Companion planting – Radishes & Beets
Companion planting is when different types of plants are grown together for some mutually beneficial reason. For example, yarrow (Achillea) can be planted with other flowers and vegetables to deter aphids. As well, beans can be planted with corn, as corn provides a pole which the beans can climb up.
I’m not sure if this 100% counts as companion planting, but I will plant fast-growing radishes and slower-growing mini beets together in a container. Because I hate the thought of thinning out perfectly fine vegetable seedlings, planting radishes that grow within 28 days amongst beets that grow in 55-60 days will allow me to harvest the radishes while thinning and loosening the soil for the mini beets.
In my 24″ x 4″ x 6″ pot, I planted Amethyst radishes and Baby Ball beets on April 13th. Both should be planted in cooler weather (direct seed throughout April), and if this works well, I can plant for a winter harvest in August.
I added sand to Sea Soil to lighten the growing medium a bit. I like Sea Soil for the organic matter, but it can get heavy once watered.
Also, because of my experience with my container peas where the soil settled after watering and left an extra inch from the top of the pot, I pre-watered the soil and added more compost before sowing the seeds. Since these are root crops, I wanted to provide as much soil depth as possible.
Some tips and tricks (see below for source):
- For quicker germination, soak beet seeds in warm water prior to planting to break through the tough shell.
- Cover the seeds with peat moss instead of soil to keep seeds warm and moist, but will be easy for seedlings to break through.
For more info on beets and companion planting:
West Coast Seeds – Companion planting article
How to grow beets – good tips and tricks!
General update – More seedlings!
Spring is finally coming, though I wouldn’t call it consistently warm outside. I had a visitor in the garden the other day, this lovely little ladybug. Hopefully it will eat the disgusting spittlebugs that have made a home in my herb pot!
In any case, lots has been happening in the garden!
There are buckwheat seedlings in the foreground. I think I mistook an errant fall rye seedling left over from past years for buckwheat. That’s ok, fall rye is good for the garden too!
The Columbine just keeps growing and growing…
… And the Crocosmia too! I hope I’ll have flowers this year. Last year I must have planted them too late and only got foliage. See how these looked on the first day of spring.
The herb container is also doing well. The rosemary continues to flower, and the oregano and thyme are filling out.
The peas that are growing in the hanging basket are coming up, creating a circular pattern of tiny sprouts! Just how I sowed the seeds.
Last but not least, my first Little Marvel seedling!
General update – Seedlings!
I went away for the Easter weekend, during which we had sunshine and warm temperatures. The weather, and likely just the few extra days, have led to seedlings in the garden!
Last night I also pulled out my Aerogarden to start seedlings that will go outside in May. The Aerogarden is a counter-top hydroponic system for growing tomatoes, herbs, salad greens and flowers. I’ve tried the tomatoes and herbs, but I find it is better used as a seed starter rather than growing the seed pods they offer. It takes a fair bit of electricity to run this because it has a water pump (24/7) and lighting (17 hrs/day).
I have started ‘Bright Lights’ Swiss Chard (3 pots x 4 seeds) and Early Butternut Squash (2 pots x 2 seeds). I’ll also start my Baby Blue Hubbard Squash that will go in my Dad’s garden too, but have to pick up the seeds first.
Toy choy!
Yay! I think it’s true! I think some of the Toy Choy is coming up!
It seems they are coming up around the edges of the container, so they must need a bit more light to germinate quickly. Next time I will sow these seeds very shallowly. In fact, I will add some more seeds, as it’s good to space out the sowing in order to have successive harvests.
I also saw one sprout coming from the buckwheat!
Skimmia – Mystery (partially) solved
My post last week got me thinking about the mystery plant I had been neglecting. I have had the plant since 2008 and had just hoped it would perk up over time. Every year I topped it up with Sea Soil and assumed nutrients would filter down to the roots. A couple of years ago I repotted it, thinking it was outgrowing its pot, but the root ball was very small and compacted. And every year it has sickly yellow leaves. It always develops pink buds through the winter and flowers in March to April, but has not grown much since I first got it. So this year I will put in some effort to see if I can cure its sad look.
