In her third installment on baby vegetables, Cathy Isom has some tips for growing baby vegetables successfully. That’s coming up on This Land of Ours.
There are a few techniques that will help growing baby vegetable yields easily. Plant more baby plants in the same space or less than you would full-sized plants. Closer plantings means more leaf mass to cover the soil and keep it moist.
Time your harvest. Think ahead to how you’ll be using those veggies and try to target your harvest times for the same approximate finish date. This can be a bit tricky until you know how long it takes for your favorite varieties to be ready to harvest at the baby size you like.
Another tip is Baby Daycare. Mature vegetables have more tolerance for drought, heat, cold, wind, and other environmental factors. Use things like compost tea or organic liquid fertilizer to ensure your baby veggies stay healthy. Weed carefully without disturbing delicate plant roots. Protect from cold and wind. Offer shade in extreme heat.
Buy in bulk. You’ll need more seeds to produce similar vegetable weights from baby veggies as you could get from mature plants. Save yourself some money and buy the bulk seed packs at the start. If they offer seeds in ounces, go that route.
I’m Cathy Isom…