Ready to Veggie?

With the growing season behind us, we often use the winter to reflect and plan for the next year. Planning involves annual bed design, garden redesign, seasonal displays, decorative pots, and vegetable beds, among other things.

Here at Wellfield Botanic Gardens, we have two gardens with vegetable beds: the Sensory Garden (pictured above) and the Children’s Garden, and we start planning vegetable beds in January every year. When planning, it is important to consider what factors are most important to you and your garden. As a botanic garden, we have to consider aesthetics and what has done well previously. Our vegetables are donated to Church Community Services, a local food pantry, so while planning, we also consider production with them in mind. Your goals may be different: attracting pollinators, wildlife, or deterring certain pests.

Cold weather crops are a good place to start when planning your vegetable garden. Cold weather crops can withstand lower temperatures than your warm weather crops. Here in Elkhart Indiana, we are zone six, and we start planting cold weather crops, which require the cold to germinate, in mid March. Warm weather crops cannot withstand the cold temperatures, so can’t be put out until after the last frost date, which for us is in mid-May. Examples of cold weather crops we have grown in the past are: chard, carrots, cabbages, lettuce, radishes and turnips. Here in the gardens, there is a lot of wildlife we have to consider when planting in our vegetable beds. Rabbits, deer, woodchucks, and squirrels often get into the brassicas that we plant (cruciferous vegetables), so we have to consider fencing and protection around the crops to ensure growth and harvest.

We often start warm weather crops in our greenhouse in April; that way, they already started their growth and will ensure a head start to the growing season when we put them in the ground. In the past, we have grown varieties of peppers, tomatoes, eggplants, onions, and herbs that have done well with production. It is important to consider structures and support that your vegetables could need. For instance, tomatoes often need cages around the plant for support, and to ensure that branches supporting the fruit do not break. 

From year to year, we often plant similar things in the Sensory Garden beds, since they have proven to do well there, but we switch things up by choosing different varieties and cultivars than in previous years. For example, last year we grew jalapeños in the Children’s Garden vegetable beds, but this year I plan on growing Anaheim peppers and a variety of sweet peppers. In addition to growing tried and true vegetables, I have taken some risks each year in hopes of expanding production and diversifying our beds. We have planned on growing cucumbers in the Children’s Garden; since these vegetables are vining, they will need structural support in order to grow well, so we’ll be using a lattice structure. I have not grown cucumbers since I’ve worked here, and I hope it proves to be a productive risk! 

While planning out your vegetable beds for the spring, summer and fall, it is important to consider what your goals are. It is also important to consider support and protection for your vegetables, such as fences, cages, and lattices. Even though it is the off-season, there is still plenty of planning to do for the next growing season. So plan ahead and get to gardening!

Ariana Guerrero

Horticulturist