Step-by-Step Guide to Planting Summer Vegetables
Vegetable plants are expensive. To get the most out of them, you need to pay attention to more than just soil, sun, and water. You need to set up the plants correctly by planting them correctly. That’s what I mean.
Choose a suitable plant from a nursery
When I first started gardening, I thought it was best to buy the biggest vegetable shoots, the ones with flowers and fruit already on them. That would give the plant a head start, right?
Unfortunately, no. Plants experience what is called “transplant shock” when you transplant them. You disturb the plant’s roots and move it into a new environment. To survive, a plant needs to focus all of its energy on the plant’s roots, and if there is a lot of plant material like leaves, flowers, and fruit to support them, that energy is wasted. Plants with established fruit, in particular, have a hard time during the transplanting process. Choose plants that look healthy, with strong stems and undamaged leaves, but that do not yet have flowers or fruit.
Set the stage
There are many ways to care for your garden from season to season. Some people till the soil, others use a no-till method, and still others use what’s called “ slash and throw .” Regardless of the method, the soil you plant in needs to be flexible enough for the roots to develop. For this reason, make sure the soil is turned and loosened – to a depth of between a spade and a spade and a half. You can use a pitchfork for this if you don’t want to disturb the soil structure, but otherwise just use a spade. Loosening the soil will help you see the texture – so you can add sand if the soil has too much clay, or compost if it doesn’t hold moisture. You can use this time to add amendments like vegetable fertilizer and lime. Fertilizer is obvious, but lime is used to make your soil less acidic, which happens over time with watering and growing. Most vegetables don’t like an acidic environment. Amend the soil.
Choose a cloudy day.
Your plants will already be stressed from transplanting. Planting them in full sun will add even more stress. A series of cloudy days is the perfect time to plant. If that’s not an option, plant at dusk to give the plants a night to acclimate. Consider giving the plant some shade the following day to help it acclimate.
Remove the plant from the pot without damaging the roots.
By the time plants get to the nursery, they’re often rootbound in the plastic pots or six-packs you buy. Roots are resilient, but you don’t want to disturb them any more than necessary. The best way to free a plant from a plastic pot is to squeeze the bottom of the pot with two fingers. This should release the plant. Don’t turn the pot upside down or hit it with your palm, and definitely don’t try to pull it out by the plant’s stem.
Once the plant is out, you need to break up the roots by using your fingers like a comb on the bottom of the plant to free the roots. That being said, these plants don’t like their roots disturbed: cucumbers, beans, squash, luffa, beets, and most root vegetables. For these, I simply dig a hole, lift the plant out of the plastic tray, gently set it in, and walk away.
Individual plants as needed
Most pots have more than one seed in each cell. In some cases, like tomatoes, someone will usually select the seedlings so that only one of them will grow. However, in some cases, like herbs and lettuce, nurseries will leave the seeds alone and allow several to grow. In other cases, like onions and carrots, the cells are intentionally overseeded to fill them with more seedlings. Strawberries usually come in a pot with five to ten seedlings.
If there is more than one seedling, you will need to separate them. Do not try to plant them together. For lettuce or herbs, this is simple: remove one cell and use your fingers to gently separate the soil pod. Start by splitting the pod in half, then continue to separate until all the seedlings are free. This works for large plants like zucchini and for small plants like carrots, where there may be 20 or more seedlings in one cell.
Once the individual seedlings are free, they can be planted as if they were a whole plant. This will give you a whole row of carrots or onions. It’s also a great way to save money, since a six-pack of lettuce usually yields much more than six heads.
Know the correct depth
Plants should be planted into the ground at the correct depth, ensuring that the base of the plant is level with the soil. In some cases, however, you can (and should) plant the stem deeper.
For example, leeks and onions can be planted deep. In particular, leeks can be planted as deep as possible so that only an inch or two of the sprouts are above the soil surface. This will help to blanch the leeks (keep them white).
Tomatoes, eggplants and peppers can be planted deep as they will form roots all along the stem. If your tomato is leggy (tall with few horizontal branches), this is a dramatic solution.
When in doubt, follow the directions on the plant label or simply plant at a standard depth so the roots are covered and the stem extends above the soil.
Do not mulch the stems.
While mulch plays an important role in insulating your vegetable plants and keeping the soil moist, it is also a way for pathogens to spread. You need to make sure there is a gap of several inches between the plants and the mulch.
Save your labels or make new ones
In the rush of planting, it’s common to lose the plant tags. After all, a tomato is a tomato. However, at the end of the season, you’ll be sad when one tomato looks great and another doesn’t, and you don’t know what variety each was. Label your plants!