Welcome to the Good Growing podcast. I am Chris Enroth, horticulture educator with University of Illinois Extension coming at you from Macomb, Illinois. We have got a great show for you today, gardening in small spaces. We'll dive more into this seemingly more and more popular topic, but you know I'm not doing this by myself. I am joined as always every single week by horticulture educator Ken Johnson and Jacksonville.
Chris Enroth: 00:30Hey, Ken.
Ken Johnson: 00:31Hello, Chris. There's there's definitely been a yeah. An increase in I think you're both under the desire and the the plants that do well in small spaces.
Chris Enroth: 00:41I I agree. It seems like every time we do a a vegetable gardening class and this topic of crop rotation comes up, that immediately draws the questions of, well, woah. Hang on. I don't have room to do all of this crop rotation that you're talking about. What do we do?
Chris Enroth: 01:02And so, yeah, I I think this is becoming more of a popular topic, and I think it really kind of stems a lot from, you know, just societal things that are occurring, development patterns that happen. So I know with, like, the landscape industry, we are getting bigger houses. You know, the footprint of our homes are getting larger because, well, at least in in years past, building materials have been have been cheaper or at least easier to acquire. Construction techniques have have really made building more efficient. And so our homes have been getting bigger, but our lot sizes have stayed the same.
Chris Enroth: 01:45And so a lot of our green industry folks, you know, the ones breeding our landscape plants, our shrubs and trees, they've spent a lot of time focusing on smaller stature plants, dwarf miniature type plants to fit into these smaller landscapes. But we also have a lot more people that aren't necessarily buying houses right now. It's taking people longer to get into a home. They might be renting longer. There might be an apartments later on in life, but they still wanna have a garden.
Chris Enroth: 02:13And so that's what we're gonna dedicate our show today to is gardening in smaller spaces.
Ken Johnson: 02:20Yes. Yeah. Know when we were we were renting, we were we were fortunate that the the landlords didn't really care if we tore up made a garden. We we had to replace it. We had this I don't know.
Ken Johnson: 02:31Friends that had houses or or classmates at, you in grad school where it was all pots because you could not you did not have the opportunity. You didn't have a lawn. You didn't have a community garden nearby that you could go to, stuff like that.
Chris Enroth: 02:44Yeah. Oh, that's the truth. Yeah. We were all whiskey barrels and pots all the time for us, attempting to grow tomatoes, you know, starting out with no money, no time. Yeah.
Chris Enroth: 03:00Yeah. Those are interesting. You know? I've I'm trying to recall back to those early years of gardening in those whiskey barrels. It was, yeah, a lot of fun.
Chris Enroth: 03:09I was just starting out. What an amateur we were. Oh, but, Ken, before we dive in, I think the show gets released on Arbor Day, so happy Arbor Day. Hope you get out there and plant some trees.
Ken Johnson: 03:26Happy Arbor Day. I got some trees. We got some places we're talking about planting trees. I just need to I need to cut some trees down first because they're not looking too great and then replace them.
Chris Enroth: 03:39That's the spirit. That's the Arbor Day spirit. Cut those trees down so we can plant more. But that that is the truth. Yeah.
Chris Enroth: 03:45I do have a a Norway maple. It it it is dying. I mean, I thought it was verticillium mulch that might have killed it, but I think it's really just the droughts. I think it is just, like, recurring dry weather, gets leaves scorched in the summer, drops its leaves, flushes out new grow. I think it's I think it's just droughts.
Chris Enroth: 04:05I have cut off dying limbs. I've done the little test to try to see if there's any dark streaking of its tissue. If I cut a slit in that that bark or or in that stem, it's all been clear. So I I really think it's just environmental environmentally related. So I got a big old Norway maple to cut down.
Chris Enroth: 04:27I'm not sad about it. I don't like Norway maples. So we've already planted a black gum near that, which is also susceptible to verticillium wilt, which I didn't know until I planted it. So fingers crossed, diagnosis is correct, that verticillium wilt did not kill my Norway maple.
Ken Johnson: 04:46Find out soon enough.
Chris Enroth: 04:47Yes. Yes. We will. Oh, goodness. Well, back to the topic at hand, gardening in small spaces.
Chris Enroth: 04:59So let's let's play off of this this green industry idea of, you know, we we have big hydrangeas. You know, if you've ever grown just like a a a straight up maybe, like, limelight hydrangea, those get big. They get as big as, like, your house if you grow live in, like, a one story house. So then the industry came out with little lime, you know, a a smaller dwarf version of of limelight. And it grows maybe waist to shoulder height on, you know, like a five five human being.
