Planting

Gardening Dome – Planting

This article will give you a general guide to planting your garden greenhouse in a passive solar, three to four season gardening greenhouse structure.  Each season in your gardening dome will yield slightly different produce.  Again, this is only a general gardening guide for beginning your greenhouse garden.  Experience will be your best teacher in greenhouse gardening; don’t be afraid to experiment. Document in your gardening log what works well under what conditions and year after year you will refine your gardening greenhouse to produce the best yields.

Suggestions for Gardening Greenhouse Planting:

Spring:
(Planted mid to late-February)
Basil (seedlings)
Beets
Cantaloupe
Carrots
Chard
Cucumber
Eggplant (seedlings)
Kohlrabi
Lettuce
Onion (seeds or sets)
Peppers (seedlings)
Radishes
Rutabaga
Tomato (seedlings)
Turnip
Watermelon
Zucchini

Summer:
(Continue from spring planting, or plant late-April, early-May)
Cantaloupe
Cucumber
Eggplant
Tomato
Onion
Peppers
Watermelon
(Any other heat loving plants)

Fall:
(Planted September-October, or kept from summer plantings)
Beets
Carrots
Chard
Kohlrabi
Lettuce
Onion
Peppers
Potatoes
Radishes
Rutabaga
Spinach
Tomato
Turnip
(Other root vegetables)

Winter:
(Kept from fall garden, if not shutting down greenhouse – see Common Greenhouse Problems and Controls)
Beets
Carrots
Chard
Onion
Potatoes
Radishes
Rutabaga
Spinach
Turnip
(Other cold loving crops)

Readying Your Garden Beds for Winter

One of the most important things you can do for the health of next year’s vegetable garden is to prepare your vegetable beds this fall.  Clearing out dead plants, turning in some nice old compost for soil regeneration, and even planting some early spring crops is the perfect way to jump start next year’s garden.

Insect Free: Taking all old leaves and plant debris off of your garden is the best way to prevent insects from overwintering in your garden.  Old leaves on the soil surface provide a nice hiding place for insects, such as squash bugs, grasshoppers, and aphids.   If you clear out old leaves and stems and compost them, insects have nowhere to hide.  Freezing temperatures will help control next year’s insect population, and reduced debris on the soil surface will ensure freezing temperatures for insects on the sol surface.

Disease Free: Leaf and vegetable litter provides a place for other problems to reside also, such as tomato wilt.  Collecting and throwing away diseased plants in the garbage or landfill will help keep diseases from reestablishing themselves next season.  Many gardeners had difficulty with tomato blight, or wilt this past year.  If this was the case in your garden, it is especially important to clear off all plants and fruits from this past season.  Most spores from the tomato wilt will be thrown away with the plants and fruit.

Preparing your garden bed: Next, spread one to two inches of well-decomposed compost on the surface of your garden bed and turn into the soil well.  Organisms in the soil will have time over the winter to decompose this material and distribute nutrients to the soil for next year’s vegetables.

Planting your spring garden now: After preparing your soil bed, you can plant some spring vegetables for early harvest in the spring.  Sowing spinach seeds, and planting your first couple rows of peas will allow for the earliest harvest.  These seeds will not germinate until soil temperatures warm enough for them to grow.   If you like you can also plant your garlic bulbs, although you should probably plant your garlic in a drier bed than your peas and spinach.

After your fall beds are tilled and prepared for next season, you can finally sit back and enjoy that cup of tea – and start planning for next spring!