Is a building or a tree shading your garden or backyard? Do you want to start growing some simple vegetables, like lettuce, but worry they won’t get enough sunlight to grow and mature? Well, you’re in luck. Lettuce is one of the easiest vegetables to grow, and it does well in the shade.
I’m a big advocate of starting many of my vegetables in modules or containers and moving them into my garden as they mature. For a small garden, this method ensures that I don’t get as many empty patches as I would get with direct sowing and spotty germination. But starting seeds indoors has its trade-offs, and the biggest one is transplant shock.
Starting seedling can be a straightforward process, but as we keep them indoors under constant observation, we may start to notice issues like yellowing leaves, legginess, damping off, etc. It happened to me, too. I started some of my seedlings early, but the weather didn’t allow them to go in the ground yet. After nearly a month, some of the bottom seedling leaves were turning yellow, and I soon learned why.
When I first tried growing eggplants (or aubergines) in my area under the mountains (zone 6B), they didn’t do so well. They were growing outdoors, and during the heat of summer, they kept dropping their flowers. I thought they’d never set fruit. But come autumn, they started producing tender and tasty fruits that soon fueled my eggplant obsession. I was now on a mission to troubleshoot my eggplant growing process.
People garden for a variety of reasons: for improving their health, as a pastime, or to provide clean food to their community. We are looking at a revival of organic gardening and health awareness. Growing vegetables isn’t just for retired people anymore, and it never really was. But if you’re an active student, an overwhelmed…
We start peppers early because these heat-loving plants take a long time to mature, and in a temperate climate we want to get a head start. Since peppers are tender to frosts and require a lot of heat, we have the option to either start them indoors, in trays or buy large seedlings in late spring, when it’s time to transplant them in the ground.