Chris Enroth: 05:30So let's stick with that idea of how we select our plants for our vegetable garden. Ken, do you have any, any plants? You know, what what do we do in terms of our plant selection for our vegetable gardens that that might help them fit into smaller spaces?
Ken Johnson: 05:49Yeah. So, like, if you're looking through garden catalogs, a lot of times, they will advertise them as, like, for pots, as one occasion. And a lot of times, the name is a giveaway to a lot of them to have, dwarf or mini or some some adjective that describing it being small. And even you may even see, like, dedicated sections to these are good for patios or or pots, things like that. And if you do a if you wanna grow, say, tomato, you can just do this Internet search for dwarf tomato plants, and you'll get all kinds of things spit out.
Ken Johnson: 06:24So you can, you know, search for if you want a specific type of crop, looking for that. You know, we've got plants that, you know, like lettuces and and things like that. They don't get very big to begin with. So those those are good options because if you they're they're small to begin with. But some of our our bigger plants are are more popular garden plants, your tomatoes, the cucurbits, peppers, things like that that get bigger that you could run into space constraints if if you don't have a lot of room.
Ken Johnson: 06:54More and more we are seeing, again, these dwarf types. So I have like sweet corn, there's one. See on deck hybrid. For this, it's I I've never grown this one, but from from the descriptions, it's four to five feet tall, they say. Plant 18 seeds in a 24 inch pot, which to me seems pretty tight spacing, but that's the that's the company's recommendation.
Ken Johnson: 07:16So so if you wanna grow sweet corn, you you've got this that you can grow in a small area. You can grow it in the ground too if you've got a little bit of room. But they're not getting, you know, the eight plus feet tall like you would a normal sweet corn plant. For for, like, watermelons, you know, cucurbits can be rather large, you know, vines four, five, six plus feet long. Cow sweet bush is a watermelon.
Ken Johnson: 07:40This is one we have around I think I believe it's an AES winner from a few years ago. The you know, the the description say 14 to 18 inches long. I think it's a little bit longer than that. Maybe a little closer to two and a half feet, and then that can depend on on the soil and what you're growing it in. But again, it's it's still much smaller than your traditional watermelon plants.
Ken Johnson: 08:02Produce two or three fruit, 10 to 12 pounds, so that personal size watermelon. So the production may not be quite to the extent of of the larger plants, but you're still getting a decent amount of of fruit off of there. You know, there's peas, which peas again aren't terribly big, but some of them they can get, depending on the color, can get five, six foot tall peas. There's something like tom thumb garden bee, gets eight to nine inches tall. So again, a really good one for pots that don't need a lot of space to grow, very many of those.
Ken Johnson: 08:33Jalapeno, there's a potapeno. I believe this is another AAS winner several years ago. One we've grown, it gets twelve, fifteen, maybe 18 inches tall. You still get 35 to 50 jalapenos off of there. So you're still getting pretty good production, off of that.
Ken Johnson: 08:49And then for for tomatoes, I I personally, I'm not growing any really dwarf types, but we're we're looking for a cultivar examples here. There's a dwarf tomato project. So there's a whole, I guess, community sciences and science, call it what you want, kind of project on on breeding dwarf type tomatoes. So I think they're defining these dwarf tomatoes as two to four and a half feet tall. I think those are, like, a 30 or so cultivars.
Chris Enroth: 09:1836, something like that.
Ken Johnson: 09:20Yeah. Like, for the northern they have swim in the Northern Southern Hemisphere. For, like, the Northern Hemisphere, there's a 30 some cultivators. There's a lot there's and it's not just cherries cherry tomatoes. There's ones that look like they're paste, they're slicing, and stuff too.
Ken Johnson: 09:35You still get decent sized tomatoes off of those as well. So, again, looking for those that have been bred to fit, smaller areas. Mhmm.
Chris Enroth: 09:47Well and and I guess those are things that we could put in the ground. They they would remain a little small. But but really today, are we kind of disguising this as like a container show? You know, is that what this is? Because what is the trick to small space guarding?
Chris Enroth: 10:06Containers. That's what we do. Yeah.
Ken Johnson: 10:10Yeah. And all those could be, you know, grown in in pots. You know, the the watermelon, you'd probably let that cascade over or Mhmm. Build a trellis. You'd probably have to support the fruit.
