What should I grow this year?

First I'd like to start off saying hi, I've just joined and this will be my first topic.

Anyway, it may be winter right now but I feel like it's never too early to start planing. This year I am going to try to supply as much of my food as possible from my own garden threw-out the summer but I'm not sure what I should grow. I have always done determinate tomatoes, beans, peas and herbs etc.

This year I would like to be picking food as often as possible and not all at once. (I had a lot of spoilage this year

Does anyone have any suggestions of what kinds of things to grow? I'm thinking it's best to try and find mostly indeterminate/ plants that continuously produce food.

Ps. All foods will be grown in buckets/pots if that matters.

 

Hey toni, Thanks for the reply. I really like the ideal of staggering. I feel like if I were to do that I would want to use foods that have a quick return (since I'm living in a northern climate and as such have a relatively short grow season) Any ideas of what would fit into that scenario? Personally, I like every type of veggie/fruit except onions,so I won't be growing them. But everything else goes. I do plan on growing herbs in with my tomatoes, as it's worked out well for me in the past.

 

Hmm, I don't see many greens listed and they should start earlier and produce later than most others in a Northern Climate. You are about the same longitude as me but if I remember right it you have warmed up earlier and longer than I have in past years.

Cucumbers could be a good choice if you get an early start to summer there and temps get above 50 at night.

Peas can be planted weekly to have a bumper crop all year long.

Peppers, peppers and more peppers. They store very well, can be picked at different stages of development and have so many varieties they are a lot of fun to grow. There are even hot peppers that will grow in our short season.

Garlic grows huge here but it takes an extra year or 2 to really get there. My grandmother grew elephant garlic to the size of a softball on accident.

Zucchini and cucumber grow well if you get the nightly low temps regularly above 50F early enough. I didn't get there until August last year so no cukes for me.

 

I'll definitively be growing peas, cucumber are a must, I have grown garlic in the past, but I'll probably skip that one this year unless the bulbs in my cupboards grow shouts as I won't waste food. I think I should probably grow some peppers for sure, I can get them started inside so they have a better chance to fully mature before the cold comes back. Any idea what pot size is best for red/yellow peppers?

I'm also very interested in growing some leafy greens, especially since I have never done so before. Preferably ones that need very little light. Any suggestions on types of leafy greens?

I believe cucumber plants will continue producing cucumbers so long as I continue to pick them before they over mature, am I right about that?

Thanks fish_4_all, my veggie list is starting to comes together

 

Also, do you know whether bell pepper continue to produce threw-out the season or do they just produce everything all at once?

 

Bell peppers produce from late spring until a heavy frost. I would suggest that you get Cubanelle or Gypsy or a similar variety, which is "bushier" and requires less space, since you are growing in containers.
Lettuce is a very cool season crop--you can throw lettuce seed on the (hopefully) last snow, and let the snow melt plant it in for you. We did this in upstate NY and it worked great. Go with the leaf lettuces (Black Seeded Simpson, Red Velvet, the Oakleafs) because they produce over a long time. You simply pick the salad-size leaves and then more leaves develop.
There are short-season vegetables offered in almost all seed catalogs. Take an afternoon and meander through websites and paper catalogs, and select what you like and your family will eat.

 

Excellent, I've been doing some reading about black seeded simpson and red velvet since the last post and they seem like they would be well suited to my needs/wants. Apparently they can recover in about a week from a trimming? Sounds like a great addition to my seed list! I'm going to have to go look into Cubanelle and gypsy peppers and see what I can dig up. (Pun intended )

 

I have never grown bell peppers, I stick with Gypsy and other short season bush styles. My growing season is short, probably 1-1.5 months shorter than yours even though we are in the same latitude.

For containers I stick to 1.5 gallon buckets for my peppers.

A lot of cukes and zukes will produce continually as long as you are picking them. I really recommend trellising them so they grow up and out so they have plenty of room to grow lots of fruit. Pickling cucumbers produced the best for me giving me a couple hundred over the summer 2 years ago, 3 seasons ago. The last 2 seasons have been so short I haven't had a single cuke plant live past 4 inches tall.

I liked growing leaf lettuce when I did it but I have one small problem, slugs. They would eat a lot of the small shoots long before they produced large enough leaves to pick. I am thinking on doing some this year as the forecast is for an early warmer spring. To protect them I am gonna dig moats and keep them full of water to protect from slugs, earwigs and other leaf eating pests. I also plan on using large containers to form moats around other things. Hopefully my long cold streak has killed most slugs but I am not fighting them this year.

 

Corey, your leaf lettuces don't need to recover from a trimming. Just pick the outer leaves that are larger, and leave the inner leaves to develop. I can get a lovely salad by simply picking the outer leaves. Here in Texas we have a short season for leafy greens--the heat gets them in mid-June. However, where you are, you could quite possibly keep lettuces growing throughout the summer.
Cubanelle and Gypsy are varieties of bell peppers, but they don't have the blocky bell shape. Their shape is more pointed, but taste sweet nevertheless.

 

I plan on building a couple trellises for cucumbers and beans and such and I'm thinking maybe I can also use them to provide partial shade the lettuce. Hopefully I can get the lettuces to survive the whole summer but it does tend to get pretty hot in july and August so it may be difficult but that wont stop me from trying.

I've done some reading on Cubanelle and Gypsy and I think I'll be grabbing some seeds. They look like they would make really good stuffed peppers. (I type while drooling)

 

I suppose you could stuff them but they don't get all that big. My largest Gypsy was maybe 4 inches long and 2 inches wide and that one was huge compared to the rest.

 

Corey, Growing in containers offers a different aspect of gardening than traditional growing. There are many more varieties of container choices than there used to be. Cukes, peppers, tomatoes, eggplant, I even saw corn offered this year for containers, and I am sure they offer many other new varieties that do well in them. Try to choose those that are geared for containers. Also, keep a log of fertilizing them. They are dependent upon you to supply their food and water. Whether you are using commercial fertilizer or organic they need to be fed weekly/2x weekly. If you are using organic it is very hard to over fertilize or burn the plant, but not with commercial fertilizer. Use that according to the directions. At the end of the season when everybody's garden is finished due to frost, you can be moving your plants in and out according to the weather and still reaping a harvest.

It is not too early to be thinking of varieties to try or order. Now is the time to order them if you are starting the seeds yourself. I have had substitutes already for a couple of my choices, which weren't what I wanted. "If that was what I wanted that is what I would have ordered" was my response when I opened my envelope earlier this week So I need to look further for them.
P.S. Don't order Early Goliath or Goliath peppers from Totally Tomatoes. I was sent Early Dollf1. huh? not even close in size as a replacement for the goliath toms.

 

Hey carolyn, nice of you to drop by. I have always used organic hydroponic nutrients for my gardens and have found they work well for most plants and they don't seem to ever burn as long as I am careful (which I always am

Sorry to hear about you order mix-up, do you happen to have any recommendations for a reliable, fair priced and high quality seed source? (preferably an online source that accepts paypal)

 

Corey, you didn't ask me (but that has never stopped me offering my opinion in the past!) about a reliable seed source, but I have had very good experience with Pinetree Seeds http://www.superseeds.com
This company packages seeds in amounts for the home gardener, the prices are very reasonable, shipping isn't costly, and customer service is superb. I don't know if they accept Paypal or not.