April 25, 2025 • 45 mins
From getting exercise to growing your own food to a sense of accomplishment, there are many benefits to having a vegetable garden. However, sometimes, we run into space restrictions and give up hope of having our own vegetable garden. But does that have to be the case? Tune in to this week’s Good Growing Podcast to learn about ways we can grow vegetables in small spaces, like cultivar selection, growing in pots, seasonal planting, and more!
Watch us on YouTube: https://youtu.be/lVDite6vvGE
Skip to what you want to know:
00:30 - Welcome, Ken. More plants for small spaces and our experiences with gardening in small spaces
03:18 - Happy Arbor Day
04:54 - Gardening in small spaces - selecting smaller plants
09:47 - Growing in containers
23:00 - Fruit plants for containers
28:10 - Using trellising to save space
34:30 - Growing in raised beds to save space
37:28 - Planting seasonally
40:03 - Incorporating food crops into landscaping (edible landscaping)
43:52 - Wrap-up, thank yous, what’s up next week, and goodbye!
Pictures:
Watermelon Cal Sweet Bush - All-American Selections
Pepper Pot-a-peno - All-America Selections
Contact us!
Chris Enroth: cenroth@illinois.edu
Ken Johnson: kjohnso@illinois.edu
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Barnyard Bash: freesfx.co.uk
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Chris Enroth (00:04):
Welcome to the Good Growing podcast. I am Chris
Enroth, horticulture educatorwith University of Illinois
Extension coming at you fromMacomb, Illinois. We have got a
great show for you today,gardening in small spaces. We'll
dive more into this seeminglymore and more popular topic, but
you know I'm not doing this bymyself. I am joined as always
(00:26):
every single week byhorticulture educator Ken
Johnson and Jacksonville.
Hey, Ken.
Ken Johnson (00:31):
Hello, Chris. There's there's definitely been
a yeah. An increase in I thinkyou're both under the desire and
the the plants that do well insmall spaces.
Chris Enroth (00:41):
I I agree. It seems like every time we do a a
vegetable gardening class andthis topic of crop rotation
comes up, that immediately drawsthe questions of, well, woah.
Hang on. I don't have room to doall of this crop rotation that
you're talking about. What do wedo?
(01:02):
And so, yeah, I I think this isbecoming more of a popular
topic, and I think it reallykind of stems a lot from, you
know, just societal things thatare occurring, development
patterns that happen. So I knowwith, like, the landscape
industry, we are getting biggerhouses. You know, the footprint
(01:25):
of our homes are getting largerbecause, well, at least in in
years past, building materialshave been have been cheaper or
at least easier to acquire.Construction techniques have
have really made building moreefficient. And so our homes have
been getting bigger, but our lotsizes have stayed the same.
And so a lot of our greenindustry folks, you know, the
(01:48):
ones breeding our landscapeplants, our shrubs and trees,
they've spent a lot of timefocusing on smaller stature
plants, dwarf miniature typeplants to fit into these smaller
landscapes. But we also have alot more people that aren't
necessarily buying houses rightnow. It's taking people longer
to get into a home. They mightbe renting longer. There might
(02:09):
be an apartments later on inlife, but they still wanna have
a garden.
And so that's what we're gonnadedicate our show today to is
gardening in smaller spaces.
Ken Johnson (02:20):
Yes. Yeah. Know when we were we were renting, we
were we were fortunate that thethe landlords didn't really care
if we tore up made a garden. Wewe had to replace it. We had
this I don't know.
Friends that had houses or orclassmates at, you in grad
school where it was all potsbecause you could not you did
not have the opportunity. Youdidn't have a lawn. You didn't
(02:40):
have a community garden nearbythat you could go to, stuff like
that.
Chris Enroth (02:44):
Yeah. Oh, that's the truth. Yeah. We were all
whiskey barrels and pots all thetime for us, attempting to grow
tomatoes, you know, starting outwith no money, no time. Yeah.
Yeah. Those are interesting. Youknow? I've I'm trying to recall
back to those early years ofgardening in those whiskey
(03:07):
barrels. It was, yeah, a lot offun.
I was just starting out. What anamateur we were. Oh, but, Ken,
before we dive in, I think theshow gets released on Arbor Day,
so happy Arbor Day. Hope you getout there and plant some trees.
Ken Johnson (03:26):
Happy Arbor Day. I got some trees. We got some
places we're talking aboutplanting trees. I just need to I
need to cut some trees downfirst because they're not
looking too great and thenreplace them.
Chris Enroth (03:39):
That's the spirit. That's the Arbor Day spirit. Cut
those trees down so we can plantmore. But that that is the
truth. Yeah.
I do have a a Norway maple. Itit it is dying. I mean, I
thought it was verticilliummulch that might have killed it,
but I think it's really just thedroughts. I think it is just,
like, recurring dry weather,gets leaves scorched in the
(04:00):
summer, drops its leaves,flushes out new grow. I think
it's I think it's just droughts.
I have cut off dying limbs. I'vedone the little test to try to
see if there's any darkstreaking of its tissue. If I
cut a slit in that that bark oror in that stem, it's all been
clear. So I I really think it'sjust environmental
(04:23):
environmentally related. So Igot a big old Norway maple to
cut down.
I'm not sad about it. I don'tlike Norway maples. So we've
already planted a black gum nearthat, which is also susceptible
to verticillium wilt, which Ididn't know until I planted it.
So fingers crossed, diagnosis iscorrect, that verticillium wilt
(04:43):
did not kill my Norway maple.
Ken Johnson (04:46):
Find out soon enough.
Chris Enroth (04:47):
Yes. Yes. We will. Oh, goodness. Well, back to the
topic at hand, gardening insmall spaces.
So let's let's play off of thisthis green industry idea of, you
know, we we have big hydrangeas.You know, if you've ever grown
(05:08):
just like a a a straight upmaybe, like, limelight
hydrangea, those get big. Theyget as big as, like, your house
if you grow live in, like, a onestory house. So then the
industry came out with littlelime, you know, a a smaller
dwarf version of of limelight.And it grows maybe waist to
shoulder height on, you know,like a five five human being.
(05:30):
So let's stick with that idea ofhow we select our plants for our
vegetable garden. Ken, do youhave any, any plants? You know,
what what do we do in terms ofour plant selection for our
vegetable gardens that thatmight help them fit into smaller
spaces?
Ken Johnson (05:49):
Yeah. So, like, if you're looking through garden
catalogs, a lot of times, theywill advertise them as, like,
for pots, as one occasion. And alot of times, the name is a
giveaway to a lot of them tohave, dwarf or mini or some some
adjective that describing itbeing small. And even you may
even see, like, dedicatedsections to these are good for
(06:11):
patios or or pots, things likethat. And if you do a if you
wanna grow, say, tomato, you canjust do this Internet search for
dwarf tomato plants, and you'llget all kinds of things spit
out.
So you can, you know, search forif you want a specific type of
crop, looking for that. Youknow, we've got plants that, you
(06:32):
know, like lettuces and andthings like that. They don't get
very big to begin with. So thosethose are good options because
if you they're they're small tobegin with. But some of our our
bigger plants are are morepopular garden plants, your
tomatoes, the cucurbits,peppers, things like that that
get bigger that you could runinto space constraints if if you
don't have a lot of room.
(06:54):
More and more we are seeing,again, these dwarf types. So I
have like sweet corn, there'sone. See on deck hybrid. For
this, it's I I've never grownthis one, but from from the
descriptions, it's four to fivefeet tall, they say. Plant 18
seeds in a 24 inch pot, which tome seems pretty tight spacing,
but that's the that's thecompany's recommendation.
(07:16):
So so if you wanna grow sweetcorn, you you've got this that
you can grow in a small area.You can grow it in the ground
too if you've got a little bitof room. But they're not
getting, you know, the eightplus feet tall like you would a
normal sweet corn plant. Forfor, like, watermelons, you
know, cucurbits can be ratherlarge, you know, vines four,
five, six plus feet long. Cowsweet bush is a watermelon.
(07:40):
This is one we have around Ithink I believe it's an AES
winner from a few years ago. Theyou know, the the description
say 14 to 18 inches long. Ithink it's a little bit longer
than that. Maybe a little closerto two and a half feet, and then
that can depend on on the soiland what you're growing it in.
But again, it's it's still muchsmaller than your traditional
(08:00):
watermelon plants.
Produce two or three fruit, 10to 12 pounds, so that personal
size watermelon. So theproduction may not be quite to
the extent of of the largerplants, but you're still getting
a decent amount of of fruit offof there. You know, there's
peas, which peas again aren'tterribly big, but some of them
they can get, depending on thecolor, can get five, six foot
(08:22):
tall peas. There's somethinglike tom thumb garden bee, gets
eight to nine inches tall. Soagain, a really good one for
pots that don't need a lot ofspace to grow, very many of
those.
Jalapeno, there's a potapeno. Ibelieve this is another AAS
winner several years ago. Onewe've grown, it gets twelve,
fifteen, maybe 18 inches tall.You still get 35 to 50 jalapenos
(08:45):
off of there. So you're stillgetting pretty good production,
off of that.
And then for for tomatoes, I Ipersonally, I'm not growing any
really dwarf types, but we'rewe're looking for a cultivar
examples here. There's a dwarftomato project. So there's a
whole, I guess, communitysciences and science, call it
what you want, kind of projecton on breeding dwarf type
(09:08):
tomatoes. So I think they'redefining these dwarf tomatoes as
two to four and a half feettall. I think those are, like, a
30 or so cultivars.
Chris Enroth (09:18):
36, something like that.
Ken Johnson (09:20):
Yeah. Like, for the northern they have swim in the
Northern Southern Hemisphere.For, like, the Northern
Hemisphere, there's a 30 somecultivators. There's a lot
there's and it's not justcherries cherry tomatoes.
There's ones that look likethey're paste, they're slicing,
and stuff too.
You still get decent sizedtomatoes off of those as well.
So, again, looking for thosethat have been bred to fit,
(09:43):
smaller areas. Mhmm.
