Susan Lowman-Thomas April 2011

No pesticides Better taste Exercise

Teach them where food comes from Give them an outside experience Help them exercise Help them eat better Pass gardening to another generation

90% of all fungicides & 30% of all insecticides are potentially cancer-causing agents

Beans (dwarf) 7-10 Beans (climbing) 7-10 Beetroot Broad beans Broccoli 6-10 Brussels Sprouts 6-10 Cabbage 6-10 Capsicum (Peppers) Carrots Cauliflower 6-10 Celery Chinese Cabbage 6-10 Cucumber 6-10 Eggplant Endive Leeks Lettuce 6-10 Marrow 6-10 Melons 6-10 Okra Onions Onions (Spring) Parsnip Peas (Dwarf) 7-10 Pumpkin 6-10 Radish 5-8 Rhubarb Silverbeet Spinach Squash 6-10 Swedes 6-10 Sweet Corn 6-10 Tomato Turnips 6-10

2 tomato plants 4 lettuce plants (head lettuce such as Mesa) 12 radishes 4 lettuce plants (leaf lettuce such as Romaine) 1 bell pepper or other pepper plant 2 baby spinach plants 1 cucumber plant 2 arugula plants 2 radicchio plants 5 onions or shallots 1 Swiss chard plant

2 sq ft Batavia or romaine lettuce (2 plants) 2 sq ft loose-leaf lettuce (8 plants) 2 sq ft mixed greens; tatsoi, mizuna, arugula, etc. (8 plants) 1 sq ft spinach (4 plants) 1 sq ft Swiss chard or broccoli (1 plant) 2 sq ft sugar snap peas 3 sq ft radishes, carrots, green onions, baby beets, etc. 3 sq ft herbs and edible flowers 4 x 4 Garden

4 types: looseleaf, butterhead, romaine, and crisphead All can be planted in early spring Can be started indoors 4 to 6 weeks earlier For small space salad gardens, looseleafs are good

Lettuce likes: Spring A shady spot in the hotter months Fertile, well-draining soil, with organic matter Radishes, strawberries and cucumbers Lettuce dislikes: Getting too hot in full sunshine Being watered in the evening Overcrowding Slugs and snails

Go from seed to harvest in just 30 days Sow the seed outdoors as soon as the soil can be worked Replant new seeds every 10 days Plant radishes in narrow bands by themselves or Mix them with lettuce and spinach

Like other salad crops, spinach prefers to grow and develop while the weather is still cool and moist. In the early spring, sow the seeds directly in the garden and thin the young plants to stand three or four inches apart.

Perennial member of the onion family Produces masses of fresh greens from early spring till late fall The flowers are edible Plant chives in a corner of the garden where they wont be disturbed when you do spring soil preparation

Start indoors under grow lights about 6 to 8 weeks before planting Protect your plants from caterpillars by covering with row covers Or spray the plants at weekly intervals with Bacillus thuringiensis Cauliflower and Brussels sprouts often do better as fall crops so start them in midsummer

Swiss chard is one of the best kept secrets in the salad garden Members of the beet family Grow quickly from seed and look as home in the flower border as they do in the vegetable garden Very heat tolerant so you can harvest Swiss chard throughout the summer

Hardest" salad crop for many gardeners to grow Seeds can be slow to germinate Difficult to thin Sow a handful of carrot seeds in 4-inch plastic pots and starts them under grow lights Transplant each pot of carrot seedlings directly into the garden as whole units, spacing the clumps about 12 inches apart Carrots dont seem to mind being crowded into their small units

Carrots like: Cool, wet weather, and can be sown before the last frost has passed Lots of sunshine - choose a sunny spot but keep them well watered Fertile, sandy and well-draining soil, without loads of stones in it Onions, chives, radishes, sage and rosemary Carrots dislike: Long, hot, dry spells which bakes the ground hard Soil which is heavy, consists largely of clay or is full of stones Ground that has been prepared with manure or compost Too much nitrogen - it spoils their taste

Nasturiums Roses Violets Calendulas Daylilies Sage Dianthus Chrysanthemum Borage

Use the right pots Use fresh potting soil every year Grow vertically Use bamboo spiral stakes Dangle from a wire basket that hangs on the fence Choose easy crops, like cherry tomatoes or herbs Harvest regularly Move containers around as needed

1.Select a container at least 18 x 8 2.Fill the pot with a fast-draining potting soil & organic fertilizer 3.Before seeding, moisten the soil. Mix seeds in a bowl with sand (3:1, sand:seed) so they'll disperse more evenly. 4.Sow the seeds, then cover lightly with soil. 5.Gently mist the soil so as not to displace the seeds. 6.Place containers in full sun or light shade. Seeds should germinate in 7 to 10 days. 7.Harvest at least weekly

March 13 I snagged a bunch of reed screening from the nearest Home Depot and chopped it into smaller sizes (it came 12' tall!). I found that I needed to wrap it around last year's tomato cages to give it some shape. Rebar stakes secure the cages to the ground.

Covered raised beds Cold frames Containers

Veggies in bags Blinds for labels Garden cloches (bell jars) out of bottles Toilet paper roll or newspaper pots Toilet paper seed tape Curtain row-covers