How to Garden Baby Vegetables
Baby vegetable gardening provides an ideal solution for small spaces. Gardeners with no access to an in-ground gardening plot can even grow baby vegetables in containers indoors or on a sunny balcony. Special miniature varieties of many vegetables like carrots, tomatoes, and hot peppers make ideal baby vegetable garden choices, but ordinary cole-crop and leafy-green garden vegetables can also yield a fresh baby-stage harvest if they are planted close together and harvested early. Does this Spark an idea?
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Things You'll Need
- Topsoil
- Sand
- Compost
- Potting soil (optional)
- Powdered kelp
- Liquid fish emulsion fertilizer or compost tea
- Containers or small raised garden beds
- Vegetable seeds
- Water source
- Narrow, pointed trowel
- Arrow-head Warren hoe
- Straw mulch
Instructions
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Prepare the soil for your baby vegetable garden. Mix one part topsoil, one part sand, and one part compost to fill your raised bed or large containers such as half whiskey barrels. Substitute potting soil for the topsoil in this mixture, and add 1 tablespoon of powdered kelp for filling smaller containers
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Fill your containers or raised bed plot to the top, but do not compact the soil. Water thoroughly, allow the soil to settle, then re-fill to the top with soil again.
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3
Furrow the raised garden bed soil with a Warren hoe, or lightly trench the soil in the containers with a pointed trowel, to the depth recommended on the seed packet. Space varieties that are designated as miniature types (such as Parmex carrots, Tom Thumb lettuce, or Tumbling Tom tomatoes) at the distances recommended on the seed packet for planting. Plant ordinary garden varieties of beets, turnips, cabbage, and salad greens at one-half the distance recommended by the seed packet for full-size growing. Distance between rows in a raised bed plot may also be half of that recommended on the seed packet.
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Cover seeds to the seed-packet recommended depth and water lightly. Spread a very light, dispersed layer of straw over the planting; be sure you can still easily see patches of soil between the straws. Place containers in full sun, if you are growing your baby vegetables in containers.
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Water daily until the seedlings emerge. Water smaller containers more than once per day as necessary to preclude the soil from drying out in the sun.
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When the seedlings obtain their first true leaves, gently remove the straw, water thoroughly, then top-dress with a half-inch of well-aged compost. Place a 2-inch layer of straw mulch between the garden rows or around baby vegetable plants in containers.
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Water daily. Fertilize with a liquid fish emulsion at one-quarter the recommended dilution rate every other day.
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Harvest baby vegetables promptly when they reach the desired baby stage. Replenish the soil with additional compost before planting a succession crop.
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Tips & Warnings
Select seeds for miniature varieties of carrots, onions, lettuce, tomatoes, peppers and hot peppers.
Consult seed catalogs for recommendations of varieties of ordinary garden vegetables like turnips, cabbage, and potatoes suitable for harvest at the baby stage; some full-sized garden vegetables are bitter if they are harvested too early.
Look for seed supply catalogs which have a special section or product designation for vegetables suitable for container growing. Even if you are growing in an in-ground garden plot, these varieties will be more compact and suitable for baby vegetable gardening.
Plant outdoor baby vegetable gardens after the danger of frost has passed. Baby vegetables are harvested faster than full-sized varieties, so plant a succession crop after the first baby vegetable harvest.
Baby vegetables are harvested quickly, but several sequential plantings of the same variety can deplete soil nutrients and minerals and invite pests. Practice crop rotation in your baby vegetable garden plot rows or in containers, and change container soil frequently, dumping the used soil mix into your compost pile.