Chris Enroth (09:47):
Well and and I guess those are things that we
could put in the ground. Theythey would remain a little
small. But but really today, arewe kind of disguising this as
like a container show? You know,is that what this is? Because
what is the trick to small spaceguarding?
Containers. That's what we do.Yeah.
Ken Johnson (10:10):
Yeah. And all those could be, you know, grown in in
pots. You know, the thewatermelon, you'd probably let
that cascade over or Mhmm. Builda trellis. You'd probably have
to support the fruit.
Yeah. All those could be grownin pots.
Chris Enroth (10:26):
Yeah. Yeah. So I guess for my yard, and, you
know, if you've been listeningor watching this show for any
manner of time, you've heard mesay I don't have much space to
grow in. Not necessarily becausespace is lacking, but it's
sunlight is lacking. And so,yeah, my primary method of
(10:47):
growing or at least croprotation is going to be usually
trying to find as much room as Ican in my landscape.
So one year in the ground, andthen I will flip to container
gardening for probably a year.And incorporating those
containers really do help mewith my crop rotation. And and
(11:11):
so, yeah, I I haven't done avery good job of selecting
plants that are suitable forcontainers. I think I started
this this whole thing years agowith indeterminate tomatoes, and
I quickly learned my lesson.That's not a great idea.
Indeterminate tomatoes in acontainer. You know, the you
(11:33):
talked about that that on deckcorn. You know, I I feel like a
slight breeze might blow thoseover if you have that much corn
in a, like, a 20 inch pot. Yeah.It it'd be so you know, they're
not tall, but they're stillcatching the wind.
And I have had so many tomatoplants, you know, and other
things just get toppled by justlike a five mile per hour wind
(11:57):
when that container soil driesout, but it's so there's so much
growth on top. Yeah. I I I wouldsay, you know, I've I've not
done a very good job atselecting for contain like,
plants for my containers, but Ido know, as Ken said, those look
for those adjectives in thoseseed catalogs. So one I really
like are, like, the ones thatsay, like, patio. Grow for your
(12:20):
patio.
It it it's really goodmarketing, I think, because I'm
thinking, well, yeah, I wouldwant some patio tomatoes on my
patio, you know, where I like tosit and relax and enjoy the
yard. You know? So there there'salso vegetables that are grown,
you know, very specifically forthose, you know, container
(12:42):
situations, and and thosemarketing folks have done a
great job of naming these. Youknow? I I think the one I like
is short stuff carrots, youknow, little stubby carrots
growing in your containers.
But but even if you have a deepenough container, a normal
bolero carrot would do fine. Youjust have to have that that, you
(13:07):
know, a container with somedepth to it. But I would say
when I'm gardening in mycontainers and I'm doing
anything large like a tomato, Idon't go anywhere under five
gallons. I I that is like fivegallon container is the minimum
size that I will use for a lotof things. So, like, if I'm
(13:30):
looking at a a tomato, I'mprobably trying to go up to,
let's say, 10 gallon seven to 10gallons for my tomatoes.
If I can get bigger than that,I'll put a single tomato plant
in there. So I do have some 15gallon size containers. Those
are big, by the way. It takes upI got, like, two cubic foot of
(13:51):
potting soil the other day, andI planted two fifteen gallon
containers. So yeah.
That potting soil is expensivenow. And so the what I'll try to
do is I'll try to even maximizethat space a little bit more is
I put, like, basil or somethingwithin those 15 gallon
containers with my tomato plant,which also dries that container
(14:16):
out even faster. So you gotta bereally on top of it with the
water. But but so, yeah, youknow, when we're we're thinking
about container, maybe size interms of, like, the opening
width, you know, we're we wantthe that kind of that top
diameter no less than 20 incheswhen you're growing tomatoes.
(14:39):
And then when we're doingpeppers, go a little bit
smaller, like 16 inchcontainers.
Carrots, a foot wide, onions,things like that, maybe down to
10 inches. Well, basically, Ken,best thing you can do for your
plants, give them as much soilas volume as you can. That's,
like, the most critical thing. Iknow a lot of people, myself
(15:02):
included, I've done this. I'mnot proud of it.
You'll put I'll put, like, emptymilk jugs and stuff in the
containers because I haven't hadI don't have enough potting mix
to to fill that volume. And Iguess you can do that, but it
your plants will take betteradvantage of more soil volume
(15:25):
that you can give them. So themore volume you give them, the
better. That's just, you know,we're we're trying to emulate
what they would be gettinggrowing in the ground, you know,
in in the field, as we say, orin the actual garden soil. And
when you're growing in a massivevolume of soil, like, you know,
(15:46):
in a garden, water doesn'tnecessarily pool up against the
the plant roots.
They're to drain away. There's alot of oxygen, nutrients.
There's a lot of microbiologyhappening, within that soil. And
so we're we're trying our bestto replicate a lot of those
physical characteristics of thesoil. And so the reason why we
use, like, a soil free pottingmix in a container is so that it
(16:09):
facilitates good drainage awayfrom the plant roots.
You know, if we would take just,you know, our clay, you know,
heavy garden soil, put that in apot, it would hold on to that
soil. It have the water wouldhave nowhere to drain to. And so
we try to create that drainageartificially using, like, a peat
based or a coconut coir basedpotting mix. Now I know there's
(16:31):
even a lot of these soil mixcompanies there. They're
beginning to incorporate more,like, wood fibers, more wood
pulp into these, I think, try toreduce some of that peat use.
And I think there's been more ofa push in the the, the gardening
market to reduce the amount ofof peat moss that we are using
in our potting mix. So I'mstarting to see more wood pulp,
(16:52):
more wood fibers, more morecoconut coir being used in our
potting soil mixes. And andagain, all of that is facilitate
good drainage away from theroots, you know, as much soil
volume as you can give theseplants. Again, for my tomatoes,
peppers, I don't go anywhereunderneath five gallons. I try
to go, you know, seven to 10gallons or higher for those
(17:13):
larger fruiting plants.
Ken Johnson (17:16):
Yeah. And the, you know, the bigger those plants
get, the more soil, that morepotting mix is gonna be where
it's gonna dry out. If, youknow, if you've got a a standard
sized tomato plant in a smallpot, you're gonna be watering
that multiple times a day tokeep that from from wilting and
stuff. So usually, when you'retalking about, you know, potting
(17:36):
plants, you know, house plants,so we don't wanna have these
giant pots for a small plant.But I guess maybe the exception
to that rule is with your someof these bigger vegetables.
You know, put that transplant inthere, it's gonna fill that in
relatively quickly. So you don'tplant fragrant like trees, you
know, plant for the what thefuture size is gonna be. So keep
(17:57):
that in mind. You may have yourlittle six six inch tall tomato
plant that's eventually gonnaend up being three, four, five
feet tall, and fill up a goodchunk of that pot.
Chris Enroth (18:08):
The other thing also so you you might be
listening and you say, but all Ihave is this, old hanging basket
container that had a petunia init last year. That's all I have
to grow my my pepper plant forthis year. And a lot of times,
you know, folks will will callus up and we have to kind of you
know, what strategies can youemploy in a less than ideal
(18:31):
situation? And so one of thethings that I have recommended
to folks is that, well, if youcan't provide that soil volume,
at least what we wanna do is tryto avoid that that potting, that
root ball from drying out tooexcessively, like going from,
like, soaking wet to, like,super dry within a few hours.
That's not good for the plant.
(18:52):
So in order to try to moderatethat soil moisture and even the
temperature as well, You know,I'll often say to folks, you
know what? Just go get a bag of,like, wood mulch at the store
and and, you know, dress the youknow, put a, you know, a couple
inches worth of wood mulch ontop of that pot. And if you have
that pot sitting on the ground,heck, you might as well put wood
(19:13):
mulch around that pot as well,and that's called healing in.
It's not really the correctterm, but that's, you know, what
we do, in some cases with, like,trees and stuff. But you're sort
of, like, piling mulch aroundit, essentially just insulating
it so it doesn't dry out tooquickly, and just holds extra
moisture.
Could hold some pests too, but,you know, it it's one strategy
(19:34):
to help keep that that root ballin that container from drying
out too quickly.
Ken Johnson (19:39):
Yes. It's all a give and take. Yes. And don't
don't go on a very long vacationor have somebody that you can
trust to water your pot.
Chris Enroth (19:49):
Or get a automatic drip irrigation system. I didn't
get that installed at your placeyet, Ken. We're gonna get it
done, though.
Ken Johnson (19:58):
Eventually. Maybe someday.
Chris Enroth (20:00):
One of these years.
Ken Johnson (20:03):
Oh. So I'll say another I don't complain. Maybe
concern people have sometimeswhen especially if you're, like,
in an apartment or somethinglike that, and you you got
you're putting this on a patioor a balcony or something like
that. It is protecting thosesurfaces because you don't wanna
lose your deposit, or orsomething like that. So you can
(20:24):
put, like, you have with houseplants, you put those saucers
underneath there.
Just making sure you're emptyingthat water. Don't let them sit
in water because then well, wewant there to be plenty of
moisture. You know, we we don'twant that potting mix to be
saturated because then you don'thave any of that oxygen in the
in the potting media. Rootsstart rotting, plants die. So
(20:45):
that's kinda one way.
There are pots that will comewith built in saucers underneath
of them as well. So that'd beone way you can try to keep that
area somewhat clean or protectedfrom that or even maybe
elevating it off off the groundso you don't have the water
pooling underneath of it, whichcan sometimes lead to stands.
(21:09):
There's, you know, pot standsand stuff you can get as well.
Chris Enroth (21:16):
Yeah. I I thought I was safe on the the wood deck
that we have in our backyard, soI just put, you know, a couple
pots. I I think these weremarigolds that we had planted in
pots. And they weren't supposedto be there permanently all
summer long, but they were therefor a few weeks. And when I went
(21:36):
to move them, the marigolds hadactually rooted into the the
wood boards underneath.
I had not seen I mean,extensively. Like, they had.
It's an older deck, so Yeah.That's tough
Ken Johnson (21:48):
to replace it.
