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The Importance of Timing. Plants that take a long time to germinate and mature, like onions, peppers and eggplant should be started indoor first, as they need about ten weeks of growth before they land in your garden. The second flush of seeding can include varieties of herbs, tomatoes and early lettuce, then cabbage, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, and cauliflower (six to eight weeks.) The last things to seed are cucumbers, squash and melons (four to six weeks.)
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With summer fast approaching, this is the perfect time to think about getting the jump on planting and more precisely—how to get earlier crops, and how to grow fruit and vegetables well into the fall. You may want to try your hand at growing items that are not traditionally grown in Nova Scotia, like eggplant and watermelon. You will need: Containers - any kind will do including cottage cheese containers, fruit cups, shoeboxes, and take out trays from stores or restaurants. You can also buy peat containers or plastic six-packs from garden centres - be sure there are holes in the bottoms for drainage Potting mix - equal parts of peat moss, earth, compost, and vermiculite or sand. Light - plants need about 12-16 hours of direct a day - windowsills can be adequate but be sure to turn the containers around every two days - best solution: rig up a few fluorescent lights in a spare room or basement and place them six to 12 inches above the plants Water and fertilizer - the soil should always be moist but not wet - if you use compost in your soil mix, you will not need fertilizer for the first four weeks - later, add supplements like a 20-20-20 water-soluble fertilizer at rates of one tablespoon per gallon of water once every ten days, or use a manure tea or a seaweed fertilizer. To plant, as a rule of thumb, seeds should be planted to a depth of about three times their diameter. Leave two to four inches of space in between each seed. Before the plants are transplanted outdoors, they need to be “hardened off”—a process that exposes them to outside conditions for a week or ten days. Start with two hours a day and extend the amount of time they are outside over several days. Cantaloupes, watermelons, peppers and eggplant grow beautifully in Nova Scotia, especially from transplants.
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Tip: a few days before you are ready to set these transplants in the ground, water the soil where you intend to put them, then place a large sheet of dark plastic over that area. Bury the edges of the plastic with soil. Cut slits in the plastic, scoop out a hole the size of your fist and place your transplants along with a generous handful of compost in the hole and pack it in snuggly with soil. The sun heats up the area under the black plastic and keeps the weeds from growing. Your plants will thrive. Tomatoes like plastic mulch too! Jump Starts and Season Extenders ~ A popular way to get things growing early is to build a cold frame. Traditionally a wooden frame is built with the south wall eight inches high and the back wall about four to six inches higher. Old storm windows make perfect tops. Heavy duty clear plastic is also effective. You can place your newly seeded containers right in the cold frame or plant your seeds directly in the topsoil in the topsoil inside the cold frame. Tip: keep a thermometer inside the cold frame. The temperature should always be between 10 and 30 degrees C. When the outdoor temperature rises above 7 degrees C, venting is necessary. If nights turn frosty, cover the cold frame with old blankets, a carpet or straw.
Making a V-shaped tunnel (as above) about four to six inches deep in the ground, planting seeds in the furrow then covering the row with clear plastic is another way of creating a mini hot-house. It’s a great way to get vegetables started, and it can shorten the growing season up to ten days. Be sure that the plastic has holes in it (poke holes in the plastic with a screwdriver) to let air and water pass through. Once your beans, corn or squash is pushing up against the plastic, simply remove it, and watch them grow! Floating row covers also heat up the ground and speed up growing time. Row covers allow light and water to penetrate, while significantly increasing the temperature under the cover. Aside from getting crops to grow earlier and faster in the spring, they can help extend the season in the fall. For example, beans, peppers, cucumbers and tomatoes can grow well into October with the help of row covers. And they are a great protection against frost. Tip: right now, put a row cover over your rhubarb patch. You’ll have the earliest rhubarb in the neighbourhood! |
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