Planning a Vegetable Garden

Archive for the ‘Vegetable Seeds’ Category

Planting string beans is an enjoyable task.  The seeds are large and the beans grow bountifully!  So they are easy to sow, fun to grow and easy to harvest as well.

So let’s talk about planting and growing string beans (also known as snap beans).

Types of String Beans

First, there are two different styles of string beans — those plants that grow like a bush, and those that grow up a pole.  Both are great to eat, so which type you choose may depend on the space you have available.

The bush-style beans generally grow to somewhere around 18 inches tall, give or take a couple inches.  The pole beans can easily grow 6 feet tall if given the room.

I’ve planted both kinds, and for my personal growing pleasure like the bush-style better.  They don’t produce the string beans over as long a time period as the pole-style beans, but rather have more of a concentrated harvest.

As far as taste goes, I find it has to do more with the variety you choose, rather than pole or bush.

Planting String Beans

Planting string beans is a joy for me — I can actually see the seeds without squinting!  The seeds are large and easy to handle.

You can start your beans inside if you live in a very short summer climate, but I find it just as easy to plant the seeds directly in the garden.  Wait until the soil is at least 65 degrees before sowing the seeds.

Sow the string bean seeds about 1″ deep.  For bush beans, I sow mine closely – 3 inches apart.  For pole beans, I prefer 5″ apart, and a stake for each plant.

Should you use a bean innoculant?   I generally don’t (mainly because I tend to forget it), but I do add a soil activator to the soil before I get it ready to plant.  So if your soil is poor or you have found harvests skimpy in the past, a bean innoculant will probably help you.

Growing String Beans

Growing string beans is easy; in general, they are trouble-free if you have a warm dry climate.  If your climate is humid (like mine usually is), you might want to watch out for fungal and/or rust infections.  Spacing your plants out a little farther can help with the air circulation, to help stave off the fungus.

String beans like warmth, but are fairly tolerant of cooler weather.  They don’t particularly like very hot weather, though (95+ degrees).  In fact, if you live in a hot (and especially hot and humid) climate, I suggest growing string beans on the “shoulder” seasons, so as to avoid the worst Summer heat.

Enjoy planting and growing your string beans!

What kind of vegetable seeds should you plant for a small garden?  If you’re tight on space, you’ll want to carefully consider what seeds you plant.  Some vegetables grow into large plants that can take over a small space!

Vegetable Seeds and Variety

This topic actually has a double meaning.  Most people want a bit of variety to the vegetables they grow.  And it also refers to the variety of a particular vegetable.  For example, some tomato plants can go wild and grow 6 or more feet tall.  Other varieties are shorter and more compact (thus conserving growing space).  There are quite a few vegetable varieties that can be used successfully in a small space vegetable garden.

Here are some ideas that I have used for a small vegetable garden, in two sizes — 4′ x 4′ and 4′ x 6′.  Naturally, you won’t be able to grow a ton of different vegetables in these small space vegetable gardens, but you can certainly grow plenty.  You just need to know the varieties of vegetables that will work well for you.

If you indeed can only use a 4′ x 4′ space, please consider a raised bed vegetable garden.  Your veggies will grow better because of the deeper loamy soil.  Better growing translates to a larger harvest.

Vegetable Seeds for a 4′ x 4′ Garden

If you have just a 4′ x 4′ space, you won’t have a lot of room to spare.  One small garden type I recommend is a salad garden, which is wonderful for those hot Summer nights.

My favorite salad garden consists of the following:

• Tomatoes
• Lettuce and/or spinach
• Radishes

Where you need to be careful is with the varieties of tomatoes and cucumbers you grow; they are the two plants that grow largest.  That being said, here are the varieties of vegetable seeds I recommend for a 4′ x 4′ raised bed garden.

Tomatoes: Celebrity, Sweet Baby Girl, Better Bush Improved Hybrid.  All three are great choices, but my top pick of these three is Celebrity.  Since you can grow 2 tomato plants in a 4′ x4′ garden, why not add a second variety for, well, variety!

Lettuce: I recommend leaf lettuces over head lettuces, because you can pluck leaves as needed instead of waiting for a whole plant to get big enough. As long as you don’t pluck too many leaves at one time from a given plant, it will just grow more leaves to use later. Some of the lettuces I like are Red Sails, Simpson Elite. If you’re feeling adventurous, try Salad Bowl Mix.

Spinach: I love baby spinach leaves for a salad, and they are quite nutritous. Pick what you need from several plants, then let them keep developing new leaves for you! My favorite small-space spinach is Renegade.

Radishes: It’s so very amazing how fast these vegetables can grow! Plant them a week or two after the lettuce and/or spinach. As you harvest them, you can plant more seeds, for a continuing harvest. I love color in my salads, so my choice is Easter Egg Blend II.

In general, plant 2 tomatoes (diagonally from each other) and keep other plants 18″ away from them.  The fill in with radishes, lettuce and/or spinach, planted just a smidgen closer than specified on the seed pack.  After all, in a raised bed garden, you have the wonderful soil that enables you to place the vegetables a little closer than normal.

Vegetable Seeds for a 4′ x 6” Garden

In addition to the veggies specified above, I like to add cucumbers or summer squash to a 4′ x 6′ raised bed small space vegetable garden.  Pick only one of the two, because you want at least 2 plants so that you have enough flowers for the veggies to produce well.

You can choose to grow your cucumbers or squash sprawling or up a cage.  There are different kinds of each.

Cucumbers: For sprawling over the side, I like Salad Bush Hybrid. (You can also train this up a cage if you like). But if I am going the cage route, I prefer Sweet Success.

Summer Squash: These I just grow up a cage! My top picks are Park’s Straightneck for yellow squash and Spineless Beauty for zucchini.

Note: You can let any of these sprawl if you like; make a hill on one of the 4′ ends of the raised bed and you can have three plants, spilling over the sides.

Final Notes on Vegetable Seeds

If you don’t like something on these lists, you can choose other veggies.  In particular, pole beans make great additions to your small space garden because you can train them up a trellis or tower!

If you’re longing for some sweet peppers instead, try the sweet pepper Carmen. Not a bell, but it’s space saving and delicious served all kinds of ways.

Vegetable seeds for small gardens aren’t hard to grow, but the smaller your garden, the more carefully you need to choose your varieties.

Enjoy your harvest!