Chris Enroth (21:49):
Time to replace a couple boards, I'd say. But the
the roots surprised me. And whenI went to move the plant, I had
to, like, kinda, you know, kindof forcefully pull that pot off
that spot where it was, and thismarigolds kinda stressed out for
a few days after that. They losta lot of roots. They're getting
(22:10):
some good nutrition from thosethose wooden boards.
And so what I do now, though, isI'll take a lot of times, I'll
take those, like, saucercontainers. Yeah. I'll flip them
upside down, and I'll actuallyset the pot on top of the the
inverted saucer. That way, atleast, the the the container's
off the wood and not rootinginto our old deck boards that we
(22:34):
have in the backyard.
Ken Johnson (22:37):
I think your bigger problem may be the deck boards.
Chris Enroth (22:40):
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I go out there and I jump
up and down a few times a year.I'm like, I think we're okay.
We're still we're still stable.
Ken Johnson (22:47):
Yeah. Another six months out of it.
Chris Enroth (22:50):
Yeah. This part's a little, you know, springy, but
I think we'll be alright. I goout there before the kids go
there, you know, and see how itgoes. Well, Ken, there's, you
know, there's you know, wetalked about a few of those
different types of dwarf plants,but some of those containerized
(23:10):
fruit plants, I I would love totry these. I I have not tried
these yet.
I believe our colleague, BruceBlack, has done classes about
these. And one, I I remember himmentioning was raspberry
shortcake. It's raspberry plantthat you can plant in a
container. So I I think thatwould be that would be a lot of
(23:30):
fun. I know there's, like, patioblueberries that you can also
use.
I do recommend that. I haverecommended that to folks, these
these patio blueberries becausethey have spring white flowers.
My blueberries are actuallyblooming right now. They have
the blueberries, the the ediblefruit in the early summer. And
(23:51):
then you have red fall color inthe fall, and then you get red
stems all winter long.
And so it's a kind of an wouldbe a neat patio plant provided
you had a large enough containerthat was protected enough from
some of those freezing winterwith temperatures that we would
get. You wanna protect thoseroots so that they don't just
(24:11):
turn into a ball of ice. But,yeah, I I would love to try some
of these, you know, smallerminiature fruits like raspberry
shortcake. There's also babycakes, blackberry. And there's
another one.
It's like a a series ofdifferent types of berries,
(24:32):
probably includes things likestrawberries and blackberries,
raspberries. It's called busheland berry. And so some company
has developed multiple differenttypes of fruiting crops or fruit
crops, and they call it busheland berry raspberry, bushel and
berry blackberry. And so they'rethey're described as being a
(24:54):
perfect patio plant, the triplep, and they grow shorter. But I
think with all of theseperennials growing in pots, boy,
there's a lot of peas in thissentence, there is an issue with
that cold hardiness again.
So you gotta protect thoseroots, in the wintertime here in
Illinois.
Ken Johnson (25:15):
Yeah. We've got a couple of the the bushel berry.
It used to be called brazzleberry. So strawberry shortcake
is the raspberry. We've gotthat.
And that's it's got good tastingraspberries. Usually, the
wildlife gets to them, before wedo. And we've had ours for four,
five plus years now. So we'vegot them in the the plastic
whiskey barrel planters, and,the growing media was up towards
(25:38):
the top, and now it's about fourinches down. So they need to be
repotted because I same thing.
We've got a couple blueberries,same thing. And I just I leave
them outside, and I shouldn'tbecause I think I I get quite a
bit of die back on theblueberries. But they're they
come out of it. But, again,they're they've that's potting
(25:58):
mix has really subsided, so Ineed to to refresh those. And
we've got the baby cakes, andthat thing is getting big.
Like, it is going through thebottom of the pot into the
ground. I can't move the potanymore. And it's got some of
those canes that are probablygetting three, four feet long. I
don't know. So it's a little bitit's a bigger a little bit
(26:19):
bigger.
But at least in the one we'vegot, is a little bit bigger. I
think it it started producing wegot it last year. It started
producing fruit last fall reallylate because it really kinda
struggled for a little bit. Andthen, frost came before they
really fully ripened, but it'sit's loaded with flowers now. So
(26:40):
if the wildlife doesn't get itbefore we do, I can report back
later.
But the, like, the back to theraspberry shortcake. That's a
nice mounted plant. I think it'sprobably 18 inches tall, maybe
maybe two feet tall. So it'snot, again, when you think about
your normal raspberry plant,which is significantly larger
than that. So, yeah, those arethose are good apps.
And, like, blueberries, they'vegot all kinds of different types
(27:03):
of it. Some have pink berries,traditional bluish ones, and and
everything in between.
Chris Enroth (27:10):
Yeah. Well, you know, the other thing about that
baby cakes blackberry, you saythat's, like, growing out of the
pot and going crazy. That that'sjust blackberries for you.
They're crazy. They're unruly.
I I grew a Illini hardy. This isnot a dwarf plant. It grows,
like, twelve, fifteen foot tall,but Illini hardy, thornless
blackberry, and that thing willtake over your garden if you let
(27:33):
it. Yeah. Those blackberries arebananas, which they're still
pretty darn tasty when you getsome fruit off of them, though,
especially well, if yourtiming's right.
I've definitely had some sourones, but, boy, you get that
harvest just right. Oh,blackberries are excellent. I
love blackberries.
Ken Johnson (27:53):
So I'll let you know when they're ripe.
Chris Enroth (27:55):
I will come down. I'll bring the drip irrigation
material. We'll we'll get itall. We'll we'll do this all as
one thing.
Ken Johnson (28:02):
Pay you in blackberries.
Chris Enroth (28:04):
That's yeah. I will leave with a stomachache.
Alright, Ken. Well, we did talkabout containers, which plays
into a lot of small spacegardening. But there are other
strategies that we can employwhen we're we're growing in a
smaller space, and and one ofthose is just growing up.
(28:26):
You know, if you have a viningcrop that might creep and crawl,
maybe going up would help. Orwhat I did I don't know if this
technically counts astrellising, which is what we're
talking about now. But when Igrew my cucumbers last year, I
cascaded them down the retainingwall. So my one of my full sun
(28:48):
locations, I ran out ofhorizontal growing space, But I
still had these lemon cucumbersthat had to grow somewhere. So I
planted them along the retainingwall, and I had them cascade
downward and over.
So when I was watering theplant, I was actually uphill. I
was on top of the wall. But whenI was harvesting, I would walk
around and I would harvest, withthe fruits kind of at eye level.
(29:12):
That would seem to work out verynicely. The lemon cucumbers,
it's a smaller ish cucumberabout softball, baseball size,
and so it didn't really need anyadditional support.
But, yeah, trellising, growingup or down, I would say Yeah. As
options.
Ken Johnson (29:29):
Yeah. Yeah. I think usually we define it as up, but,
yeah, I hadn't thought abouttrailing.
Chris Enroth (29:34):
Mhmm.
Ken Johnson (29:34):
Yeah. And I think usually I wouldn't reason it's a
lot of times it's thickcucurbits because they do take a
lot of space. Cucumbers, prettymuch any cucumber would be a
good option because if we'reharvesting the fruit on time,
they're not getting too big andtoo heavy, to pull those, to
pull the vines down. Maybe someof the smaller, like, mini
pumpkins and stuff you can getaway with. But if you're
(29:56):
growing, some medium or largersized pie pumpkins or jack
o'-lantern pumpkins, you'reyou're gonna have to support
those fruit in some way.
Otherwise, they're gonna pullyour vines down. Making a
hammock, tying that, you know,somehow supporting that fruit as
it grows larger to do that. Sobest bet is probably smaller for
(30:18):
your stuff, but you can do itfor larger stuff if you're
willing to take a little extratime. And you've got a sturdy
enough trellis to support fruitthat may be ten, fifteen, 20
pounds on top of all the plantmaterial as well. And even
things like zucchini, don'treally get all that big, you can
still kinda grow those up andand save some of that space on
(30:41):
the ground.
And and depending on how youtrellis stuff, you could even
grow maybe you could try growingsome cool season stuff, lettuce,
stuff that may may that you canget away with a little less
sunlight. I'm gonna shave you alittle bit, make a little bit
cooler microclimate there. Maybeextend out some of that stuff a
little bit longer into thesummer, than you would be able
to otherwise. Mhmm.
Chris Enroth (31:02):
You know, Ken, when I I visited your garden
last year, I got some reallygreat inspiration of how you
just ripped two by fours in halfand used that as your trellis.
So these are, like, eight footlong two by fours. You ripped
them in half. So I I did thesame thing at my place, and I
(31:23):
had to get on a ladder to, like,sledgehammer them into the
ground. But they were supersturdy once they were in the
ground, and I used themprimarily for my tomato
supports.
And so we got plenty of height,fairly sturdy. When I use some
of those, like, wooden stakesfor, like that you can get at,
(31:45):
like, a a hardware store orsomewhere, a lot of times
they'll rot by the end of thesummer. Like, base will be
rotten and they'll be fallingover. But just a straight up
pine two by four just lasted mea whole summer. I got them still
this year, so we're gonna putthem back in the ground for this
growing season.
So, yeah,
Ken Johnson (32:05):
a
Chris Enroth (32:05):
lot of trellising, I found people have just sort of
found stuff around the house tocreate these trellises. A lot of
times they don't work, butsometimes you build a pretty
sturdy structure, and they theywork very well. So thank you,
Ken, for such a great idea tojust take an old two by four and
rip it in half, and though thatbecame two posts for me.
Ken Johnson (32:27):
Yeah. I mean, sometimes we have had them where
they have started to warp, andthey're almost c shaped Mhmm. By
the end of the year depending onhow that grain is. But, yeah,
it's it's worked out. We gotpressure treated boards, so
we've had them in the ground forthree or four years now.
Mhmm. Haven't had any issues,and that's the the copper stuff.
(32:47):
So I'm not really concernedabout that, you know, leaching
into the soil where it's gonnacause any toxicity or anything
like that. Just thinking, youknow, one thing if, like, green
beans, if you're a diviningbeans, you know, teepees, things
like that, you know, you couldstill just a regular trellis
too. Yeah.
