January 2022 Edible Garden Planner

It's seed catalog season!

Thursday, January 13, 2022

January is the time of dreaming and planning for your spring and summer garden.  Seed catalogs are in full swing and big box stores and local nurseries have seeds and seed starting gear on the shelves.   It is an exciting time for browsing the magazines and making the garden plan for the upcoming year!  Seed companies are highly recommending that you order sooner rather than later again this year.  They are expecting another record year of demand.

Grow what you love!

The easiest way to fall in love with gardening is growing what you love to eat and look at.  There is nothing like strolling out to the garden to see what's ripe and tasty for dinner, gathering blooms to bring inside.  If you have ever wanted to plant a kitchen garden, but weren’t sure if you had the space or skills, you may be surprised.

We grow all we need for fresh eating and putting away for the winter in our flower beds.  Just mix in greens, herbs and veggies.  It looks great, flowers attract beneficial insects for more veggie production, and is so easy to run out and get what you want to eat that day right outside your door.

If you aren't sure you can grow veggies, start with herbs.  Herbs thrive on neglect so are a great choice for dipping your toe into the edible gardening arena.  This is how I transitioned from a purely ornamental garden to integrating edibles into my flower beds.  A bonus is many herbs are perennials so only have to be planted once and come back year after year.  

Start a kitchen herb garden!  

Herbs come in all different sizes as well.  I love growing creeping thyme between stepping stones and around the perimeter of the garden.  Oregano and tarragon are taller and have a tendency to fill out a space so better for the back of the garden.  And there are many in between.  Pick herbs that you use a lot in cooking and use those in your flower bed as a start.

You can grow a lot in a small space

It is common for Italians and French to have a small kitchen garden where they grow herbs, greens and vegetables year round.  It is amazing the amount of food you can grow in a very small space!  How to decide what to plant for small spaces?

If you have only a 6’ x 6’ space, a Mediterranean kitchen garden could include the following:

Herbs (1 each)-thyme, rosemary, sage, oregano, and flat leaf parsley 

Make your own "Herbes de Provence"

3 basil plants (for pesto and seasoning)  

Basil basics-harvesting, preserving, growing basil

2 tomatoes-1 small fruiting and 1 slicer type 

Tomatoes 101, everything you need to know to grow great tomatoes

2 sweet pepper plants  

Peppers are for every taste and garden

1 zucchini (look for “bush” types as they are more compact)  

Everything you need to know to grow squash

1 eggplant 

Eggplant-add this native from India to your garden

8 red bunching onions 

Onions-everything you need to know to grow 'em

8 garlic plants 

Time to plant garlic! With growing tips......

Arugula, spinach and lettuce scatter sowed  

Growing fabulous lettuce and greens

For more details on a compact French garden:  Small space French kitchen garden

For an Italian garden:  Heirloom Sicilian kitchen garden  To entice the little ones, an Italian garden can also be called a "Pizza or Spaghetti Garden"!  Pizza garden for the kids

Use your patio to grow edibles with flowers 

If you also have room for pots on the patio, you could grow the zucchini, eggplant, and cucumber in pots  (only 1 plant in each pot) and add 3 bush or 6 pole bean plants in the garden bed or pot with a trellis for them to grow up.  Traditional bush beans would be lentils, Romano, Capitano, Cannellini, fava; pole beans-Roma, Helda, Supermarconi.  Personally, I would stick with the beans you eat whole as shelled beans you do not get as much food per plant, and less food per space in a small garden.

Decorative container gardening for edibles

If you have more room, you can add almonds (yes, they survive Midwest winters), beets, chard, fennel, chickpeas, figs (grows well in a pot too), asparagus, cardoon, chicories, radicchio, endives, broccoli, cauliflower, or annual artichokes.  

If you are just beginning a garden, do start small.  You want the garden to be fun and relaxing, not overwhelming.  Don't be afraid to begin.  The force of life is strong and really doesn't need much from us.  Buy a few plants in the early spring and just put them in the ground with a natural fertilizer and you will be amazed at how they just go to town all by themselves!

What crops give you the biggest bang for your time?

Vintage WW2 poster

For seed catalogues, the ones that have the best chance of thriving in your garden are the ones that do their trials in your area of the country.  The seeds and plants they carry are the ones that have performed the best for them in their trial gardens.  Baker Creek is fun because they specialize heirlooms and rare seeds from around the world and are here in the Midwest.  Territorial Seeds has a good summary in each section of growing tips and their seed farms are mainly in the Northwest.  I have had very good success with both.

My favorite catalogs are the ones that the links are on the right.  I have ordered from them all and been happy with their selection and how well the plants did.

Here is my garden plan for 2022  Reflecting back on the 2021 edible garden, planning for the 2022 garden

Still having trouble deciding?  Well, you have some time before the season starts.  Heck, you can procrastinate all the way to June..........  It is not too late to start a garden in June!  You can use this time to make your plan based on what you eat this winter.  Use this winter to figure out what to grow in the ...

For more on steps on putting in a garden: Easy ways to make a new vegetable garden bed  

Weed free, self fertilizing, till free garden beds  Easy kitchen garden