Cucumber container
Courtesy JoAnne Skelly
Spring is here and as my friend Kate says, “I’m itchy to play outside!” I won’t plant cold-sensitive vegetables such as tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, beans or squash yet, but I can plant my favorite cold-hardy vegetables such as kale, spinach and peas.
In fact, I encourage planting peas on St. Patrick’s Day. While I may not be planting tender veggies this early, I can prepare their containers. It may seem odd that someone with 2.5 acres grows vegetables in containers, but it’s how I keep ground squirrels and voles from destroying my plants.
Years ago, I could have built an enclosed garden with a fine wire mesh under the beds as well as on the walls and ceiling to keep critters out, but I never had the time or energy to do so. I certainly don’t feel like doing it now, which explains the containers.
They are much easier to manage. I grow a cherry tomato and a salad tomato in a horse trough. Its metal bottom and sides work well to keep marauding critters out. The spigot at the bottom provides drainage.
I put five-foot tall mesh screens around the trough for additional pest prevention. Since I want to grow tomatoes in the trough year after year, I change out the soil to reduce the possibility of disease spreading from last year’s crop.
This is my way of rotating crops. For example, tomatoes and potatoes, which are in the Nightshade Family, should be rotated because they are disease prone. I will use the tomato soil to fill my kale and lemon cucumber containers and rotate the cucumber soil to the tomato trough (all of these are different families).
I will then add a bag or two compost and my own leaf mold soil to fill the trough up to the correct planting depth. I grow the kale in 18-inch pots on the east side of the house where they get morning sun, that ends about 10 a.m.
The shade allows these cooler temperature-loving plants to survive all summer. I pick leaves as I need them and eat kale through the fall. Instead of growing any spinach. I think I’ll grow arugula, a member of the Brassica Family, which includes broccoli, cabbage, Brussel sprouts and kale.
I have read it is tolerant of a variety of temperatures and is easy to grow in containers. I may not grow many veggies, but we enjoy the ones I do grow.
JoAnne Skelly is Associate Professor & Extension Educator Emerita University of Nevada Cooperative Extension. Email skellyj@unr.edu.