The first step was to figure out what the heck it is called so I can learn more about it! A quick internet search of ‘shade tolerant shrub’ turned up some nursery webpages that had lots of pictures I could scroll through. It is some type of Skimmia. Though I don’t know the variety, Skimmia japonica seems pretty common.
I searched the UBC Botanical Garden Forum for Skimmia posts, keeping an eye out for threads about sickly or unhealthy plants. They like acidic soil (check, since our rain is naturally quite acidic), but if it is too much below 6.0 pH, the soil should be ‘sweetened’ a bit with garden lime. They also are sometimes prone to spider mites, so I’ll have to keep an eye out for that. They do like shade (check) as their leaves can get burned in the summer. As well, well-draining soil is important as it can get root rot. Also, they are dioecious plants, which means they require a male and female plant in order for berries to set. However, I don’t know if I have a male or female.
Armed with this new knowledge, I turned a new leaf (haha…) and began caring for my Skimmia by amending its soil last Saturday.
This is the ‘before’ picture. As you can see it is very sparse, and leaves are yellowy green.
In a wide circle around the base of the plant, I dug in to pull it up with (hopefully) minimal disturbance of its root ball. It doesn’t look like there has been much root growth in the past two years. I loosened the soil remaining in the pot and amended it with bone meal, dry fish fertilizer, and large sand/fine gravel.
Bone meal (white stuff) provides an organic source of phosphorus and promotes root growth. Ideally, you should always add some bone meal when transplanting, so that was a mistake I made when I first potted up. If you have bulbs, it is also helpful to spread bone meal annually.
Dry fish fertilizer (brownish mixture) is organic and provides a balance of nutrients. I added this because I did not change out the soil that was in the pot already. I’m currently using a brand called Organika, but have used Gaia Green in the past. In any case, I rely on natural rather than chemical fertilizers.
Sand and/or small gravel help to improve soil drainage. In my case, I had a bag of decorative garden sand (shiny black stuff), so I mixed this in. Poor drainage could be the reason for the yellow leaves, as it rains most days through the winter.
All amendments were mixed thoroughly and then I replanted the Skimmia. I topped up the pot with new Sea Soil. Usually when you do this, you will want to water the plant well. However, it has been raining all week and the soil was already pretty wet, and it is expected to rain again today, so I passed on the watering.
Although I have figured out what this plant is, I still don’t know why it is so unhappy. So I’ll keep an eye on it through the summer and see how it does. Since it is not good for me to dig it up every year to check out the root growth, I’ll pay particular attention to its leaves.
Peat Pots
I thought I would give these peat pots from West Coast Seeds a try this year, instead of peat pellets or small plastic containers. In the past I have found that my peat pellets sometimes go mouldy, so perhaps these will be a bit better. The point of using these is so that you minimize shock when transplanting by not disturbing the seedlings’ roots. I plan on starting my squash seeds in these, so I’ll fill them with Sea Soil and hopefully I’ll have plenty of healthy Butternut and Baby Blue (Hubbard) squash seedlings.
*Just a note: I will try growing a Butternut squash plant on my patio, but not the Baby Blue Hubbard as they can be very big. My Baby Blues will live in my dad’s garden, which has a lot more room and a lot more sunshine!
Root Viewer
I found this Root Viewer at West Coast Seeds and thought it would make a pretty cool birthday gift for my friend’s daughter. It comes with 3 plastic beakers, a wooden stand, and peat pellets & seeds. The point is that you can watch your veggies growing in the beaker with a view of what’s happening both on top of and inside the soil.
My friends have a community garden plot, and their daughter just turned 3. The box says ‘8 yrs and up’ so I think my friends will be the ones tending to the seeds, but I think she is old enough to appreciate the outcome. Then when it’s time to visit the garden plot, she’ll have a sense of what’s going on in the ground too.
