Growing Your Own Vegetables: An Encyclopedia of Country Living Guide (7 page)

Garlic and elephant garlic

Garlic (
Allium sativum
) is a different species from elephant garlic (
Allium ampeloprasum
), but they are much alike in their cultivation and use. Both plants are perennial, and although elephant garlic is significantly hardier than regular, both can withstand frost and light freezing, making them a valuable overwintering crop in areas with moderate winters. Garlic has flat, grass-like leaves that grow 1 to 2 feet tall; elephant garlic plants are larger and require more garden space. Elephant garlic heads and cloves are also much larger than those of true garlic and are mild enough to be used raw in salads or substituted in any onion recipe, tasting like a garlic-flavored onion.

PLANTING:
Garlics are propagated by deeply rooted bulbs or
heads
that grow underground. Each head is made up of a cluster of individual parts called
cloves
. The plants grow best during cool weather, developing strong top growth and the stored energy with which they will ultimately make cloves. Optimally, each plant will yield an average head of fifteen cloves. Planting in late August to mid-October allows the longest growing season; if you wait to plant in spring, do so as soon as the ground is no longer frozen. Some folks say you’ll have good luck in the coming year if you plant your garlic on New Year’s Day (weather permitting).

Prepare a fertile bed in full sun with a humus-rich, slightly acid soil. A loose, sandy soil allows the maturing bulbs to expand as they grow. Plant individual cloves, pointed end up, directly in the garden 2 to 3 inches deep and 3 inches apart in every direction and shallowly cover the points with soil. Keep plants weed free and well watered. Garlic repels many insects and is often planted with other vegetables and ornamentals.

HARVESTING:
Stop watering when garlic leaves are a foot high (taller for elephant garlic). Like onions, garlic doesn’t bulb up until the last 45 days of its growing season; to hurry them, knock over the above-ground shoots 90 to 110 days after planting. When the foliage has yellowed, loosen the dirt and pull up the whole plant. Don’t cut off the leaves if you’re planning to braid the garlic for storage. Brush soil from the bulb’s outer skin and dry in the sun or in a warm room.

Shallots

Shallots (
Allium ascalonicum
) are a close relative of garlic, easy to grow and generously productive. Like garlic, they reproduce by bulb division underground. The “nest” of 3 to 10 or more shallot bulbs resembles a head of garlic, except that there are fewer cloves and no outer papery sheath.

PLANTING:
Shallots are hardy, growing even in cold weather, and are not harmed by freezing. An early spring planting date is advised to give them the 100 days to maturity needed before bulb production shuts down with midsummer heat. In hot southern zones, plant shallots in the fall for a late winter or early spring crop.

Prepare a fertile, well-drained soil in full sun and shallowly plant individual bulbs, pointed end up, barely covering their necks with soil. Space plants 4 to 6 inches apart in every direction. Green shoots will grow to about 8 inches tall and can be sparingly harvested and used like a green onion.

HARVESTING:
When leaves die back and yellow, gently lift the nest of bulbs from the soil and dry for 2 to 3 days. Store in an open-topped basket or braid like garlic and keep in a cool, dry location.

OTHER ONIONS

Various multiplying and top-setting onions are hardy perennials, providing a savory harvest year after year and requiring little effort or space. Multiplying onions (
Allium cepa
var.
aggregatum
), which include potato onions and Welsh onions, form a cluster of underground bulbs from a single planted bulb, increasing in number and size with every year. Topsetting onions (
Allium cepa
var.
proliferum
), also known as tree or walking onions, multiply their small underground bulbs each year as well as produce clusters of small ½-inch bulblets at the top of each seed stalk. These lesser-known novelties are fun to experiment with in the garden and well worth seeking out.

LEAVES

B
asically, greens are edible-leaved plants. Sweet, rich, or pungent, fresh greens provide a rainbow of flavors, textures, and good eating. Some form or another can be harvested from the garden throughout the calendar year in most parts of the country.

Annual, biennial, or perennial, most greens are sown annually and harvested when young for their tasty and tender new leaves. Your climate and the time of year you want to harvest are factors in choosing what greens to plant. Most salad greens grow best in the cool moist temperatures of spring and fall, but it is possible to have salad year-round if you grow the right greens in the right way. Providing shade can mitigate hot summer temperatures, which tend to turn cool-season greens bitter and weak, but if you live where summers are very hot, planting chards, collards, and other heat-loving greens will produce better results.

