Tiny Vegetables

Do you need to grow tiny vegetables in a small plot? Or can you do your garden like you do your interiors. A large piece of furniture can act as a anchor in a living room. Could a large squash plant or giant cabbage be the anchor and around it tiny vegetables. Those little carrots, the tiny pumpkins, the baby cukes. Some things your pick little but grow more bushy or trailing, such as patty pan squash. Now that is a decent size plant. And the cherry tomatoes, 100 or 100000, aren't little plants, so how to get the most out of small gardens is my question this frosty morning in February.

Once the only garden I had in a yard was a three foot wide stretch along a fence next to the driveway. Along the chain link I planted a tomato plant and green beans that grew up the fence. I put in lettuce and carrots, basil, onions and zucchini. Really, my daughter and I had all the vegetables we needed in a very small sunny space. Of course, we didn't have extras to give away, we didn't have extras to can—just the stuff for our own table, the ingredients to make the sauce for the spaghetti we so frequently ate. The carrots for her to munch with her friends in the back yard. And we gardened together, so it was a bonding experience.

Since here in the PNW it isn't time to plant, it is time to plan. Perhaps draw out the shape of your space and grid it off in one foot squares. Try doing a little arranging with the things you'd like to grow. Get a Territorial Seed Company catalogue and plan ahead, order something new to grow. A new carrot, perhaps the multi-colored ones—or if you've never grown parsnips, try them. They are easy to grow and so delicious in parsnip potato soup.

Keep growing,

Flower