The Mountain Gardener: Water your edibles to keep them healthy

April is a month of change in the garden.
The month’s name originates from the Latin aperire, which means “to open” and refers to this month being the season when trees and flowers begin to open. Thanks to abundant rainfall this winter, I see trees, shrubs and flowers blooming profusely. They appreciated last season’s rain, but this year’s is the icing on the cake, and everything wants a part of it.
If cool spring weather has kept you from planting your vegetable garden, don’t worry. As night and soil temperatures warm, newly planted starts and seeds will grow quickly. Don’t plan to plant the whole garden at once. Make a drawing so you can leave space for the veggies that like it warmer.
Remember that cool-season vegetables include beets, broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, carrots, kale, lettuce, onions, radish and spinach. These veggies don’t mind cold soil and chilly weather.
Crops that prefer night temperatures of 55 degrees and warmer, but will tolerate an occasional light frost, are tomatoes, bell peppers, corn, beans, squash, cucumber, muskmelon and pumpkin.
Distinctly warm-weather, long-season crops that need temperatures in the 70s are watermelon, eggplant and chiles. You can’t rush Mother Nature.
You can raise the temperature of the soil by laying clear plastic, not black plastic, over the surface. Be prepared to protect plants at night with row covers, hot caps, cardboard boxes or anything that will trap heat during the night, until temperatures are right for your crop.
It’s important to rotate the beds when planting your vegetables to avoid a buildup of diseases and insects that can survive in the soil or on plant residue. Don’t plant the same or closely related vegetables where they grew in the past two to three years.
Also, pay attention to the watering needs of each kind of plant. Otherwise, you might plant high-water-use vegetables beside others that need less water. That can not only waste water but actually harm plants. A good guideline is to group plants by how big they get and how fast they grow. The bigger and faster they grow, the more water they’ll use.
An idea is to plant heavy water users at one end of the garden and light users at the other. For instance, plant shallow-rooted beets, bush beans, carrots, lettuce, spinach, radishes and other greens together, as they grow at about the same rate and use similar amounts of water. Corn, cucumbers, melons, tomatoes and squash combine well, too, as they all grow rapidly and need lots of water.
Another tip is not to mix new or successive plantings of carrots, lettuce and other crops with existing plants, as water use changes as they mature.
Vegetables that root deeper than 48 inches at maturity are tomatoes, watermelons, pumpkins and other winter squashes, asparagus, sweet potatoes and artichokes. When watering, wet your soil to that depth to keep them happy.
Moderately deep-rooted veggies (between 36 and 48 inches) are beets, beans, carrots, chard, cucumbers, eggplants, muskmelon, peas, peppers, summer squash and turnips.
Shallow-rooting veggies (between 18 and 24 inches) include broccoli, cabbage, celery, corn, garlic, lettuce, onions, parsley, potatoes, radishes and spinach. Water these less if your plants aren’t fully grown.
Planting vegetables in containers is a great solution if you don’t have much space to devote in the ground. They warm up quicker in the spring, too.
Just about anything that grows in the ground can also grow in a pot or half-barrel. This includes vegetables, herbs and even small fruit trees.
Small plants, like lettuce, spinach, Swiss chard and herbs, grow nicely in smaller pots near the back door, while large edibles, like tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, squashes, cucumbers and melons, need more room, like a half-barrel or 7- or 5-gallon pots.
It’s important to use fresh planting mix in your containers each year. Heavy producers need fresh nutrients and deplete the soil by the end of the season. Also, feed your container plants for the best-tasting fruits and vegetables, and water them on a steady basis. If you skip a day of watering when larger plants are at their peak, you can lose your crop. There’s no such thing as dry-farmed tomatoes in a container.
Plant something edible. You’ll be glad you did.
Jan Nelson, a landscape designer and California certified nursery professional at Plant Works in Ben Lomond, will answer questions about gardening in the Santa Cruz Mountains. E-mail her at

ja******@ao*.com











, or visit her website, JanNelsonLandscapeDesign.com, to view previous columns and pictures.