Your Small Kitchen Garden

To help myself through winter’s garden-free months, I talked to several master gardeners and got all kinds of ideas about gardening. Ginger Pryor, the director of Penn State’s Master Gardener program was kind enough to answer a pile of my questions, many of which came from readers of Your Small Kitchen Garden blog, and from folks with whom I interact on Twitter.

In past posts, I’ve shared many of those questions along with Ginger’s answers. This post completes the series with more answers to questions concerning kitchen gardeners.

A Small Kitchen Garden on a Rooftop

The green roofs movement is growing (was that a pun?) quickly. This rooftop is on the ranger station in Vista Hermosa Park, Los Angeles. If your building is structurally sound, why not grow a kitchen garden on the roof? [I found this photo on the web site www.greenroofs.com.]

Twitter acquaintance @charlie43 had questions about rooftop gardening. He was concerned that the rooftop is very hot, and asked whether hydroponics was the best method to employ.

Ginger admitted she has no experience with rooftop gardening, but she suggested experimentation. First: find out whether the building is capable of supporting the weight of a planting bed… this is a crucial step! Then, build a raised bed, plant it, and see how things work out. One likely benefit of a rooftop raised bed garden is that it may rest above trees and buildings that would typically block sunlight.

We talked about emerging green roof technology that uses live plants to provide buildings with natural cooling… and reduces a building’s carbon footprint in the process. Penn State’s web site has dozens of articles about green roofs, and a dedicated section specifically about green roof research.

So, if the building can handle it, seems as though you should cover the whole thing with a kitchen garden.

We didn’t talk much about hydroponics. Proponents of hydroponics talk as though some day whole hydroponic farms will hide inside skyscrapers and provide garden fresh vegetables for urban dwellers. In my experience, growing hydroponically is pricier than traditional methods. I’d offer: if you…

• …can afford it
• …enjoy it
• …are having good results

Then why not grow with hydroponics? If you want to take a more traditional approach, follow Ginger’s suggestion: experiment.

Have you heard the suggestion that you should plant peas on St Patrick’s day? A master gardener says it’s a good suggestion (at least for people in hardiness zone 5b).

What do all Gardeners get Wrong?

I asked Ginger whether she’s aware of gardening rules of thumb that are simply wrong. Not surprisingly, she said our ancestors knew their stuff: go ahead and follow the rules of thumb. When pressed, she observed that popular do-it-yourself guides encourage you to include soap as a bug-repellant in home-made plant sprays. This, she says, is bad advice; some ingredients used in soap can kill plants. If you’re mixing your own plant sprays, use insecticidal soap wherever a recipe calls for “soap.”

I asked, What is the most common error gardeners make? Ginger offered two suggestions:

1. People often start gardening without clear understanding of their own motivations. She feels it’s important to answer the question: Why are you gardening? Is it a spiritual back-to-the-earth experience? Are you trying to save money? Do you want bragging rights? Are you following tradition? Do you just want to eat great tomatoes? Understanding your motivation will guide your decisions, help with planning, and lead to desirable results.

2. People take their soil for granted. Planting in poor or inappropriate soil will likely lead to failure—or at least to inferior results. Get your soil tested, make appropriate amendments, and plant things that will like the soil you have.

Diagnose Problems in your Small Kitchen Garden

I asked Ginger questions about specific problems I’ve had with green beans over the years. While she offered several suggestions about the causes, she made a more general statement that everyone should be aware of: You can probably get a diagnosis of any plant disease at your local Cooperative Extension office.

Many offices sponsor hotlines manned by master gardeners, and some will invite you take samples of your diseased plants in for examination. Learn the schedule of your Extension office’s hotlines and office hours, and take advantage of them. (Ginger emphasized: find a local Cooperative Extension office; experts who don’t live in your part of the country may not be familiar with the types of problems you’ll face with your small kitchen garden.) Again, here’s a link to a web site that will help locate Extension offices in your area.

The Cash Crops

Want a great return on the investment you make in your small kitchen garden? Plant tomatoes. A flat of six seedlings may cost $3 and produce 120 to 600 pounds of tomatoes. At grocery store prices, that’s $240 to $1200 of produce!

A lot of readers ask the question: What should I plant? And, as Ginger explained in Part I of this series, the answer should depend on your sensibilities. I recast the question to reflect our economic times: What vegetables provide the greatest return on investment? Or, What plants give you the highest yield in the least space and with the least effort?

She suggested tomatoes, peppers, egg plant, and beans, and emphasized: absolutely not corn. I second her suggestions (well… I don’t care for eggplant, but if you like it, grow it), and offer as well: lettuce and spinach. But seriously: plant stuff you really want to eat.

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