Potential Jersey City Vegetable Garden

[Porkchops]

Hi all,

Someone asked about what I'm planting this year. I've been reluctant to give a list, because I'm sure something will croak along the way. I don't have a big area, and I'm using the sq. planting method. For this reason, I'll only have 1 or 2 plants each of many of the items listed below. So, if 1 plant dies.. that crop might be totally obliterated.

Here's the list of what's already in my seeds trays. I planted them all 2 weeks ago. As of this morning, they all have germinated (yay!):

Minnesota Midget Melon
Black Diamond Cucumbers
Ping Tung Eggplants
Thyme - French Summer
Crimson Forest - Bunching Onions
Ching Chang Bok Choy
Five Color Silverbeet (Rainbow Chard)
Thelma Sanders Sweet Potato (a kind of Acorn Squash)
Beefsteak Tomato
Black Cherry Tomato
Purple Cherokee Tomato
Brandywine Tomato
Italian Parsley
Genovese Basil
Chives
Chinese 5 color hot pepper
Ancho Chilis
Albino Bell Pepper
sage (forgot what kind...)
lemon grass

To be planted directly in the ground in a few weeks:

Purple Podded Pole Beans
Easter Egg Radishes
Costata Romanesco (Zucchini)
PattyPan Squash (came as a bonus seed from Baker Creek, so I'll give it a whirl)

Phew. I'm sure I'm missing something, since I don't have my list in front of me.

1st question to all you pros:

I'm thinning out everything, except for the bunching onions. I can't decide if I should thin them out, too. Any opinions?

Warm regards to all,

P

[KYHeirloomer]

I'm not sure I understand the question, Porkchops.

Bunching onions are grown as perennials, and their growth habit is very akin to multiplying onions.

You plant one or two, and they become a bunch, all nested together at the bottom similar to shallots. You harvest your needs, leaving behind a few in the bunch, to product the following year.

With most varieties, you won't get much productivity until the second year.

If you're using the square foot method, I would devote one box to each bunch.

Although you didn't ask, fwiw, I would interplant the basil with the tomatoes. And I would trellis the cukes (you can triple productivity that way), and interplant the radishes with them. Radishes around the Patty Pans won't hurt anything, either.

[Porkchops]

Hi KY,

Regarding the onions: I put several seeds of each type of plant into the individual compartments. With most of my plants, I've thinned them out to just 1 seedling per cube as they started to germinate.

BUT, I have not done anything to the onions. Right now, some cubes have 3 or 4 seedlings growing. I know they "bunch", but I'm still unclear on how that works.

Should I clip the extras? or not bother? I read somewhere that you can just pull the young ones out from time to time, and use them as chives, and leave a few behind to grow bigger... so they would eventually be thinned, just not until they went into the ground.

Thanks for the tips regarding combining. I plan to trellis the tomatoes (one of each type) (though not the cherry tomatoes), the cucumbers (2 plants), pole beans (4 plants), muskmelons and winter squash (1 plant each), based on what I read in the book. I purposely picked a smallish melon for that reason.

The radishes were just going to squish in here and there, since they seem to ripen very quickly. The basil I will move to be closer to the tomatoes, per your recommendation. I have a layout plannned on my computer, and am still shufffling everything hypothetical around... and I keep my fingers crossed that everything survives until last frost.

Thank you for your input. I really appreciate it.

Regards,

P

[KYHeirloomer]

>BUT, I have not done anything to the onions. Right now, some cubes have 3 or 4 seedlings growing. I know they "bunch", but I'm still unclear on how that works. <

If it were me I'd leave 'em like that and transplant the whole cell.

The bunching process actually is a bulbing process. The difference is that bunching onions barely form bulbs; just a swelling of the underground portion. Basically, they are scallions or green onions.

I don't know when the bulbing takes place with them, could be early summer or even fall. Perennial alliums behave somewhat strangely (just look at Rakkyo, for instance, a bass-akwards plant if ever there was one).

Anyway, at bulbing time, each onion divides into several others; the exact number depending on variety and growing conditions. Let's say, for discussion sake, your variety divides into six. So you plant one onion. It divides into six. The following bulbing season each of them divides, and you have 36. Etc.

Most people harvest by gently uncovering the bulb mass, breaking off those they want, and recovering the mass.