Okay! You’ve picked your garden location and you’ve bought your supplies. Now it’s time for Lesson 3 in the 4 Step Food Garden: Planting!
Planting your containers right at your growing site makes the process much easier, since you don’t need to drag your finished planters to another location.
Photo Credit: Nancy Watson
Two tomato plants, one on each end of a rectangular container, will be enough to fill a planter with a bountiful harvest over the weeks to come. (Don’t forget to install your support system before your plants take off!)
Photo Credit: Nancy Watson
Seedlings sold in biodegradable pots can be planted directly into your permanent container – just remove any plastic wrapping, as well as the bottom of the fibrous pot so the roots can spread, strengthen and take hold.
Photo Credit: Michael Ferraro
Plant a lot of leafy greens to yield a decent harvest.
If you aren’t very strong or are using a large container (which will just get heavier once the soil and water are added), take all your supplies to your growing site and plant your containers right there. (Smaller containers that won’t be difficult to move once they’re filled can be planted somewhere else, if you’d prefer.)
Step 1: Inspect the soil, moisten if necessary.
Open your bagged soil and inspect the contents. If your soil is bone-dry, add some water and let the bag sit awhile for the moisture to be absorbed. Dry soil can be a problem because it actually repels water, and planting in it makes it hard to get the whole soil mass evenly moist. Premoistening the soil to ensure it’s evenly damp eliminates the chance of hidden dry spots in the root zone.
Step 2: Add the soil.
Pour your moist potting soil into your container in layers, a few inches thick at a time. Gently firm each layer as you go, but don’t pack the soil down. If there are any clumps, break them apart so soil consistency is even throughout. Keep filling the container until the surface of the soil sits at least 2 inches below the rim. This 2-inch space allows you to fill the container with plenty of water and then walk away, knowing it will percolate down at its own rate. Without enough space from the rim, you’ll need to refill the container many times to get enough water to soak into the soil mass. (Lack of space between the soil surface and the container rim is the most common cause of failure for first-time gardeners.)
Step 3: Test your layout.
Before you start planting, determine where each plant will go in your container, estimating the size of your plants at maturity. (Refer to the plant tag, seed packet or Learn2Grow Plant Database if you’re not sure of a plant’s mature size or its spacing requirements.) If you’re using started plants (or “seedlings”), set them on top of the soil to determine the best arrangement. Remember that your plants must all receive plenty of light, so note the primary direction of the sun at your location. Place your taller species like peppers to the rear of the planter and shorter ones like lettuce or radishes at the front. “Wandering” plants like cucumber or squash should be placed near container edges so they can grow over the side (assuming you have the room for them to spill over safely). If you have supports for your plants, add them to your containers after you’ve determined where the plants will go.
If the root ball of a store-bought plant is dry, be sure to water it well with thorough saturation before you proceed to Step 4.
Step 4: Plant your started plants.
Using your hands or a small garden trowel, make a hole in the potting soil that’s slightly larger than the root ball of the started plant you’re planting. If your seedling is growing in a plastic nursery pot, gently remove the plant, avoiding bending its stem, which can otherwise cause irreparable damage. If the seedling is root-bound (roots densely matted), gently unravel the roots at the bottom of the root ball. (If the roots aren’t matted together, don’t tamper with them.) Then set the plant into the hole. The top of the root ball should be level with the surface of the soil in your container. Gently firm the soil into place.
If your started plants are in biodegradable pots, there’s no need to remove them from their containers – they can be buried straight into your permanent planter. All you need to do is remove any plastic wrapping that’s around the pot, carefully cut or tear away the bottom of the fibrous container, gently loosen any matted roots if necessary, then bury the now-bottomless biodegradable pot into the soil. Plant so that the surface of the soil in the nursery pot is level with the surface of the soil in your permanent container, then gently firm into place.
While it’s important not to bury a plant too deeply (as it can cause stems to rot), there is one exception: when you’re planting tomatoes. Tomato plants need to be planted deeply enough to help establish a strong root system. If you’re growing tomatoes in your food garden, plant them 2-3 inches deeper (at most) in the soil than you would other seedlings.
Step 5: Plant your seeds.
If planting seed, read the package of each kind you’re sowing and follow the recommended planting depth exactly. One of the biggest causes of failure is sowing small seed too densely, which results in a mass of sickly, overcrowded seedlings. Unless they’re thinned out to the spacing recommended on the package, crowded seedlings grow spindly and never produce. So it’s better to risk sowing too sparsely than to overdo it. Gently firm the soil over your seeds.
Step 6: Water in well.
Watering in after you plant seedlings helps to collapse any air pockets trapped underground around the root ball. The best way to water in any plant is to turn on the hose to a trickle or moderate flow and apply the water to the base of the plant stem to get the root ball wet on the inside. Then slowly work your way outward so that all the potting soil around your root ball is thoroughly soaked.
Use a misting nozzle for your sown seeds (especially very fine lettuce seeds) so that the spray won’t wash them out of the container before they have a chance to sprout.
Congratulations – you just planted your food garden! There’s just one more lesson to go…
Next lesson: Eat, tend and be merry!