(33:08):
Just get stuff off the ground,save that space for other
things.
Chris Enroth (33:13):
Yeah. Yeah. I I particularly like at our food
donation garden here in inMacomb, our just it's just a
cattle panel that's just bent inkind of a, I guess, upside down
u, lowercase n shape, basicallya tunnel. We have a green bean
tunnel very often or on oppositeyears, we'll have a a cucumber
(33:36):
tunnel. Then we trellis up ourour green our pole beans or our
cucumbers.
And so it it's a great place toto be and to spend time because
it's trellised. You you findyour I find myself in the shade
there more often, you know,picking and things. And then
that yeah. We we have space thenin the beds, that allow us to
(34:00):
plant things like lettuces, youknow, on underneath of those.
Ken Johnson (34:06):
Yeah. And we're, you know, talking about the
space saving here, but ease ofharvest as well. Because, yeah,
like you mentioned with youryour cucumbers, all this stuff
is now high level or at least upoff the ground, so you're not as
bending as much, and it's notnot as taxing on the body, maybe
Mhmm. When it's when it's uphigher eye level and stuff. So
just another advantage of oftrellising.
(34:29):
Yeah.
Chris Enroth (34:30):
Well, you mentioned treated lumber. So
another space saving techniquethat that I'm reading a lot
about is using raised beds. AndI think a lot of what some of
these articles that that mentionthis as a space saver are
assuming, well, maybe you havelousy soil in your yard that
(34:51):
does not allow you to growgarden a garden successfully, or
maybe you have contaminated soilwhere you you can't grow a
vegetable garden. I know,probably for me, a raised bed
wouldn't be much of a spacesaver, but there are ways we can
utilize raised beds to, to helpus grow perhaps maybe a bit more
(35:14):
densely or maybe a bit morecalculated. I know one of those
is a square foot gardeningmethod where where essentially
you have a raised bed, and youare calculating out every single
square foot and what that squarefoot can hold in terms of a a
crop.
So with tomatoes, it would beyou would need four square feet
of that bed for one tomatoplant. But for carrots, you
(35:37):
could maybe take 12 carrots inone square foot. And so it's
calculating that all out tomaximize space utilization, with
that square foot gardeningmethod. And so, yeah, that
that's one way I've seen raisedbeds used to save space. But,
also, if, again, you just havelousy soil, just don't grow in
(35:59):
it.
Hey. Now you've created yourselfa whole new garden area with a
raised bed on top of it.
Ken Johnson (36:04):
Yeah. I think with know, I'll speak for myself
here. Like, when I'm doing inground, it's small, you know,
nice straight lines. And I and Ikind of spread out more than I
would maybe need to, but becauseI've got the space. But in
raised beds, you know, you'vegot that.
I'm usually doing more of thatgrid. Regardless of what I'm
doing in square foot, I'm doingmore of a grid just because I've
(36:27):
got less room. I'm trying tosqueeze as much as I can in
there. So I think it kindaforces you to use that space
more efficiently than sometimesyou would in ground where you've
got a little more room and, andstuff like that.
Chris Enroth (36:41):
Yeah. No. That makes sense. Yeah. You're
planting in blocks, and that'sbecause with the raised bed, you
can get at it from all differentangles.
As long as you can reach acrossthat bed, you'll be okay. Yeah.
In ground, you got these longrows. Well, you don't wanna
walk, you know, too far aroundor anything. So, you know, you
have your one row, and you gotyou have your walking lane, and
(37:04):
you got your other road, yourwalking lane.
And so, yeah, I can see how youwould spread out more in an in
ground garden situation.
Ken Johnson (37:12):
Yeah. Sometimes in the ground, I forget to make my
walking lanes too, which makesmanagement and harvest
interesting.
Chris Enroth (37:20):
Well, yeah. Then you need to get the machete and
hack your way through the plantsto get to the actual crop that
you want. So another strategy,and this was one that I don't
think I read about, but it justis one that I have employed in
the past, is just being moreseasonal in the crops that you
(37:42):
select. So, okay, I don't haveroom to grow lettuce and tomato,
spinach, carrots, you know, someof these other other things. And
so I in more intentional inthat, okay, Earlier spring, I'm
going to to focus on some thesereally short, cool season crops,
(38:03):
radishes, arugula.
You know, the spinach can beshort ish, but some of the
lettuces. And then that thentransitions over into a warm
season crops, tomatoes, peppers,eggplant, all of those things.
And then I then late in theseason, I'll transition back to
(38:24):
more of maybe more longer termcool season crops, some of our
kales, some of those otherbrassicas out there. And so just
just I'm just more intentionalabout my seasonality. This gives
me a more diverse array of ofvegetables that I can grow at
least in a given year, notnecessarily in a given space,
(38:45):
though.
Like like, I can't grow it allat the same time, but I can grow
it all there within the year.
Ken Johnson (38:53):
Yeah. Getting into that that intercropping
replacing. Mhmm. So if and evenwhen, like, you you got your
your cool season spring stuff,you could interplant your
tomatoes with that as you'reharvesting those, pulling those
out, then your tomatoes arealready there, filling in the
space and vice versa in thesummer. Or in the late summer,
fall, start putting in your coolseason stuff as your tomatoes
(39:16):
are there, then either they getkilled or you're tired of
dealing with tomatoes and youremove them, then your cool
season stuff is there to to totake over.
Chris Enroth (39:26):
Yeah. Yeah. So just I and I think a lot of
folks, they especially juststarting out in gardening, you
think, oh, the gardening seasonis from May, middle of May till,
you know, maybe when the firstfrost is. But, no, we can grow
stuff so long as we got enoughsunlight in the day. So, you
(39:46):
know, if we get over ten hoursof sunlight in the day, plants
are actively growing as long asthey can handle the colder
temperatures that they would beexperiencing at those times, or
if we protect them with using,like, row covers or low tunnels,
something like that, a coldframe.
Ken Johnson (40:03):
Alright. Last one we got here. So I guess this is
kinda getting into, I guess,edible landscaping, but inner
inner planting or, yeah, goingthat edible landscaping where
you're integrating your yourfood crops, you know, with your
ornamentals or ornamentals inwith the food crops, vice versa.
Not necessarily having adedicated bed, which I think
again, I don't think when mostpeople think of vegetable
(40:24):
gardening, you've got yourvegetable garden, you got your
flowers, and the two shall nevermeet. But it's it's kind of
incorporating those into eachother.
Again, you can use your spacemore efficiently. There are
vegetable crops that do havesome ornamental appeal to them.
So some of the ochres can bevery ornamental looking. Now
(40:46):
some of the peppers, Some of theI think we talked about it. And
if you're doing the grow along,the the Christmas pepper we're
growing this year, it's gotupright peppers.
Usually, those are hot, this isa sweet pepper, but they do have
an ornamental look to them.Things like artichokes, you
know, if you wanna grow that,they got a nice foliage. We're
harvesting the the flower buds,but if you let those bloom,
(41:07):
which you're not really growingthe artichokes for food then,
but they've got very prettyflowers. So if you miss one,
you've got that. Cardoon is abasically relative of
artichokes.
It gets much bigger. You'reeating the leaves of that. It
kinda looks like somethingJurassic Park, when it's full
ground or and the things likerunner beans that have very, you
know, red have red flowers, veryornamental flowers. The pods can
(41:29):
be ornamental, but you can eatthem as green beans. Let them
dry down.
Use them as shelled beans, stufflike this. There's a variety of
different ways we canincorporate some of these
things, into our landscape. Andthere's flowers. A lot of
flowers are edible too. Sonasturtium, marigolds, all of
that stuff.
Mhmm.
Chris Enroth (41:49):
Yeah. And, Ken, you you don't do this for, like,
edible vegetables. At least Idon't think you did. But you've
planted even the hell strip outin front of your house, an area
between the street and thesidewalk, with ornamental
plants, you know, native somenative plants. But I remember
one year, I had an extra pepperplant.
Like, where am I gonna put this?Well, there was a full sun spot
(42:13):
over by the fire hydrant. And soI was by the road, and so I
planted that pepper plant overby the fire hydrant, six feet
away because I think that's whatthe city had required at the
time. But I had great peppersgrowing there. I was always
kinda like, well, what ifsomeone takes my peppers?
But then I thought, I guessthat's alright with me. I know
(42:36):
if somebody wants to take somepeppers, then they can have
them. I guess I'll I can stillgo to the farmer's market or the
store and get more peppers, soI'm not that worried about it.
So but, yeah, I I but I've triedto throw as many vegetables as I
could find full sun areas, andone of them just so happened to
be right next to the road rightthere. You know, I'm not really
(42:59):
thinking about any contaminantsor anything like that pollution.
So dirty water, dogs peeing onit. That didn't come to mind
until after the fact. Ignoranceis bliss. That's right. So just
pretend like I didn't say that,folks, and you'll feel great.
No. No. You have to take allthose risks into consideration.
Ken Johnson (43:20):
Yeah. I think yeah. But so, yeah, just you know, if
you're if you're gonna do this,you know, think about those
plants, and I guess you'dprobably be able to speak to
this better than I would. But,you know, the those landscape
designs, you know, the differentfoliage and then the contrast
and this, that, and the other.There's there's ways you can
incorporate this stuff and, youknow, some trial and error.
Sometimes it may look good,sometimes it may not. Yeah. You
(43:43):
always got next year to tryagain.
Chris Enroth (43:45):
Mhmm. That's right. At the eternal optimist
as the gardener, there's alwaysnext year. So well, that was a
lot of great information abouthow to utilize some of our
smaller yard space to do moregardening. Well, the Good
Growing podcast is a productionof University of Illinois
Extension, edited this week byKen Johnson.
(44:07):
And a special thank you to Ken.Thanks for hanging out, giving
some tips and tricks aboutgardening in small spaces this
week.
Ken Johnson (44:15):
Yes. Thank you. And go check on that deck, make sure
it's not doesn't need replacing.
Chris Enroth (44:21):
Go jump on it here just a little bit. Make sure me
and the dogs will go out thereand we'll just make sure our
weight doesn't cause the wholething to buckle.