General update – Container progress
This week has been slightly warmer, with temperatures around 7 degrees Celsius. Here is a photo log of seed and plant progress:
Toy Choy (planted 10 days ago on March 20) – I’m unsure if this is a Toy Choy sprout… or just a weed. It also appears something has been digging in the soil to pull out a larger piece of eggshell and exposed an ungerminated seed.
Buckwheat (planted 10 days ago on March 20) – No sign of life yet to cover and protect my soil!
Peas (planted 5 days ago on March 25) – No sprouts yet for both Little Marvel and Oregon Sugar Pod. The package says 7-10 days for germination.
Crocosmia & Calla Lily (perennial) – Crocosmia continues to do well. Still no sign of Calla Lily.
Columbine, Lavender & Herb container (perennial) – All are doing well. The rosemary always flowers early in the Spring.
Mystery plant – This is a plant that I won as a door prize one year. I’m not sure what it is, but it always survives the winter. However, when I transplanted it a couple of years ago its roots looked pretty sad. Given the sparse yellow leaves I’m not sure that it’s doing much better, though it is flowering. I know it is a cool weather, shade liking plant. However, I’m not sure how to help it thrive.
General update – Seed germination progress
It has been one week since planting the Toy Choy and Buckwheat seeds. The weather has been relatively cold, below seasonal and we also had some near zero degree Celsius days, so it doesn’t look like either have germinated.
Definitely no Buckwheat yet. I’m not sure about the Toy Choy because I topped up both planters on Friday when I got a new bag of Sea Soil. Perhaps I shouldn’t have topped up the planter with the Toy Choy because those seeds are very small and you generally cover up the seeds relative to their size. I may have delayed the germination, but I thought it might help protect the seeds a bit better if we have another cold snap and to add some nutrients to the soil. We’ll see how it goes!
No action on the peas yet, since I just planted them yesterday.
The crocosmia, snap dragons and columbine continue to grow well. Still no sign of the calla lily and butterfly bush.
Container peas
This year instead of tomatoes, I decided to try growing peas in a container. I really don’t think we have enough sun and heat for tomatoes, so for the amount of effort I put in each year, I end up with a very small harvest. I thought peas may work on my patio for several reasons:
1) There are a couple of compact bush varieties that do not get super huge. Dwarf varieties are good because you will likely just need to stake them for additional support rather than build a net or trellis needed for climbing varieties.
I will try the variety Little Marvel, a bush variety shelling pea, in my 12″ container. They should only grow to approximately 18″ tall.
I also decided to try Oregon Sugar Pod, a vine variety snow pea, in my hanging 10″ container. These have short vines that will grow to about 30″, which I thought would be perfect to try in a hanging basket usually used for flowers.
2) Peas are suited for cooler climates, which in southern BC we know temperatures don’t usually heat up until June. This means that there is potential to plant successively and harvest 2-3 times through the year if you plant early enough.
3) Peas can be planted in tight quarters, requiring only 1 inch between seeds and a soil depth of approximately 12 inches. I will try to plant about 12 seeds in a circle in the centre of a 12″ diameter pot.
4) Peas and other legumes serve double duty in the garden as nitrogen fixers. They have little nodes on their roots which help these plants access nitrogen from the atmosphere, and when the plant dies the nitrogen is released into the soil benefiting the veggies you plant in that container next year. Using an inoculant will enhance this process. In the picture above, the light brown stuff is inoculant powder.
Planting notes: For both pots, Sea Soil is the primary growing medium. It was amended with eggshells and organic kelp-based dry fertilizer. Inoculant was added to the soil where the seeds were planted. Seeds were then covered with 1″ of Sea Soil and watered thoroughly. Seeds were not pre-soaked, as we have rain forecast for the upcoming week and temperatures are still low (3-7 degrees Celsius), so the soil should not dry out too much. However, this may extend the germination period by a few days.
Sources and for more information:
West Coast Seeds – Growing guide for peas
Annette McFarlane – Growing peas info sheet
Backyard Gardening Blog – How to grow garden peas