Ken Johnson: 10:23Yeah. All those could be grown in pots.
Chris Enroth: 10:26Yeah. Yeah. So I guess for my yard, and, you know, if you've been listening or watching this show for any manner of time, you've heard me say I don't have much space to grow in. Not necessarily because space is lacking, but it's sunlight is lacking. And so, yeah, my primary method of growing or at least crop rotation is going to be usually trying to find as much room as I can in my landscape.
Chris Enroth: 10:56So one year in the ground, and then I will flip to container gardening for probably a year. And incorporating those containers really do help me with my crop rotation. And and so, yeah, I I haven't done a very good job of selecting plants that are suitable for containers. I think I started this this whole thing years ago with indeterminate tomatoes, and I quickly learned my lesson. That's not a great idea.
Chris Enroth: 11:28Indeterminate tomatoes in a container. You know, the you talked about that that on deck corn. You know, I I feel like a slight breeze might blow those over if you have that much corn in a, like, a 20 inch pot. Yeah. It it'd be so you know, they're not tall, but they're still catching the wind.
Chris Enroth: 11:48And I have had so many tomato plants, you know, and other things just get toppled by just like a five mile per hour wind when that container soil dries out, but it's so there's so much growth on top. Yeah. I I I would say, you know, I've I've not done a very good job at selecting for contain like, plants for my containers, but I do know, as Ken said, those look for those adjectives in those seed catalogs. So one I really like are, like, the ones that say, like, patio. Grow for your patio.
Chris Enroth: 12:21It it it's really good marketing, I think, because I'm thinking, well, yeah, I would want some patio tomatoes on my patio, you know, where I like to sit and relax and enjoy the yard. You know? So there there's also vegetables that are grown, you know, very specifically for those, you know, container situations, and and those marketing folks have done a great job of naming these. You know? I I think the one I like is short stuff carrots, you know, little stubby carrots growing in your containers.
Chris Enroth: 12:57But but even if you have a deep enough container, a normal bolero carrot would do fine. You just have to have that that, you know, a container with some depth to it. But I would say when I'm gardening in my containers and I'm doing anything large like a tomato, I don't go anywhere under five gallons. I I that is like five gallon container is the minimum size that I will use for a lot of things. So, like, if I'm looking at a a tomato, I'm probably trying to go up to, let's say, 10 gallon seven to 10 gallons for my tomatoes.
Chris Enroth: 13:41If I can get bigger than that, I'll put a single tomato plant in there. So I do have some 15 gallon size containers. Those are big, by the way. It takes up I got, like, two cubic foot of potting soil the other day, and I planted two fifteen gallon containers. So yeah.
Chris Enroth: 13:59That potting soil is expensive now. And so the what I'll try to do is I'll try to even maximize that space a little bit more is I put, like, basil or something within those 15 gallon containers with my tomato plant, which also dries that container out even faster. So you gotta be really on top of it with the water. But but so, yeah, you know, when we're we're thinking about container, maybe size in terms of, like, the opening width, you know, we're we want the that kind of that top diameter no less than 20 inches when you're growing tomatoes. And then when we're doing peppers, go a little bit smaller, like 16 inch containers.
Chris Enroth: 14:45Carrots, a foot wide, onions, things like that, maybe down to 10 inches. Well, basically, Ken, best thing you can do for your plants, give them as much soil as volume as you can. That's, like, the most critical thing. I know a lot of people, myself included, I've done this. I'm not proud of it.
Chris Enroth: 15:04You'll put I'll put, like, empty milk jugs and stuff in the containers because I haven't had I don't have enough potting mix to to fill that volume. And I guess you can do that, but it your plants will take better advantage of more soil volume that you can give them. So the more volume you give them, the better. That's just, you know, we're we're trying to emulate what they would be getting growing in the ground, you know, in in the field, as we say, or in the actual garden soil. And when you're growing in a massive volume of soil, like, you know, in a garden, water doesn't necessarily pool up against the the plant roots.
Chris Enroth: 15:51They're to drain away. There's a lot of oxygen, nutrients. There's a lot of microbiology happening, within that soil. And so we're we're trying our best to replicate a lot of those physical characteristics of the soil. And so the reason why we use, like, a soil free potting mix in a container is so that it facilitates good drainage away from the plant roots.
