111. Plant These for a Quick Harvest

For a long time, I’ve lived under the belief that gardening season in Wyoming runs from June to September.  In the midst of the Covid-19 epidemic I’ve been obsessively reading about new and different approaches to gardening that quite frankly have blown my past beliefs to pieces.  Today I’m dishing out my favorite new tips and tricks that I’ve learned over the past couple weeks and explain what I’m getting ready to implement in my own garden.  Learn how to always have a constant, quick supply of greens, root vegetables, and much more.  This is a great episode for anyone looking to bolster their food security for the coming months and beyond. 

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Transcript

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welcome to the old fashioned on purpose podcast. So gardening is suddenly kind of the cool thing to do, and I'm not mad about it. I think it's awesome. And as we see more and more people becoming aware of their food supply, sourcing local options just overall caring more than usual I think it very well could be one of the best things to come out of this Whole covid mess. And because right now, for many of you, time is of the essence, right? You don't want to go to the grocery store as much. Or maybe you just can't get a lot of stuff at the grocery store. I wanted to share some ideas that you can put into practice right away that will help you get some green fresh veggies on your plate sooner versus later on your host, a winger. And this is the podcast for the Trail Blazers, the Mavericks, the makers, the homesteaders, the modern pioneers and the backyard farmers. If you're ready to boost your food security and take charge of your self sufficiency, well, you're in the right place. So short story before we get started with the content of this episode. I mean, a story is much of a confession of what I'm about to do. So if I have a podcast later on about the failure of this upcoming action, you'll have the back story. So I always wait to plants till Memorial Day, right? Anything that is going to be affected by cold or Frost has to wait till the end of May to go out into my garden beds, zone five. That's just how we roll here. However, I think I'm going to do something potentially crazy. I'm gonna be trying to plant some of my cabbage seedlings outside like in a couple days, and I say it a couple days because right now it's blowing snow. We had a snowstorm yesterday. I wouldn't say it was a blizzard, only like five or six inches. But once that calms down, probably by this weekend, I'm gonna try taking some of my cabbage seedlings out of my grow lights system in the basement and transplanting them out outside. This could be a horrible idea. I will let you know how this pans out, but I have a method to my madness or rather, an influence that caused me to think this could be a good idea. I have been reading a lot of books, right? Blame it on the books, a lot of books about season extension and greenhouse gardening and cold frames. And I am so ridiculously inspired right now. But it's causing me to rethink this idea of gardening season happens from June until September. I mean, that's our window. You might have a longer one, but that's us doing to September, and then we're done right, and it's this race and this stress in those few short months to get it all done and harvested and handled. So I'm expanding my horizons and trying to think outside the box. And so we have these wooden planters in our front yard. Christian built them a couple of years ago, and here's what I'm thinking. I don't know. Call me crazy. I'm gonna take needs these cabbage seedlings now. I planted them way too early. I just have to confess. I jumped the gun. It was into February. I was planting cabbage seeds. That was a dumb idea because they are enormous. They're in my basement screaming to be let out of the basement and I don't want to leave them locked up for much longer. So I want to take a handful of them and try planting them in these garden boxes. Now, I'm not gonna leave them exposed to the elements. I have a plan. We got some clear plastic panels and I'm going to be putting those over the top right and to get good Southern light, so I think it'll be good, but I want to try planting them early like a month and 1/2 early to see if they can survive when they have that plastic to create kind of micro climate. Um, Christian and I have been talking about some cold frame construction this year. We have a few spots picked out. If you watched my recent YouTube video on our gardening plans and how our homes that is changing, you saw some of that, but I don't know. We'll see. I'm excited to to branch out a little bit and to think outside of this June to September Garden Box, and that really leads me into today's episode are. But what I just rambled about actually does tie into today's content because you can wait until later to plant your vegetables if you're in a cooler zone like I am, or you can kind of start thinking outside the box of what you can plant now for an early harvest. And it might be in random locations that might be in containers or in window sills or in little spots tucked up on the south side of your house, up near the the foundation or in a warm location. But I think there's more you can do right now than you probably think. Even if you're living in a snowy area like I am to start getting the food growing happening right, let's get this rolling. So here are some thoughts ideas for you to help start growing food and get a