LETTUCE

Lettuce (
Latuca sativa
) is generally eaten fresh and the most common groups are as follows:

Butterhead lettuce
makes a loose leafy head consisting of tender, buttery leaves with a garden-fresh flavor. They take a little longer to mature than leaf lettuce and can’t stand hot weather. 50 to 65 days to maturity.

Crisphead lettuce
is the hardest to grow in the home garden and takes twice as long to mature as leaf lettuce. The most familiar crisphead is the nostalgic iceberg lettuce with its mild (some would say bland) flavor and crisp, crunchy texture. Hot weather, especially hot nights, will turn crispheads bitter and cause them to prematurely go to seed. Space plants 8 to 18 inches apart, wider for bigger heads. 80 to 95 days to maturity.

Looseleaf lettuce
is the easiest to grow, hardiest in hot weather, and the most nourishing. Leaf lettuce has a somewhat stronger flavor and its deeper green (or red or maroon or speckled) leaves have a higher nutrient content than butterhead or crisphead lettuces. 40 to 55 days to maturity.

Romaine lettuce
, also called
cos
, grows straight up in a tight central bunch instead of curling into a ball or waving loosely. Romaine tolerates more heat than head or butterhead lettuce but not as much as leaf lettuce. Germination can be spotty, so sow thickly. Romaine varieties do best in damp, cool conditions. 70 to 85 days to maturity.

PLANTING:
Prepare a fine, crumbly seedbed to accommodate lettuces’ small and relatively weak root systems. Sow seed ¼ to ½ inch deep in early spring, as early as the ground can be worked; even young plants can withstand a light freeze. Leaf lettuce can be broadcast in a block for cut-and-come-again harvesting at a young stage, whereas head lettuces should be spaced 8 inches apart in every direction in rows or raised beds. The young thinnings of all lettuces are sweet and tender, so plant densely and thin in stages as the maturing plants need more room, tossing the young thinning into early salads.

Lettuce can be started indoors and transplanted into the garden at the four-leaf stage. Due to the extremely perishable nature of lettuce, both in the ground and once harvested, plan to succession plant every 2 to 3 weeks to ensure a continuing harvest. Provide regular water to prevent wilting and keep lettuce growing quickly. The long days of early summer trigger lettuce to bolt—that is, flower and go to seed.

HARVESTING:
Whichever method you choose, pick lettuce in the cool of the day.

LETTUCE HARVEST METHODS

◗ Cut-and-come-again: Cut the whole plant about 2 or 3 inches above the ground and leave the remaining crown to regrow another crop.

◗ Harvest just the outer leaves, leaving the younger inner leaves to mature. Keep up with the maturing plants, as the outer leaves are the first to become bitter and tough.

◗ Harvest whole plants by thinning when young or at maturity.

THE GIANT CABBAGE/MUSTARD FAMILY

Crunchy, biting, colorful, hardy, toothsome, and sometimes stinky, cabbage and its close relatives the mustards contribute a piquant zest and nutritious wallop to salads, stir-fries, and casseroles. They are hearty greens eaten fresh when very young but are most often cooked.

Cabbage

Cabbage (
Brassica oleracea
) is relatively easy to grow, a heavy producer, and very nutritious; the American Cancer Society advises us to eat cabbage (and other cruciferous, sulfur-containing vegetables) to protect against cancer. There are cabbage varieties with all kinds of maturing dates and sizes—from little heads about the size of a football that mature in 60 days to giant kinds that make 50-pound heads over a long season. Heads may be tightly formed or loose; loose-leafed savoy cabbage is particularly hardy and very tasty, an excellent choice for home gardeners. Color choices include pink, red, lavender, blue, purple, white, cream, or green, making for an ornamental as well as nourishing crop.

PLANTING:
Provide fertile soil in full sun and plant seed ¼ to ½ inch deep and 3 inches apart, or set transplants into the garden, spacing the plants 2 to 3 feet apart in every direction. In the North, start transplants of early spring cabbage in a hotbed or indoors in February, setting plants into the open garden as soon as the ground is workable. In the South, start early spring cabbage in the fall and transplant into the garden in January. For an extended harvest, plant a combination of early-, midseason-, and late-maturing cabbages. 65 to 85 days to maturity.