Chris Enroth: 16:12You know, if we would take just, you know, our clay, you know, heavy garden soil, put that in a pot, it would hold on to that soil. It have the water would have nowhere to drain to. And so we try to create that drainage artificially using, like, a peat based or a coconut coir based potting mix. Now I know there's even a lot of these soil mix companies there. They're beginning to incorporate more, like, wood fibers, more wood pulp into these, I think, try to reduce some of that peat use.
Chris Enroth: 16:42And I think there's been more of a push in the the, the gardening market to reduce the amount of of peat moss that we are using in our potting mix. So I'm starting to see more wood pulp, more wood fibers, more more coconut coir being used in our potting soil mixes. And and again, all of that is facilitate good drainage away from the roots, you know, as much soil volume as you can give these plants. Again, for my tomatoes, peppers, I don't go anywhere underneath five gallons. I try to go, you know, seven to 10 gallons or higher for those larger fruiting plants.
Ken Johnson: 17:16Yeah. And the, you know, the bigger those plants get, the more soil, that more potting mix is gonna be where it's gonna dry out. If, you know, if you've got a a standard sized tomato plant in a small pot, you're gonna be watering that multiple times a day to keep that from from wilting and stuff. So usually, when you're talking about, you know, potting plants, you know, house plants, so we don't wanna have these giant pots for a small plant. But I guess maybe the exception to that rule is with your some of these bigger vegetables.
Ken Johnson: 17:45You know, put that transplant in there, it's gonna fill that in relatively quickly. So you don't plant fragrant like trees, you know, plant for the what the future size is gonna be. So keep that in mind. You may have your little six six inch tall tomato plant that's eventually gonna end up being three, four, five feet tall, and fill up a good chunk of that pot.
Chris Enroth: 18:08The other thing also so you you might be listening and you say, but all I have is this, old hanging basket container that had a petunia in it last year. That's all I have to grow my my pepper plant for this year. And a lot of times, you know, folks will will call us up and we have to kind of you know, what strategies can you employ in a less than ideal situation? And so one of the things that I have recommended to folks is that, well, if you can't provide that soil volume, at least what we wanna do is try to avoid that that potting, that root ball from drying out too excessively, like going from, like, soaking wet to, like, super dry within a few hours. That's not good for the plant.
Chris Enroth: 18:52So in order to try to moderate that soil moisture and even the temperature as well, You know, I'll often say to folks, you know what? Just go get a bag of, like, wood mulch at the store and and, you know, dress the you know, put a, you know, a couple inches worth of wood mulch on top of that pot. And if you have that pot sitting on the ground, heck, you might as well put wood mulch around that pot as well, and that's called healing in. It's not really the correct term, but that's, you know, what we do, in some cases with, like, trees and stuff. But you're sort of, like, piling mulch around it, essentially just insulating it so it doesn't dry out too quickly, and just holds extra moisture.
Chris Enroth: 19:30Could hold some pests too, but, you know, it it's one strategy to help keep that that root ball in that container from drying out too quickly.
Ken Johnson: 19:39Yes. It's all a give and take. Yes. And don't don't go on a very long vacation or have somebody that you can trust to water your pot.
Chris Enroth: 19:49Or get a automatic drip irrigation system. I didn't get that installed at your place yet, Ken. We're gonna get it done, though.
Ken Johnson: 19:58Eventually. Maybe someday.
Chris Enroth: 20:00One of these years.
Ken Johnson: 20:03Oh. So I'll say another I don't complain. Maybe concern people have sometimes when especially if you're, like, in an apartment or something like that, and you you got you're putting this on a patio or a balcony or something like that. It is protecting those surfaces because you don't wanna lose your deposit, or or something like that. So you can put, like, you have with house plants, you put those saucers underneath there.
Ken Johnson: 20:29Just making sure you're emptying that water. Don't let them sit in water because then well, we want there to be plenty of moisture. You know, we we don't want that potting mix to be saturated because then you don't have any of that oxygen in the in the potting media. Roots start rotting, plants die. So that's kinda one way.
Ken Johnson: 20:47There are pots that will come with built in saucers underneath of them as well. So that'd be one way you can try to keep that area somewhat clean or protected from that or even maybe elevating it off off the ground so you don't have the water pooling underneath of it, which can sometimes lead to stands. There's, you know, pot stands and stuff you can get as well.