Ken Johnson (44:29):
And let's do this again next week.
Chris Enroth (44:32):
Oh, we shall do this again next week. The
horticultural hijinks continueson the Good Growing podcast. So
tune in next week to hear thegardening topic that we shall
devise between now and then.Well, listeners, thank you for
doing what you do best, and thatis listening. Or if you're
watching us on YouTube,watching.
And as always, keep on growing.This is very interesting ASMR
(45:08):
podcast. It's just called gardenresearch. It's like watching
paint dry. Yeah.
Just two guys reading. Ignoreeverything I just sit there in
the meantime. Cut that all out.
Welcome to the Good Growing podcast. I am Chris
Enroth, horticulture educatorwith University of Illinois
Extension coming at you fromMacomb, Illinois. We have got a
great show for you today,gardening in small spaces. We'll
dive more into this seeminglymore and more popular topic, but
you know I'm not doing this bymyself. I am joined as always
(00:26):
every single week byhorticulture educator Ken
Johnson and Jacksonville.
Hey, Ken.
Ken Johnson (00:31):
Hello, Chris. There's there's definitely been
a yeah. An increase in I thinkyou're both under the desire and
the the plants that do well insmall spaces.
Chris Enroth (00:41):
I I agree. It seems like every time we do a a
vegetable gardening class andthis topic of crop rotation
comes up, that immediately drawsthe questions of, well, woah.
Hang on. I don't have room to doall of this crop rotation that
you're talking about. What do wedo?
(01:02):
And so, yeah, I I think this isbecoming more of a popular
topic, and I think it reallykind of stems a lot from, you
know, just societal things thatare occurring, development
patterns that happen. So I knowwith, like, the landscape
industry, we are getting biggerhouses. You know, the footprint
(01:25):
of our homes are getting largerbecause, well, at least in in
years past, building materialshave been have been cheaper or
at least easier to acquire.Construction techniques have
have really made building moreefficient. And so our homes have
been getting bigger, but our lotsizes have stayed the same.
And so a lot of our greenindustry folks, you know, the
(01:48):
ones breeding our landscapeplants, our shrubs and trees,
they've spent a lot of timefocusing on smaller stature
plants, dwarf miniature typeplants to fit into these smaller
landscapes. But we also have alot more people that aren't
necessarily buying houses rightnow. It's taking people longer
to get into a home. They mightbe renting longer. There might
(02:09):
be an apartments later on inlife, but they still wanna have
a garden.
And so that's what we're gonnadedicate our show today to is
gardening in smaller spaces.
Ken Johnson (02:20):
Yes. Yeah. Know when we were we were renting, we
were we were fortunate that thethe landlords didn't really care
if we tore up made a garden. Wewe had to replace it. We had
this I don't know.
Friends that had houses or orclassmates at, you in grad
school where it was all potsbecause you could not you did
not have the opportunity. Youdidn't have a lawn. You didn't
(02:40):
have a community garden nearbythat you could go to, stuff like
that.
Chris Enroth (02:44):
Yeah. Oh, that's the truth. Yeah. We were all
whiskey barrels and pots all thetime for us, attempting to grow
tomatoes, you know, starting outwith no money, no time. Yeah.
Yeah. Those are interesting. Youknow? I've I'm trying to recall
back to those early years ofgardening in those whiskey
(03:07):
barrels. It was, yeah, a lot offun.
I was just starting out. What anamateur we were. Oh, but, Ken,
before we dive in, I think theshow gets released on Arbor Day,
so happy Arbor Day. Hope you getout there and plant some trees.
Ken Johnson (03:26):
Happy Arbor Day. I got some trees. We got some
places we're talking aboutplanting trees. I just need to I
need to cut some trees downfirst because they're not
looking too great and thenreplace them.
Chris Enroth (03:39):
That's the spirit. That's the Arbor Day spirit. Cut
those trees down so we can plantmore. But that that is the
truth. Yeah.
I do have a a Norway maple. Itit it is dying. I mean, I
thought it was verticilliummulch that might have killed it,
but I think it's really just thedroughts. I think it is just,
like, recurring dry weather,gets leaves scorched in the
(04:00):
summer, drops its leaves,flushes out new grow. I think
it's I think it's just droughts.
I have cut off dying limbs. I'vedone the little test to try to
see if there's any darkstreaking of its tissue. If I
cut a slit in that that bark oror in that stem, it's all been
clear. So I I really think it'sjust environmental
(04:23):
environmentally related. So Igot a big old Norway maple to
cut down.
I'm not sad about it. I don'tlike Norway maples. So we've
already planted a black gum nearthat, which is also susceptible
to verticillium wilt, which Ididn't know until I planted it.
So fingers crossed, diagnosis iscorrect, that verticillium wilt
(04:43):
did not kill my Norway maple.
Ken Johnson (04:46):
Find out soon enough.
Chris Enroth (04:47):
Yes. Yes. We will. Oh, goodness. Well, back to the
topic at hand, gardening insmall spaces.
So let's let's play off of thisthis green industry idea of, you
know, we we have big hydrangeas.You know, if you've ever grown
(05:08):
just like a a a straight upmaybe, like, limelight
hydrangea, those get big. Theyget as big as, like, your house
if you grow live in, like, a onestory house. So then the
industry came out with littlelime, you know, a a smaller
dwarf version of of limelight.And it grows maybe waist to
shoulder height on, you know,like a five five human being.
(05:30):
So let's stick with that idea ofhow we select our plants for our
vegetable garden. Ken, do youhave any, any plants? You know,
what what do we do in terms ofour plant selection for our
vegetable gardens that thatmight help them fit into smaller
spaces?
Ken Johnson (05:49):
Yeah. So, like, if you're looking through garden
catalogs, a lot of times, theywill advertise them as, like,
for pots, as one occasion. And alot of times, the name is a
giveaway to a lot of them tohave, dwarf or mini or some some
adjective that describing itbeing small. And even you may
even see, like, dedicatedsections to these are good for
(06:11):
patios or or pots, things likethat. And if you do a if you
wanna grow, say, tomato, you canjust do this Internet search for
dwarf tomato plants, and you'llget all kinds of things spit
out.
So you can, you know, search forif you want a specific type of
crop, looking for that. Youknow, we've got plants that, you
(06:32):
know, like lettuces and andthings like that. They don't get
very big to begin with. So thosethose are good options because
if you they're they're small tobegin with. But some of our our
bigger plants are are morepopular garden plants, your
tomatoes, the cucurbits,peppers, things like that that
get bigger that you could runinto space constraints if if you
don't have a lot of room.
(06:54):
More and more we are seeing,again, these dwarf types. So I
have like sweet corn, there'sone. See on deck hybrid. For
this, it's I I've never grownthis one, but from from the
descriptions, it's four to fivefeet tall, they say. Plant 18
seeds in a 24 inch pot, which tome seems pretty tight spacing,
but that's the that's thecompany's recommendation.
(07:16):
So so if you wanna grow sweetcorn, you you've got this that
you can grow in a small area.You can grow it in the ground
too if you've got a little bitof room. But they're not
getting, you know, the eightplus feet tall like you would a
normal sweet corn plant. Forfor, like, watermelons, you
know, cucurbits can be ratherlarge, you know, vines four,
five, six plus feet long. Cowsweet bush is a watermelon.
(07:40):
This is one we have around Ithink I believe it's an AES
winner from a few years ago. Theyou know, the the description
say 14 to 18 inches long. Ithink it's a little bit longer
than that. Maybe a little closerto two and a half feet, and then
that can depend on on the soiland what you're growing it in.
But again, it's it's still muchsmaller than your traditional
(08:00):
watermelon plants.
Produce two or three fruit, 10to 12 pounds, so that personal
size watermelon. So theproduction may not be quite to
the extent of of the largerplants, but you're still getting
a decent amount of of fruit offof there. You know, there's
peas, which peas again aren'tterribly big, but some of them
they can get, depending on thecolor, can get five, six foot
(08:22):
tall peas. There's somethinglike tom thumb garden bee, gets
eight to nine inches tall. Soagain, a really good one for
pots that don't need a lot ofspace to grow, very many of
those.
Jalapeno, there's a potapeno. Ibelieve this is another AAS
winner several years ago. Onewe've grown, it gets twelve,
fifteen, maybe 18 inches tall.You still get 35 to 50 jalapenos
(08:45):
off of there. So you're stillgetting pretty good production,
off of that.
And then for for tomatoes, I Ipersonally, I'm not growing any
really dwarf types, but we'rewe're looking for a cultivar
examples here. There's a dwarftomato project. So there's a
whole, I guess, communitysciences and science, call it
what you want, kind of projecton on breeding dwarf type
(09:08):
tomatoes. So I think they'redefining these dwarf tomatoes as
two to four and a half feettall. I think those are, like, a
30 or so cultivars.
Chris Enroth (09:18):
36, something like that.
Ken Johnson (09:20):
Yeah. Like, for the northern they have swim in the
Northern Southern Hemisphere.For, like, the Northern
Hemisphere, there's a 30 somecultivators. There's a lot
there's and it's not justcherries cherry tomatoes.
There's ones that look likethey're paste, they're slicing,
and stuff too.
You still get decent sizedtomatoes off of those as well.
So, again, looking for thosethat have been bred to fit,
(09:43):
smaller areas. Mhmm.
Chris Enroth (09:47):
Well and and I guess those are things that we
could put in the ground. Theythey would remain a little
small. But but really today, arewe kind of disguising this as
like a container show? You know,is that what this is? Because
what is the trick to small spaceguarding?
Containers. That's what we do.Yeah.
Ken Johnson (10:10):
Yeah. And all those could be, you know, grown in in
pots. You know, the thewatermelon, you'd probably let
that cascade over or Mhmm. Builda trellis. You'd probably have
to support the fruit.
Yeah. All those could be grownin pots.
