Difficulties with thinning
EAT YOUR VEGETABLES: Maryann James posts on vegetable gardening every Tuesday.
I'm trying to grow all my veggies from seed this year. It's an emotional roller-coaster. The constant worry over whether the seeds will take, whether the seedlings will thrive and survive, and whether I'm giving them enough light, water and care is almost too much for my delicate constitution.
But with most of vegetables and flowers sprouted, I've come to another worry spot: thinning. My crop of beets was middling last year, likely because I didn't thin as I was supposed to. I stumbled upon an old New York Times piece last year describing the thinning process:
If all the sprouts were allowed to grow, they would be too crowded for roots to form. So the gardener thins beets, leaving an inch or so between plants, and eats the sacrificed seedlings mixed with other tender spring greens.
I ignored it -- What if I pick the wrong seedlings to discard? How can I play Roman Emperor, letting some sprouts live and others die? All of them should have a chance to prove themselves! -- and paid for it. By not making a decision, none of my beets performed well, because they didn't have the space to grow.
So, how do you thin your plants? I had a brief chat with Josue Lopez, Urban Agriculture Educator for the Baltimore Cooperative Extension. He only had time to talk about beets and lettuces, but he gave me these tips on sowing and thinning:
On Beets: If container gardening, start your seeds in a container separate from their final pot.
"You should do the thinning probably when they're very small, about a half an inch on each one," he said. When the seedlings are three inches tall, you can move them to a deeper container that will give them room to grow. Lopez recommends filling the pot with half potting soil and half compost (LeafGro is one of his favs, if you can't compost yourself.)
On Lettuces: "With lettuces, you have to have good soil. They need a lot of nitrogen," Lopez said. He recommends supplanting your soil with an organic fertilizer that has nitrogen as the largest amount in the fertilizer compound.
As for thinning, Lopez mentioned a method that eased my weak heart. If you're growing lettuces like arugula and mesclun greens (as I am), you don't have to worry about thinning so much, since they are "cut and come again" greens.
"With the mesclun, let them grow to the 3-4 inches, and cut them," he said. "Let them grow and cut them two or three more times after they get bigger." Because the lettuces tend to get bitter when they get too big, he said, you should cut them when they get to "about the size you see in the packaged bags you see in the supermarket."
Categories: Urban Gardening, Vegetable gardening
Comments
Grandson and I planted carrots a week or 2 ago and it seemd to be time to thin them. (For those of you who haven't sown seeds with a 5 year old recently, there is a tendency for LOTS of seeds to wind up in a couple spots). Looks like I'll have to do this alone, since delicacy of movement is not yet his forte. He's still a grab-a-shovel guy, much like his great-grandfather.
Posted by: Eve | May 12, 2009 11:24 AM
Eve, I think it's a guy thing. Long-suffering husband and I were gardening together last weekend, and I noticed that he just assumes that any plant he doesn't recognize is a weed and hacks away accordingly, with me yelping, "Oh, no, not my prize [fill in the blank]"
Maryann, Leafgro is great stuff!
Posted by: Dahlink | May 12, 2009 5:51 PM
Thank you for the good tips on thinning the vegies. Nice post.
Dan and Deanna "Marketing Unscrambled"
Posted by: Dan and Deanna | May 13, 2009 2:04 AM