Gardening continued
Here’s how it works: • Bed One: High Nitrogen (N)—Leafy Greens: Lettuce, Kale, Mesclun, Arugula, Mustard, Cress, and Spinach • Bed Two: High Phosphorus (P)—Fruiting and Flowering Crops: Tomatoes, Summer and Winter Squash, Eggplant, Peppers, and Melons • Bed Three: High Potassium (K)—Root Crops: Onions, Garlic, Shallots, Radish, and Carrots • Bed Four: Cleansers and Builders (B)—Peas, Beans, Potatoes, and Corn Green Living: You make it sound simple. Ellen: I recently taught a vegetable garden design class
Gardening continued featuring the techniques from The Complete Kitchen Garden. I had expected the class to be full of new gardeners ready to learn basic skills such as sowing seed and turning compost. Instead, there were fifteen experienced gardeners who were seeking fresh ideas for how to reinvigorate their tired plots. We started with a visualization exercise to envision the kitchen garden of their dreams. This simple exercise allowed these gardeners to step out of their comfort zone of straight rows to picture kitchen gardens filled with waves of color that engaged all of their senses. The results were magical. Green Living: How about a few of your personal preferences? Ellen: I grow mostly salad greens and culinary herbs because I use them everyday in my cooking. I generally avoid space hogs such as zucchini or corn. My bush beans from last year were a total disaster since I never picked them – so those are out, too. This year, I am focused on lettuce and salad greens from Wild Garden Seeds, and heirlooms from Seed Savers Exchange. Simplicity is the key, and I encourage gardeners to keep their list of seeds limited and to grow 80% tried and true, and 20 % something new and different. Last year I grew a few quirky additions such as artichokes
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varieties for cooks who garden, and I am proud that the catalog is still alive after all these years. It is encouraging that more gardeners than ever are buying seeds to grow in their gardens. Green Living: Do you get your seeds from them? Ellen: No, this year I am buying from Solstice Seeds, a smaller, local supplier who offers varieties that are open pollinated and bred for the northeast and collected by hand. Green Living: Give us some tips for a beginning kitchen gardener. Ellen: There are really six easy steps that I outline in my book, but the most important element starts with the soil. Soil is one of the most important components to a successful garden. It is a living, breathing organism and provides the nourishment that allows roots, shoots, and fruits to mature. Most soils contain the basic elements that plants need to grow, but not always in the right proportions. A lot happens in the soil that we can’t even see. Understanding how all the elements work together in the soil will help you to build a natural blend of nutrients that will reward your plants—and you—with good health. Green Living: In your book you talk extensively about the importance of soil rotation. Can you give our readers the short course? Ellen: There is a design in my book called the Four Square Rotation garden. It combines classic design with the principles of organic gardening, to incorporate the basics of organic rotation. It makes it easy to follow a successful planting routine each year. The end result is healthy soil, healthy plants, and a harvest that is vitamin-rich and packed with flavor. Here’s the short course on the chemistry of plants and what they require in order to grow. Design your garden into four beds, and keep the plants grouped by their required nutrients, then rotate the beds each year to keep the soil healthy.