Chris Enroth (10:26):
Yeah. Yeah. So I guess for my yard, and, you
know, if you've been listeningor watching this show for any
manner of time, you've heard mesay I don't have much space to
grow in. Not necessarily becausespace is lacking, but it's
sunlight is lacking. And so,yeah, my primary method of
(10:47):
growing or at least croprotation is going to be usually
trying to find as much room as Ican in my landscape.
So one year in the ground, andthen I will flip to container
gardening for probably a year.And incorporating those
containers really do help mewith my crop rotation. And and
(11:11):
so, yeah, I I haven't done avery good job of selecting
plants that are suitable forcontainers. I think I started
this this whole thing years agowith indeterminate tomatoes, and
I quickly learned my lesson.That's not a great idea.
Indeterminate tomatoes in acontainer. You know, the you
(11:33):
talked about that that on deckcorn. You know, I I feel like a
slight breeze might blow thoseover if you have that much corn
in a, like, a 20 inch pot. Yeah.It it'd be so you know, they're
not tall, but they're stillcatching the wind.
And I have had so many tomatoplants, you know, and other
things just get toppled by justlike a five mile per hour wind
(11:57):
when that container soil driesout, but it's so there's so much
growth on top. Yeah. I I I wouldsay, you know, I've I've not
done a very good job atselecting for contain like,
plants for my containers, but Ido know, as Ken said, those look
for those adjectives in thoseseed catalogs. So one I really
like are, like, the ones thatsay, like, patio. Grow for your
(12:20):
patio.
It it it's really goodmarketing, I think, because I'm
thinking, well, yeah, I wouldwant some patio tomatoes on my
patio, you know, where I like tosit and relax and enjoy the
yard. You know? So there there'salso vegetables that are grown,
you know, very specifically forthose, you know, container
(12:42):
situations, and and thosemarketing folks have done a
great job of naming these. Youknow? I I think the one I like
is short stuff carrots, youknow, little stubby carrots
growing in your containers.
But but even if you have a deepenough container, a normal
bolero carrot would do fine. Youjust have to have that that, you
(13:07):
know, a container with somedepth to it. But I would say
when I'm gardening in mycontainers and I'm doing
anything large like a tomato, Idon't go anywhere under five
gallons. I I that is like fivegallon container is the minimum
size that I will use for a lotof things. So, like, if I'm
(13:30):
looking at a a tomato, I'mprobably trying to go up to,
let's say, 10 gallon seven to 10gallons for my tomatoes.
If I can get bigger than that,I'll put a single tomato plant
in there. So I do have some 15gallon size containers. Those
are big, by the way. It takes upI got, like, two cubic foot of
(13:51):
potting soil the other day, andI planted two fifteen gallon
containers. So yeah.
That potting soil is expensivenow. And so the what I'll try to
do is I'll try to even maximizethat space a little bit more is
I put, like, basil or somethingwithin those 15 gallon
containers with my tomato plant,which also dries that container
(14:16):
out even faster. So you gotta bereally on top of it with the
water. But but so, yeah, youknow, when we're we're thinking
about container, maybe size interms of, like, the opening
width, you know, we're we wantthe that kind of that top
diameter no less than 20 incheswhen you're growing tomatoes.
(14:39):
And then when we're doingpeppers, go a little bit
smaller, like 16 inchcontainers.
Carrots, a foot wide, onions,things like that, maybe down to
10 inches. Well, basically, Ken,best thing you can do for your
plants, give them as much soilas volume as you can. That's,
like, the most critical thing. Iknow a lot of people, myself
(15:02):
included, I've done this. I'mnot proud of it.
You'll put I'll put, like, emptymilk jugs and stuff in the
containers because I haven't hadI don't have enough potting mix
to to fill that volume. And Iguess you can do that, but it
your plants will take betteradvantage of more soil volume
(15:25):
that you can give them. So themore volume you give them, the
better. That's just, you know,we're we're trying to emulate
what they would be gettinggrowing in the ground, you know,
in in the field, as we say, orin the actual garden soil. And
when you're growing in a massivevolume of soil, like, you know,
(15:46):
in a garden, water doesn'tnecessarily pool up against the
the plant roots.
They're to drain away. There's alot of oxygen, nutrients.
There's a lot of microbiologyhappening, within that soil. And
so we're we're trying our bestto replicate a lot of those
physical characteristics of thesoil. And so the reason why we
use, like, a soil free pottingmix in a container is so that it
(16:09):
facilitates good drainage awayfrom the plant roots.
You know, if we would take just,you know, our clay, you know,
heavy garden soil, put that in apot, it would hold on to that
soil. It have the water wouldhave nowhere to drain to. And so
we try to create that drainageartificially using, like, a peat
based or a coconut coir basedpotting mix. Now I know there's
(16:31):
even a lot of these soil mixcompanies there. They're
beginning to incorporate more,like, wood fibers, more wood
pulp into these, I think, try toreduce some of that peat use.
And I think there's been more ofa push in the the, the gardening
market to reduce the amount ofof peat moss that we are using
in our potting mix. So I'mstarting to see more wood pulp,
(16:52):
more wood fibers, more morecoconut coir being used in our
potting soil mixes. And andagain, all of that is facilitate
good drainage away from theroots, you know, as much soil
volume as you can give theseplants. Again, for my tomatoes,
peppers, I don't go anywhereunderneath five gallons. I try
to go, you know, seven to 10gallons or higher for those
(17:13):
larger fruiting plants.
Ken Johnson (17:16):
Yeah. And the, you know, the bigger those plants
get, the more soil, that morepotting mix is gonna be where
it's gonna dry out. If, youknow, if you've got a a standard
sized tomato plant in a smallpot, you're gonna be watering
that multiple times a day tokeep that from from wilting and
stuff. So usually, when you'retalking about, you know, potting
(17:36):
plants, you know, house plants,so we don't wanna have these
giant pots for a small plant.But I guess maybe the exception
to that rule is with your someof these bigger vegetables.
You know, put that transplant inthere, it's gonna fill that in
relatively quickly. So you don'tplant fragrant like trees, you
know, plant for the what thefuture size is gonna be. So keep
(17:57):
that in mind. You may have yourlittle six six inch tall tomato
plant that's eventually gonnaend up being three, four, five
feet tall, and fill up a goodchunk of that pot.
Chris Enroth (18:08):
The other thing also so you you might be
listening and you say, but all Ihave is this, old hanging basket
container that had a petunia init last year. That's all I have
to grow my my pepper plant forthis year. And a lot of times,
you know, folks will will callus up and we have to kind of you
know, what strategies can youemploy in a less than ideal
(18:31):
situation? And so one of thethings that I have recommended
to folks is that, well, if youcan't provide that soil volume,
at least what we wanna do is tryto avoid that that potting, that
root ball from drying out tooexcessively, like going from,
like, soaking wet to, like,super dry within a few hours.
That's not good for the plant.
(18:52):
So in order to try to moderatethat soil moisture and even the
temperature as well, You know,I'll often say to folks, you
know what? Just go get a bag of,like, wood mulch at the store
and and, you know, dress the youknow, put a, you know, a couple
inches worth of wood mulch ontop of that pot. And if you have
that pot sitting on the ground,heck, you might as well put wood
(19:13):
mulch around that pot as well,and that's called healing in.
It's not really the correctterm, but that's, you know, what
we do, in some cases with, like,trees and stuff. But you're sort
of, like, piling mulch aroundit, essentially just insulating
it so it doesn't dry out tooquickly, and just holds extra
moisture.
Could hold some pests too, but,you know, it it's one strategy
(19:34):
to help keep that that root ballin that container from drying
out too quickly.
Ken Johnson (19:39):
Yes. It's all a give and take. Yes. And don't
don't go on a very long vacationor have somebody that you can
trust to water your pot.
Chris Enroth (19:49):
Or get a automatic drip irrigation system. I didn't
get that installed at your placeyet, Ken. We're gonna get it
done, though.
Ken Johnson (19:58):
Eventually. Maybe someday.
Chris Enroth (20:00):
One of these years.
Ken Johnson (20:03):
Oh. So I'll say another I don't complain. Maybe
concern people have sometimeswhen especially if you're, like,
in an apartment or somethinglike that, and you you got
you're putting this on a patioor a balcony or something like
that. It is protecting thosesurfaces because you don't wanna
lose your deposit, or orsomething like that. So you can
(20:24):
put, like, you have with houseplants, you put those saucers
underneath there.
Just making sure you're emptyingthat water. Don't let them sit
in water because then well, wewant there to be plenty of
moisture. You know, we we don'twant that potting mix to be
saturated because then you don'thave any of that oxygen in the
in the potting media. Rootsstart rotting, plants die. So
(20:45):
that's kinda one way.
There are pots that will comewith built in saucers underneath
of them as well. So that'd beone way you can try to keep that
area somewhat clean or protectedfrom that or even maybe
elevating it off off the groundso you don't have the water
pooling underneath of it, whichcan sometimes lead to stands.
(21:09):
There's, you know, pot standsand stuff you can get as well.
Chris Enroth (21:16):
Yeah. I I thought I was safe on the the wood deck
that we have in our backyard, soI just put, you know, a couple
pots. I I think these weremarigolds that we had planted in
pots. And they weren't supposedto be there permanently all
summer long, but they were therefor a few weeks. And when I went
(21:36):
to move them, the marigolds hadactually rooted into the the
wood boards underneath.
I had not seen I mean,extensively. Like, they had.
It's an older deck, so Yeah.That's tough
Ken Johnson (21:48):
to replace it.
Chris Enroth (21:49):
Time to replace a couple boards, I'd say. But the
the roots surprised me. And whenI went to move the plant, I had
to, like, kinda, you know, kindof forcefully pull that pot off
that spot where it was, and thismarigolds kinda stressed out for
a few days after that. They losta lot of roots. They're getting
(22:10):
some good nutrition from thosethose wooden boards.
And so what I do now, though, isI'll take a lot of times, I'll
take those, like, saucercontainers. Yeah. I'll flip them
upside down, and I'll actuallyset the pot on top of the the
inverted saucer. That way, atleast, the the the container's
off the wood and not rootinginto our old deck boards that we
(22:34):
have in the backyard.
Ken Johnson (22:37):
I think your bigger problem may be the deck boards.
