of it, for starting seeds instead of in flats or pots. But where it really shines is to hold seedlings that are too large for the flat or pot and in danger of getting potbound. At that stage, when they are too big for their pots, summer crops are normally planted into their permanent places. In the case of winter crops, though, those places are already occupied by summer crops that we don't want to disturb. Instead, put them into a nursery bed, where they can grow until early fall. It turns out that many winter crops like cabbage and broccoli actually do better if they are transplanted a couple of times. Since they will be transplanted the final time when the weather is getting cold, mulch them immediately so they have warm moist soil to make a good root system.

Here's a step-by-step example:
  • You sow cabbage into a flat or pots August 1st. You end up with 35 nice seedlings.
  • By Sept 1st, the seedlings are ready for transplant. But you don't want to tear out a row of tomato plants Sept 1st!
  • So you put the cabbages into a nursery bed, at 10" equidistant spacing. At that spacing, they take up only 16 sq ft--a 4'x4' space. (the same size as a standard pallet.)
  • When the tomatoes come out, your 35 cabbages go in at their final, 20" spacing, filling a full 100 sq ft bed. You will get two crops from that garden bed--tomatoes and cabbage-- instead of one.
3 Comments
Helen McGrady
7/30/2022 06:58:13 pm

Great article.

Reply
Shana Byrne
8/1/2022 05:07:03 pm

I'm doing it! Wonder why the cabbages like to be transplanted twice? Root activity?
Thanks, great info!

Reply
Jamie Chevalier link
8/1/2022 09:29:09 pm

It's great to see people responding and using the information. I have not seen this mentioned in garden books in the US, but many British books and YouTube channels about gardening will show a "brassica holding area" or a "leek holding area" in the garden.

I was talking recently with some young gardeners who had noticed for themselves that several of their garden plants like tomatoes and cabbages seemed to be stimulated by transplanting. Contact with new soil, and root pruning leading to more growth were two theories mentioned.

Reply



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  • Home
  • Shop
    • New for 2023
    • Plant for Spring >
      • Spring Vegetables
      • Spring Herbs & Flowers
      • Spring Grains
      • Seeds that Need Winter Cold
    • Vegetable Seeds >
      • Arugula
      • Beans
      • Beets
      • Broccoli and Cima di Rapa
      • Cabbage
      • Carrots & Roots
      • Celery
      • Chard
      • Corn
      • Cucumber
      • Eggplant
      • Fast, Fresh Food
      • Fennel
      • Greens
      • Kale and Collards
      • Lettuce
      • Melons
      • Oil Crops
      • Okra
      • Open-Source Seeds (OSSI)
      • Onions and Leeks
      • Peas
      • Peppers
      • Spinach
      • Squash & Pumpkins
      • Sunflowers
      • Tomatoes
      • Tomatillos/Husk Cherries
      • Turnips and Rutabagas
    • Perennial Vegetables >
      • Perennial Vegetable Seeds
      • About Perennial Vegetables
    • Pollinator and Pest Control Plants >
      • Pollinator and Pest Control Mixes
      • Plants for Pollinators
    • Flower Seeds
    • Herb Seeds >
      • Medicinal and Historic Herbs
      • Culinary Herbs (and teas)
      • Herb Collections
    • Seed Collections
    • Grains >
      • Heirloom Wheat Barley Oats & Rye
      • Gluten-Free Grains
    • Cover Crops >
      • Cover Crop Mixes
      • Cover Crops that are Food Crops
      • Decorative Cover Crops
    • Start these Indoors
    • Open Source (OSSI)
    • People behind the Seeds >
      • Carol Deppe Varieties
      • Jonathan Spero Varieties
      • Frank Morton Varieties
    • Companion Plants
    • Recipes >
      • Tomato Recipes
      • Preserving and Fermenting
    • Plant for Summer
    • Plant for Fall >
      • Fall Vegetables
      • Fall Salad Greens
      • ltalian Fall Specialties
      • Herbs and Flowers for Fall
  • About Us.
    • Our Story
    • Shipping Info
    • Contact
  • Blog
  • HOW-TO