Great Plains Gardening

By Edith Koeller

March 5, 2004

How many of you have your vegetable garden all planned out for the coming growing season? Do you know how much to plant for your family’s use, or when and where to plant certain crops?

The first rule of thumb is to plant only those vegetables your family likes. Why waste time, energy and garden space on something that no one wants to eat? One exception is to plant with the desire to enter all classes of garden crops at the County Fair, if you are the competitive type. If you go that route, remember it will take several plants to produce a good uniform display for the Fair. Trying a new type or variety, however, is always interesting as an experiment.

Some garden seed catalogs have tables showing how much to plant for different size families. CSU Extension has a fact sheet, Planning the Vegetable Garden #7.603, which contains such a list. The following amounts are taken from that source: "Approximate amount to plant per person (experience will allow personal adjustments): 6 FT. ROW: beans, beets, carrots, kale, lettuce, mustard, onion, Swiss chard, turnip. 12 FT. ROW: peas. 25 FT. ROW: potato, sweet corn. 6 PLANTS: broccoli, peppers. 2-4 PLANTS: cabbage, cauliflower, cucumber, melons, squash, tomato."

This same fact sheet also has a Spring planting succession table showing planting times for certain crops. "About 4 weeks before date of average last frost: Broccoli, cabbage, lettuce, onions, peas, potato, radish, spinach, turnip. About 2 weeks before date of average last frost: Beets, carrots, mustard, parsnip, Swiss chard, sweet corn. 2 or more weeks after date of average last frost: eggplant, pepper, tomato (transplants), sweet potato, beans, squash, cucumber, melons."

This fact sheet also shows that the representative dates of last frost are May 4 for the Burlington area and April 28 for Rocky Ford. My Master Gardener information sheet shows May 14 as the 32-degree threshold for Lamar and Eads. For the 28-degree threshold temperature: April 28 in Lamar and May 4 for Eads.

Some interesting things to consider about common garden vegetables:

Most bush beans have bland flavor compared to the stronger characteristic flavor of the pole bean.

Half-long or stump-rooted varieties of carrots are more satisfactory for heavy soils.

Seed source is more important than variety in potatoes, since certified seed gives more assurance of freedom from disease.

Vegetables requiring relatively large amounts of space are cucumber, muskmelon, potato, pumpkin, squash, sweet corn, sweet potato, tomato and watermelon.

Cucumber, peas, pole beans, and tomato can be trained on fences, trellises, or poles to conserve space.

F1 hybrids are the first generation result of a cross between two inbred parents and are more vigorous, uniform and productive than other varieties. These varieties are available for the home gardener for vegetables such as watermelon, tomato, sweet corn, summer squash, pepper, onion, muskmelon, eggplant, cucumber, cauliflower, carrots, cabbage, Brussels sprouts, and broccoli.

It will not be very many weeks before gardening time is here. Meanwhile let’s take the time to plan and map out the garden plot on paper, so when the planting time is right we will not have any delays.

Until next time…