Chris Enroth (22:40):
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I go out there and I jump
up and down a few times a year.I'm like, I think we're okay.
We're still we're still stable.
Ken Johnson (22:47):
Yeah. Another six months out of it.
Chris Enroth (22:50):
Yeah. This part's a little, you know, springy, but
I think we'll be alright. I goout there before the kids go
there, you know, and see how itgoes. Well, Ken, there's, you
know, there's you know, wetalked about a few of those
different types of dwarf plants,but some of those containerized
(23:10):
fruit plants, I I would love totry these. I I have not tried
these yet.
I believe our colleague, BruceBlack, has done classes about
these. And one, I I remember himmentioning was raspberry
shortcake. It's raspberry plantthat you can plant in a
container. So I I think thatwould be that would be a lot of
(23:30):
fun. I know there's, like, patioblueberries that you can also
use.
I do recommend that. I haverecommended that to folks, these
these patio blueberries becausethey have spring white flowers.
My blueberries are actuallyblooming right now. They have
the blueberries, the the ediblefruit in the early summer. And
(23:51):
then you have red fall color inthe fall, and then you get red
stems all winter long.
And so it's a kind of an wouldbe a neat patio plant provided
you had a large enough containerthat was protected enough from
some of those freezing winterwith temperatures that we would
get. You wanna protect thoseroots so that they don't just
(24:11):
turn into a ball of ice. But,yeah, I I would love to try some
of these, you know, smallerminiature fruits like raspberry
shortcake. There's also babycakes, blackberry. And there's
another one.
It's like a a series ofdifferent types of berries,
(24:32):
probably includes things likestrawberries and blackberries,
raspberries. It's called busheland berry. And so some company
has developed multiple differenttypes of fruiting crops or fruit
crops, and they call it busheland berry raspberry, bushel and
berry blackberry. And so they'rethey're described as being a
(24:54):
perfect patio plant, the triplep, and they grow shorter. But I
think with all of theseperennials growing in pots, boy,
there's a lot of peas in thissentence, there is an issue with
that cold hardiness again.
So you gotta protect thoseroots, in the wintertime here in
Illinois.
Ken Johnson (25:15):
Yeah. We've got a couple of the the bushel berry.
It used to be called brazzleberry. So strawberry shortcake
is the raspberry. We've gotthat.
And that's it's got good tastingraspberries. Usually, the
wildlife gets to them, before wedo. And we've had ours for four,
five plus years now. So we'vegot them in the the plastic
whiskey barrel planters, and,the growing media was up towards
(25:38):
the top, and now it's about fourinches down. So they need to be
repotted because I same thing.
We've got a couple blueberries,same thing. And I just I leave
them outside, and I shouldn'tbecause I think I I get quite a
bit of die back on theblueberries. But they're they
come out of it. But, again,they're they've that's potting
(25:58):
mix has really subsided, so Ineed to to refresh those. And
we've got the baby cakes, andthat thing is getting big.
Like, it is going through thebottom of the pot into the
ground. I can't move the potanymore. And it's got some of
those canes that are probablygetting three, four feet long. I
don't know. So it's a little bitit's a bigger a little bit
(26:19):
bigger.
But at least in the one we'vegot, is a little bit bigger. I
think it it started producing wegot it last year. It started
producing fruit last fall reallylate because it really kinda
struggled for a little bit. Andthen, frost came before they
really fully ripened, but it'sit's loaded with flowers now. So
(26:40):
if the wildlife doesn't get itbefore we do, I can report back
later.
But the, like, the back to theraspberry shortcake. That's a
nice mounted plant. I think it'sprobably 18 inches tall, maybe
maybe two feet tall. So it'snot, again, when you think about
your normal raspberry plant,which is significantly larger
than that. So, yeah, those arethose are good apps.
And, like, blueberries, they'vegot all kinds of different types
(27:03):
of it. Some have pink berries,traditional bluish ones, and and
everything in between.
Chris Enroth (27:10):
Yeah. Well, you know, the other thing about that
baby cakes blackberry, you saythat's, like, growing out of the
pot and going crazy. That that'sjust blackberries for you.
They're crazy. They're unruly.
I I grew a Illini hardy. This isnot a dwarf plant. It grows,
like, twelve, fifteen foot tall,but Illini hardy, thornless
blackberry, and that thing willtake over your garden if you let
(27:33):
it. Yeah. Those blackberries arebananas, which they're still
pretty darn tasty when you getsome fruit off of them, though,
especially well, if yourtiming's right.
I've definitely had some sourones, but, boy, you get that
harvest just right. Oh,blackberries are excellent. I
love blackberries.
Ken Johnson (27:53):
So I'll let you know when they're ripe.
Chris Enroth (27:55):
I will come down. I'll bring the drip irrigation
material. We'll we'll get itall. We'll we'll do this all as
one thing.
Ken Johnson (28:02):
Pay you in blackberries.
Chris Enroth (28:04):
That's yeah. I will leave with a stomachache.
Alright, Ken. Well, we did talkabout containers, which plays
into a lot of small spacegardening. But there are other
strategies that we can employwhen we're we're growing in a
smaller space, and and one ofthose is just growing up.
(28:26):
You know, if you have a viningcrop that might creep and crawl,
maybe going up would help. Orwhat I did I don't know if this
technically counts astrellising, which is what we're
talking about now. But when Igrew my cucumbers last year, I
cascaded them down the retainingwall. So my one of my full sun
(28:48):
locations, I ran out ofhorizontal growing space, But I
still had these lemon cucumbersthat had to grow somewhere. So I
planted them along the retainingwall, and I had them cascade
downward and over.
So when I was watering theplant, I was actually uphill. I
was on top of the wall. But whenI was harvesting, I would walk
around and I would harvest, withthe fruits kind of at eye level.
(29:12):
That would seem to work out verynicely. The lemon cucumbers,
it's a smaller ish cucumberabout softball, baseball size,
and so it didn't really need anyadditional support.
But, yeah, trellising, growingup or down, I would say Yeah. As
options.
Ken Johnson (29:29):
Yeah. Yeah. I think usually we define it as up, but,
yeah, I hadn't thought abouttrailing.
Chris Enroth (29:34):
Mhmm.
Ken Johnson (29:34):
Yeah. And I think usually I wouldn't reason it's a
lot of times it's thickcucurbits because they do take a
lot of space. Cucumbers, prettymuch any cucumber would be a
good option because if we'reharvesting the fruit on time,
they're not getting too big andtoo heavy, to pull those, to
pull the vines down. Maybe someof the smaller, like, mini
pumpkins and stuff you can getaway with. But if you're
(29:56):
growing, some medium or largersized pie pumpkins or jack
o'-lantern pumpkins, you'reyou're gonna have to support
those fruit in some way.
Otherwise, they're gonna pullyour vines down. Making a
hammock, tying that, you know,somehow supporting that fruit as
it grows larger to do that. Sobest bet is probably smaller for
(30:18):
your stuff, but you can do itfor larger stuff if you're
willing to take a little extratime. And you've got a sturdy
enough trellis to support fruitthat may be ten, fifteen, 20
pounds on top of all the plantmaterial as well. And even
things like zucchini, don'treally get all that big, you can
still kinda grow those up andand save some of that space on
(30:41):
the ground.
And and depending on how youtrellis stuff, you could even
grow maybe you could try growingsome cool season stuff, lettuce,
stuff that may may that you canget away with a little less
sunlight. I'm gonna shave you alittle bit, make a little bit
cooler microclimate there. Maybeextend out some of that stuff a
little bit longer into thesummer, than you would be able
to otherwise. Mhmm.
Chris Enroth (31:02):
You know, Ken, when I I visited your garden
last year, I got some reallygreat inspiration of how you
just ripped two by fours in halfand used that as your trellis.
So these are, like, eight footlong two by fours. You ripped
them in half. So I I did thesame thing at my place, and I
(31:23):
had to get on a ladder to, like,sledgehammer them into the
ground. But they were supersturdy once they were in the
ground, and I used themprimarily for my tomato
supports.
And so we got plenty of height,fairly sturdy. When I use some
of those, like, wooden stakesfor, like that you can get at,
(31:45):
like, a a hardware store orsomewhere, a lot of times
they'll rot by the end of thesummer. Like, base will be
rotten and they'll be fallingover. But just a straight up
pine two by four just lasted mea whole summer. I got them still
this year, so we're gonna putthem back in the ground for this
growing season.
So, yeah,
Ken Johnson (32:05):
a
Chris Enroth (32:05):
lot of trellising, I found people have just sort of
found stuff around the house tocreate these trellises. A lot of
times they don't work, butsometimes you build a pretty
sturdy structure, and they theywork very well. So thank you,
Ken, for such a great idea tojust take an old two by four and
rip it in half, and though thatbecame two posts for me.
Ken Johnson (32:27):
Yeah. I mean, sometimes we have had them where
they have started to warp, andthey're almost c shaped Mhmm. By
the end of the year depending onhow that grain is. But, yeah,
it's it's worked out. We gotpressure treated boards, so
we've had them in the ground forthree or four years now.
Mhmm. Haven't had any issues,and that's the the copper stuff.
(32:47):
So I'm not really concernedabout that, you know, leaching
into the soil where it's gonnacause any toxicity or anything
like that. Just thinking, youknow, one thing if, like, green
beans, if you're a diviningbeans, you know, teepees, things
like that, you know, you couldstill just a regular trellis
too. Yeah.
(33:08):
Just get stuff off the ground,save that space for other
things.
Chris Enroth (33:13):
Yeah. Yeah. I I particularly like at our food
donation garden here in inMacomb, our just it's just a
cattle panel that's just bent inkind of a, I guess, upside down
u, lowercase n shape, basicallya tunnel. We have a green bean
tunnel very often or on oppositeyears, we'll have a a cucumber
(33:36):
tunnel. Then we trellis up ourour green our pole beans or our
cucumbers.
And so it it's a great place toto be and to spend time because
it's trellised. You you findyour I find myself in the shade
there more often, you know,picking and things. And then
that yeah. We we have space thenin the beds, that allow us to
(34:00):
plant things like lettuces, youknow, on underneath of those.