harvest as fast as possible. Okay, so first off, let me give you some ideas on seeds because seeds are tricky right now, I never thought I would say that it's hard to find seeds, which is good and bad, but good that so many people are buying them. I've heard of several places where they are considering seeds and garden supplies, bedding plants and such as non essential, and you're not allowed to purchase them. I know Michigan is flat out saying seed sales and plant sales aren't allowed, which wow, if that I mean, I would be so furious. If you live in Michigan, I feel your pain, my friend, like that's horrendous. But hopefully you can still order online, right? So, true leaf market. You've heard me talk about them before. There have been troopers through this whole covid issue. They have been slammed with orders slammed, but they're still open. They're still trucking, they are a little bit slower in their shipping than normal, which is 100% to be expected. But they have wonderful seeds. Cool people who run the company non GMO open pollinated heirloom. You got the whole nine yards. So if you need seeds, check out True Leaf market we will put a link in the show notes. Like I said, the shipping might be a few days slower than normal, but it's all good. As long as I get seeds coming in my house, I can be patient, right, and I know I did order more green seeds, kale, the spinach. So let us stuff stuff like that this year more than I normally do, just because I want to extend my food growth a little bit longer. A few other little notes before we get into the actual vegetable varieties. Make sure that when you are purchasing seeds and I say seeds because odds are you're probably not going to be doing these techniques with bedding plants like seedlings. I mean, you can if you want, but a lot of these greens and some of these quick growing vegetables that we're gonna be talking about today e there just better to start from seed. So make sure when you're shopping for seeds, you're checking the descriptions and the back of the packages to see how long it takes for each type to reach maturity, right? So there's big differences. For example, a carrot might be ready to harvest in 55 days if it's a certain variety, or it might not be ready to harvest until it's 75 days old. And if you're really paying attention to speed here, make sure you're selecting varieties that are going to give you the quickest harvest possible, and this could be a little bit trickier if you're just buying kind of your run of the mill big box store, which I would suggest that would be your last option, like use it if that's all you got. But try to go to those smaller garden stores or smaller online vendors first, because they have more variety. A lot of the big box seed racks are just gonna have the most popular stuff, and it's not gonna give you as much liberty to pick out varieties that will work better for you in your situation. So make sure you're checking that. That's really important. Another thing to keep in mind is that you can pick these veggies earlier than you might normally harvest them. So there's on the back of the seed packet. There's usually of maturity date. You can follow that if you want, but if you're really chomping at the bit to get the fresh greens for your salad or the spinach or whatever, you absolutely can pick them when they're a little bit younger. Especially the thinning right. If you're going beets, or your growing turnips, you need to thin those out. Use those thinnings in your salads or for your meals. It will help the other ones grow better. It gives you that earlier supply and It just is a win win all the way around and bonus a lot of the greens. And even many of the root vegetables are much sweeter and more tender if you grab them when they're young. So just keep that in mind. You don't have to be boxed in by the rules on the seed packet. Your soil matters. Okay, So don't overthink your soil. Don't let your soil quality cripple you, you know, paralysis by analysis. We talked about that before. Don't don't get into that mode. But you do need good soil that has nutrients. So if you're concerned, you could do a quick soil test just so you know, if you need to add amendments or any minerals or things to it, I would say for the most part, you're probably just gonna be okay to keep on truck and move forward or grab potting soil if you can find it in your growing in containers and then lastly before we get into our veggie list,  if you're really wanting quick greens, check out sprouts, try sprouting or try growing microgreens. We have a giant very helpful, very comprehensive blog post all about sprouts up on theprairiehomestead.com. I'll try to remember to link that in the show notes, but it's literally sprouting seeds, water, Mason Jar, the end four days you have stuff for your salad and they're so dang nutrient dense. It's ridiculous. So that could be an option to get the sprouts going while you have the other seeds outdoors or in the window sills doing their thing and it'll be even better. All right, so the vegetables I have a long list, and I actually do have post on the blog with everything about these. I'm not going to read this verbatim. I'm not gonna go through every single one because that would be probably really boring. But I'm just gonna give you a high level view just to get your your wheels turning of what you can plans on. And then you can go over to the blog if you need more detailed information. Basically, the number one group of vegetables to focus on would be the greens, okay, arugula,  Asian