Upcoming Spring Planting

[Markymark]

I'm trying to decide on how much room I should dedicate to salad greens, like lettuce, collards, and Kale/tree kale. I'm wondering if anyone has a general ratio of plants to people?

I have 202 square feet of planting space, and I have a bed that's 3 feet by 24 (72 square feet) feet long and I'm just wondering how much of that bed would you dedicate to salad greens? I'm not sure how big of a fan I am of it, but I'm trying to decide if I should make myself eat them since they are so nutrient dense. It's just so hard to dispute not eating them, so I'm thinking about trying to get a livelier choice of greens going. I have currently 1 collard green, spinach, Kale, roquette and arugula. So far I'm not liking the roquette as it has like a... nutty flavor and then bad after taste too me (but then again it is starting to bolt), if the after taste wasn't there I'd probably be okay with it. I haven't tried the Kale/collards/arugula, they haven't gotten super big yet so I'm letting them go right now. But I am going to probably heavily plant tomatoes, and peppers this season as I wanna try canning if I have extra. Which is why I asked about the ratio so I can get more of other stuff in for canning possibly.

 

[kcb37]

Can't say to much as I am probably more of a meat and potatoes kinda guy then well probably the majority here. However like you figure I can work on it, as well as being better for my wife and daughter.
Something you may consider is companion planting. I will say not I did not read the whole thread just your last post.
But in the spirit. I guess Native Americans did so long ago. Corn, Beans, Pumpkins/squash. Corn supported the beans, beans provided nitrogen for the corn, and pumpkins/squash provided shade/ground cover to keep weeds at bay.

This is what I plan on doing this weekend.
From what I have found lettuce does not need alot of space, but you need to plant once a week or once every two weeks. As you really cannot store lettuce.
See what you can mix and crowd.

 

[Markymark]

Yeah I did companion planting last season, beans and corn. This year I will do it again, I've just started 81 starts.

 

[mr_yan]

I try succession planting at times. Do my whole 4x7 bed with greens and radishes early then harvest them all to make room for the more desired warm weather crops like melon, beans, and tomatoes. Around here we tend to swing from COLD to HOT quickly so cool weather crops have not worked well for me.

One spinach substitute I will try this year may also work well for you is malabar spinach. This is a tropical climbing vine that in supposed to cook up like spin. From the little I have read it may become invasive in southern climates though. I hope it will give me greens in the hot summer without using much of a footprint.

 

[Markymark]

One spinach substitute I will try this year may also work well for you is malabar spinach. This is a tropical climbing vine that in supposed to cook up like spin. From the little I have read it may become invasive in southern climates though. I hope it will give me greens in the hot summer without using much of a footprint.

There is two varieties (I believe), green and red Malabar spinach and the guy I watch on youtube says it's a really great tasting fast growing spinach, so besides the 20-25 tomatoes I'll be growing this season I may have to check that one out.