Ken Johnson (34:06):
Yeah. And we're, you know, talking about the
space saving here, but ease ofharvest as well. Because, yeah,
like you mentioned with youryour cucumbers, all this stuff
is now high level or at least upoff the ground, so you're not as
bending as much, and it's notnot as taxing on the body, maybe
Mhmm. When it's when it's uphigher eye level and stuff. So
just another advantage of oftrellising.
(34:29):
Yeah.
Chris Enroth (34:30):
Well, you mentioned treated lumber. So
another space saving techniquethat that I'm reading a lot
about is using raised beds. AndI think a lot of what some of
these articles that that mentionthis as a space saver are
assuming, well, maybe you havelousy soil in your yard that
(34:51):
does not allow you to growgarden a garden successfully, or
maybe you have contaminated soilwhere you you can't grow a
vegetable garden. I know,probably for me, a raised bed
wouldn't be much of a spacesaver, but there are ways we can
utilize raised beds to, to helpus grow perhaps maybe a bit more
(35:14):
densely or maybe a bit morecalculated. I know one of those
is a square foot gardeningmethod where where essentially
you have a raised bed, and youare calculating out every single
square foot and what that squarefoot can hold in terms of a a
crop.
So with tomatoes, it would beyou would need four square feet
of that bed for one tomatoplant. But for carrots, you
(35:37):
could maybe take 12 carrots inone square foot. And so it's
calculating that all out tomaximize space utilization, with
that square foot gardeningmethod. And so, yeah, that
that's one way I've seen raisedbeds used to save space. But,
also, if, again, you just havelousy soil, just don't grow in
(35:59):
it.
Hey. Now you've created yourselfa whole new garden area with a
raised bed on top of it.
Ken Johnson (36:04):
Yeah. I think with know, I'll speak for myself
here. Like, when I'm doing inground, it's small, you know,
nice straight lines. And I and Ikind of spread out more than I
would maybe need to, but becauseI've got the space. But in
raised beds, you know, you'vegot that.
I'm usually doing more of thatgrid. Regardless of what I'm
doing in square foot, I'm doingmore of a grid just because I've
(36:27):
got less room. I'm trying tosqueeze as much as I can in
there. So I think it kindaforces you to use that space
more efficiently than sometimesyou would in ground where you've
got a little more room and, andstuff like that.
Chris Enroth (36:41):
Yeah. No. That makes sense. Yeah. You're
planting in blocks, and that'sbecause with the raised bed, you
can get at it from all differentangles.
As long as you can reach acrossthat bed, you'll be okay. Yeah.
In ground, you got these longrows. Well, you don't wanna
walk, you know, too far aroundor anything. So, you know, you
have your one row, and you gotyou have your walking lane, and
(37:04):
you got your other road, yourwalking lane.
And so, yeah, I can see how youwould spread out more in an in
ground garden situation.
Ken Johnson (37:12):
Yeah. Sometimes in the ground, I forget to make my
walking lanes too, which makesmanagement and harvest
interesting.
Chris Enroth (37:20):
Well, yeah. Then you need to get the machete and
hack your way through the plantsto get to the actual crop that
you want. So another strategy,and this was one that I don't
think I read about, but it justis one that I have employed in
the past, is just being moreseasonal in the crops that you
(37:42):
select. So, okay, I don't haveroom to grow lettuce and tomato,
spinach, carrots, you know, someof these other other things. And
so I in more intentional inthat, okay, Earlier spring, I'm
going to to focus on some thesereally short, cool season crops,
(38:03):
radishes, arugula.
You know, the spinach can beshort ish, but some of the
lettuces. And then that thentransitions over into a warm
season crops, tomatoes, peppers,eggplant, all of those things.
And then I then late in theseason, I'll transition back to
(38:24):
more of maybe more longer termcool season crops, some of our
kales, some of those otherbrassicas out there. And so just
just I'm just more intentionalabout my seasonality. This gives
me a more diverse array of ofvegetables that I can grow at
least in a given year, notnecessarily in a given space,
(38:45):
though.
Like like, I can't grow it allat the same time, but I can grow
it all there within the year.
Ken Johnson (38:53):
Yeah. Getting into that that intercropping
replacing. Mhmm. So if and evenwhen, like, you you got your
your cool season spring stuff,you could interplant your
tomatoes with that as you'reharvesting those, pulling those
out, then your tomatoes arealready there, filling in the
space and vice versa in thesummer. Or in the late summer,
fall, start putting in your coolseason stuff as your tomatoes
(39:16):
are there, then either they getkilled or you're tired of
dealing with tomatoes and youremove them, then your cool
season stuff is there to to totake over.
Chris Enroth (39:26):
Yeah. Yeah. So just I and I think a lot of
folks, they especially juststarting out in gardening, you
think, oh, the gardening seasonis from May, middle of May till,
you know, maybe when the firstfrost is. But, no, we can grow
stuff so long as we got enoughsunlight in the day. So, you
(39:46):
know, if we get over ten hoursof sunlight in the day, plants
are actively growing as long asthey can handle the colder
temperatures that they would beexperiencing at those times, or
if we protect them with using,like, row covers or low tunnels,
something like that, a coldframe.
Ken Johnson (40:03):
Alright. Last one we got here. So I guess this is
kinda getting into, I guess,edible landscaping, but inner
inner planting or, yeah, goingthat edible landscaping where
you're integrating your yourfood crops, you know, with your
ornamentals or ornamentals inwith the food crops, vice versa.
Not necessarily having adedicated bed, which I think
again, I don't think when mostpeople think of vegetable
(40:24):
gardening, you've got yourvegetable garden, you got your
flowers, and the two shall nevermeet. But it's it's kind of
incorporating those into eachother.
Again, you can use your spacemore efficiently. There are
vegetable crops that do havesome ornamental appeal to them.
So some of the ochres can bevery ornamental looking. Now
(40:46):
some of the peppers, Some of theI think we talked about it. And
if you're doing the grow along,the the Christmas pepper we're
growing this year, it's gotupright peppers.
Usually, those are hot, this isa sweet pepper, but they do have
an ornamental look to them.Things like artichokes, you
know, if you wanna grow that,they got a nice foliage. We're
harvesting the the flower buds,but if you let those bloom,
(41:07):
which you're not really growingthe artichokes for food then,
but they've got very prettyflowers. So if you miss one,
you've got that. Cardoon is abasically relative of
artichokes.
It gets much bigger. You'reeating the leaves of that. It
kinda looks like somethingJurassic Park, when it's full
ground or and the things likerunner beans that have very, you
know, red have red flowers, veryornamental flowers. The pods can
(41:29):
be ornamental, but you can eatthem as green beans. Let them
dry down.
Use them as shelled beans, stufflike this. There's a variety of
different ways we canincorporate some of these
things, into our landscape. Andthere's flowers. A lot of
flowers are edible too. Sonasturtium, marigolds, all of
that stuff.
Mhmm.
Chris Enroth (41:49):
Yeah. And, Ken, you you don't do this for, like,
edible vegetables. At least Idon't think you did. But you've
planted even the hell strip outin front of your house, an area
between the street and thesidewalk, with ornamental
plants, you know, native somenative plants. But I remember
one year, I had an extra pepperplant.
Like, where am I gonna put this?Well, there was a full sun spot
(42:13):
over by the fire hydrant. And soI was by the road, and so I
planted that pepper plant overby the fire hydrant, six feet
away because I think that's whatthe city had required at the
time. But I had great peppersgrowing there. I was always
kinda like, well, what ifsomeone takes my peppers?
But then I thought, I guessthat's alright with me. I know
(42:36):
if somebody wants to take somepeppers, then they can have
them. I guess I'll I can stillgo to the farmer's market or the
store and get more peppers, soI'm not that worried about it.
So but, yeah, I I but I've triedto throw as many vegetables as I
could find full sun areas, andone of them just so happened to
be right next to the road rightthere. You know, I'm not really
(42:59):
thinking about any contaminantsor anything like that pollution.
So dirty water, dogs peeing onit. That didn't come to mind
until after the fact. Ignoranceis bliss. That's right. So just
pretend like I didn't say that,folks, and you'll feel great.
No. No. You have to take allthose risks into consideration.
Ken Johnson (43:20):
Yeah. I think yeah. But so, yeah, just you know, if
you're if you're gonna do this,you know, think about those
plants, and I guess you'dprobably be able to speak to
this better than I would. But,you know, the those landscape
designs, you know, the differentfoliage and then the contrast
and this, that, and the other.There's there's ways you can
incorporate this stuff and, youknow, some trial and error.
Sometimes it may look good,sometimes it may not. Yeah. You
(43:43):
always got next year to tryagain.
Chris Enroth (43:45):
Mhmm. That's right. At the eternal optimist
as the gardener, there's alwaysnext year. So well, that was a
lot of great information abouthow to utilize some of our
smaller yard space to do moregardening. Well, the Good
Growing podcast is a productionof University of Illinois
Extension, edited this week byKen Johnson.
(44:07):
And a special thank you to Ken.Thanks for hanging out, giving
some tips and tricks aboutgardening in small spaces this
week.
Ken Johnson (44:15):
Yes. Thank you. And go check on that deck, make sure
it's not doesn't need replacing.
Chris Enroth (44:21):
Go jump on it here just a little bit. Make sure me
and the dogs will go out thereand we'll just make sure our
weight doesn't cause the wholething to buckle.
Ken Johnson (44:29):
And let's do this again next week.
Chris Enroth (44:32):
Oh, we shall do this again next week. The
horticultural hijinks continueson the Good Growing podcast. So
tune in next week to hear thegardening topic that we shall
devise between now and then.Well, listeners, thank you for
doing what you do best, and thatis listening. Or if you're
watching us on YouTube,watching.
And as always, keep on growing.This is very interesting ASMR
(45:08):
podcast. It's just called gardenresearch. It's like watching
paint dry. Yeah.
Just two guys reading. Ignoreeverything I just sit there in
the meantime. Cut that all out.
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