greens. Um, you've got the cress, the kale, the lettuce, the mustard greens are super spicy, um, chard, spinach. Those guys are going to be the quickest. And if it's still cool where you're at, I know some of places in the US are actually getting pretty warm right now, But if you're cool like I am, not cool like, you know, I mean, not cool. Awesome. Just cool climate, cold snow, that type of cool. If you're cool like I am, you can plant these guys quickly or if you're in a hotter location, try putting them in a shady spot. We talked about plants that grow well in shade. On another episode, these are a fantastic option and they grow quickly. You can harvest them very, very soon. So grab some green packets. I would suggest going with intervals or succession planting. Right. So you plant two rows today, you plant to more rose next, week or in two weeks, and you just keep going like that. So you stagger your harvest because I mean, like, raise your hand. If you've ever planted the whole bed of greens at once and there's so much you can't keep up with it like I've done that an embarrassingly large number of types or I'm like somebody help me. The lettuce is literally taking over my life and then in two weeks you have no lettuce at all. So it's better if you can stagger the planting of these and you'll have a much more broad harvest instead of everything in one little window. Let's see, other things you should know about greens you're looking at about average, this can vary, 25 to 30 days before you can harvest. You might be able to push that a little bit earlier. If you're harvesting the babys, the baby greens or you're sending them out, the bigger they get, the more bitter they get or potentially spicy. So it's better to harvest them sooner versus later, which is to your advantage right now, anyway. And when a green starts to bolt or go to seed or get the flowers generally, that changes the taste quite a bit. So, like you can eat bolted spinach, it's just a lot more bitter. It's not as good. So the cool thing is, a lot of these guys guys, meaning greens do better when it's cool. Anyway, So fantastic options. That's what I'm gonna be really focusing on. A few other more root vegetables would be beets, um, turnips, radishes. You can let those guys go super long to you. Have a fully developed route, or you can eat them when the root is very small and you're mostly using them for their greens, right, putting them in salads. I feel like a lot of the time we forget about that. We focus on the root part the beet root turnips, and we, um, don't utilize the green portions as much as we should. And they're delicious, so grow the root vegetables harvest quickly. The same goes for carrots. Carrots could take quite a while. And carrots probably aren't my first pick. Just because they take a while to germinate right here, it's just, I would say mine usually don't come up for 10 days. Two weeks just takes longer, but you can pick a carrot earlier. Then you normally would and have little tiny sweet baby carrots. And in about 55 days you'll be ready to roll. Cucumbers, believe it or not,, also make the cut there another 50-55 day veggie, especially here. Just getting the little ones right. If you do, I always have baseball bat cucumbers. This is not a good idea for this topic of getting an early harvest. But if you're planting your cucumbers, they come on quickly. They will start bearing fruit at least small little fruits quickly for pickles and the smaller they are the crunchy or they are. So that's a win win and is looking my other pieces of my list here. Summer squash Not as quick as a green right but summer squash and zucchini. The ever present zucchini 45 to 50 days you're looking at before you start getting some small fruit, and they're better when they're small anyway, unless you're grinding them up for a zucchini bread, so those could be feasible options. But primarily, my first recommendation would be the greens and start putting some other things and to come up behind that. And the cool thing about greens is you can do them in a good, sunny window if you have, ah, nice Southern facing window. Put some potting soil any trey or a pan or pot. You could start growing them right there, or you can put them under your grow lights, just like you might seedlings with your starting seeds in your basement like ideo. So lots of options just The key is to think outside the box. Get creative with where you're planting, how you're planting. This can be done, my friend in an apartment. This could be done in a home with a very small backyard. You can grow way more food than you think. And I'm really excited to continue to explore this concept more As this year progresses, I know I'm feeling extra inspired. Lots of ideas and whatever I have come to me, you can guarantee it. I will be bringing it to you just as soon as I figure out. And maybe before I figure it out because I like to bring you along for the mishaps as well. So go forth and grow. Let's do this and that's it for today, my friend. Um, don't forget to hit. Subscribe. So all the new episodes show up in your podcast Player got lots of good content coming your way in the upcoming months, and I would be super appreciative if you could leave a quick review or rating. It just helps other people find this podcast and join our homestead community, which is my number one goal to spread this message of self sufficient living as far and wide as I possibly can. Thanks for listening, and we'll catch up again next time on the next episode of the old fashioned on purpose podcast.