I came across a good tip today in a great book I was reading (Hydroponic Gardening by Steven Carruthers). Very basic, but it made sense to me. The author suggested only planting what you would be likely to need or use during the harvest period. Create a mental picture of how your garden will look during harvest time. If you can only use 6 heads of lettuce and 4 cabbages during the 6-week harvesting time, then only plant that many – or perhaps a couple more just to ensure success in case of some type of failure.
I know I am guilty of walking down the seed aisle or meandering through rows of seedlings and leaving with six or seven flats of tomatoes (with six plants each …) for our small family of four. Of course, it is nice to have fresh produce to share with family and friends but it is easy to get a bit crazy. That’s when I go into a canning frenzy.
I’ve already broken this rule with our most recent crop of seedlings now growing in our ebb and flow system. I just counted 9 romaine, 6 chamomile and numerous tomato and pepper plants (different varieties of course!). Not to mention that we couldn’t resist picking up a few cherry tomato, Lebanese cucumber and zucchini seedlings today that we spotted on our way through the local farmers market. Easy to rationalize as we hadn’t started any of these from seed and they are destined for our soil based veggie patch in the backyard that has a short growing season. Hmmm true enough, but I think it’s more likely spring fever has just really hit hard this year. It was a crazy, long, snowy winter here in Ottawa, Ontario. So bring on the warmth, the sun, and the gardens and unless I manage to find some self control soon – the inevitable canning …!