Backyard Garden: Vegetable Garden E
Mission or Purpose
To demonstrate how novice home gardeners can easily apply basic principles of growing and caring for vegetables. This year, we used one of our five beds to demonstrate how the average home gardener can maximize use of a relatively small area. The overall garden uses crop rotation from year to year.
Points of Interest
- Production Beds. Succession planting of spring and summer crops to increase production of available space:
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- The south bed included German hard neck garlic planted in October 2024, and harvested in June. It was followed by sweet potatoes planted in July.
- A variety of onions were planted in the East bed next to the fence, followed by red and white potatoes. Both were harvested in June/July. Fall crops, including collards, chard, turnips and radishes were planted in early August.
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- Demonstration Bed. There is nothing like preparing foods with produce you have grown yourself! This year we designed a bed dedicated to demonstrating how the home gardener can grow a variety of bountiful crops in a smaller space in their own backyard. Succession planting was used to extend the harvest throughout the growing season in a 24’X 3’ bed. Crops included radishes, carrots, kale, broccoli, lettuce, cutting celery, tomatoes, green beans, and a variety of herbs.
- Popcorn. Robust popcorn seed was planted in late April for an anticipated early September harvest. Ears are harvested when husks become dry and brown and are pointing down. Corn is test popped around 19 weeks to determine timing for harvest. After harvest, ears are laid out to dry for 3 weeks and then shelled by hand.
- Asparagus. An asparagus bed which was planted in the early days of the BYG resides on a South facing bed. So, it is nearly 20 years old, is producing less, contains less favorable varieties as compared to what is currently available, and needs to be refurbished. Nearly daily harvesting is in April and May, followed by letting the fronds grow to restore energy to the roots for the following year. Some of these fronds are used in the cutting garden bouquets. We are considering options for this bed going forward.
- Wicking Pot or Self-Watering Pot. We constructed a Wicking Pot that will be used as an experiment in Bed E this year. Wicking Pots are used to reduce the amount of time spent watering because there is a reservoir of water for plants to draw So far, the experiment is successful! Below is a description of the supplies needed and how it works.
- A pot without a hole in the bottom to create a reservoir.
- An outlet hole is needed, which will indicate when the reservoir is full.
- An inlet pipe is needed, sits at the bottom & extends above the top of the pot.
- A shelf to keep the soil separate from the water reservoir.
- Support the shelf to hold up the heavy soil so it does not fall into the water reservoir.
- Cotton strips for wicking & a layer of cotton fabric
- When water is added through the inlet pipe & the well is filled, the water will “wick up” to water your plants.
Check out this video for a demonstration of how it’s done! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-oYZtqs9AlM
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Tips for New Vegetable Gardeners or Future Bed Captains
Go for it! Use your abundant resources - JoCo Extension, K-State, OHREC staff, KC Community Garden websites, and other Backyard Garden EMG volunteers and bed captains. Everyone is willing to give advice, practical tips and support.
“There are no gardening mistakes, only experiments.” Janet Kilburn Phillips
Garden Address
35230 W 135th St
Olathe, KS 66061
Master Gardeners are available to answer questions and provide tours while they work the gardens Wednesday mornings, March to October. To schedule a visit on another day (M-F), please contact us at bygjocoemg@gmail.com
Have questions? The Garden Hotline is staffed by trained EMG volunteers and Extension staff who will assist you with questions.
Phone: (913) 715-7050
Email: garden.help@jocogov.org