Chris Enroth: 21:16Yeah. I I thought I was safe on the the wood deck that we have in our backyard, so I just put, you know, a couple pots. I I think these were marigolds that we had planted in pots. And they weren't supposed to be there permanently all summer long, but they were there for a few weeks. And when I went to move them, the marigolds had actually rooted into the the wood boards underneath.
Chris Enroth: 21:42I had not seen I mean, extensively. Like, they had. It's an older deck, so Yeah. That's tough
Ken Johnson: 21:48to replace it.
Chris Enroth: 21:49Time to replace a couple boards, I'd say. But the the roots surprised me. And when I went to move the plant, I had to, like, kinda, you know, kind of forcefully pull that pot off that spot where it was, and this marigolds kinda stressed out for a few days after that. They lost a lot of roots. They're getting some good nutrition from those those wooden boards.
Chris Enroth: 22:13And so what I do now, though, is I'll take a lot of times, I'll take those, like, saucer containers. Yeah. I'll flip them upside down, and I'll actually set the pot on top of the the inverted saucer. That way, at least, the the the container's off the wood and not rooting into our old deck boards that we have in the backyard.
Ken Johnson: 22:37I think your bigger problem may be the deck boards.
Chris Enroth: 22:40Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I go out there and I jump up and down a few times a year. I'm like, I think we're okay. We're still we're still stable.
Ken Johnson: 22:47Yeah. Another six months out of it.
Chris Enroth: 22:50Yeah. This part's a little, you know, springy, but I think we'll be alright. I go out there before the kids go there, you know, and see how it goes. Well, Ken, there's, you know, there's you know, we talked about a few of those different types of dwarf plants, but some of those containerized fruit plants, I I would love to try these. I I have not tried these yet.
Chris Enroth: 23:15I believe our colleague, Bruce Black, has done classes about these. And one, I I remember him mentioning was raspberry shortcake. It's raspberry plant that you can plant in a container. So I I think that would be that would be a lot of fun. I know there's, like, patio blueberries that you can also use.
Chris Enroth: 23:34I do recommend that. I have recommended that to folks, these these patio blueberries because they have spring white flowers. My blueberries are actually blooming right now. They have the blueberries, the the edible fruit in the early summer. And then you have red fall color in the fall, and then you get red stems all winter long.
Chris Enroth: 23:57And so it's a kind of an would be a neat patio plant provided you had a large enough container that was protected enough from some of those freezing winter with temperatures that we would get. You wanna protect those roots so that they don't just turn into a ball of ice. But, yeah, I I would love to try some of these, you know, smaller miniature fruits like raspberry shortcake. There's also baby cakes, blackberry. And there's another one.
Chris Enroth: 24:28It's like a a series of different types of berries, probably includes things like strawberries and blackberries, raspberries. It's called bushel and berry. And so some company has developed multiple different types of fruiting crops or fruit crops, and they call it bushel and berry raspberry, bushel and berry blackberry. And so they're they're described as being a perfect patio plant, the triple p, and they grow shorter. But I think with all of these perennials growing in pots, boy, there's a lot of peas in this sentence, there is an issue with that cold hardiness again.
Chris Enroth: 25:10So you gotta protect those roots, in the wintertime here in Illinois.
Ken Johnson: 25:15Yeah. We've got a couple of the the bushel berry. It used to be called brazzle berry. So strawberry shortcake is the raspberry. We've got that.
Ken Johnson: 25:21And that's it's got good tasting raspberries. Usually, the wildlife gets to them, before we do. And we've had ours for four, five plus years now. So we've got them in the the plastic whiskey barrel planters, and, the growing media was up towards the top, and now it's about four inches down. So they need to be repotted because I same thing.
Ken Johnson: 25:43We've got a couple blueberries, same thing. And I just I leave them outside, and I shouldn't because I think I I get quite a bit of die back on the blueberries. But they're they come out of it. But, again, they're they've that's potting mix has really subsided, so I need to to refresh those. And we've got the baby cakes, and that thing is getting big.
Ken Johnson: 26:06Like, it is going through the bottom of the pot into the ground. I can't move the pot anymore. And it's got some of those canes that are probably getting three, four feet long. I don't know. So it's a little bit it's a bigger a little bit bigger.
Ken Johnson: 26:19But at least in the one we've got, is a little bit bigger. I think it it started producing we got it last year. It started producing fruit last fall really late because it really kinda struggled for a little bit. And then, frost came before they really fully ripened, but it's it's loaded with flowers now. So if the wildlife doesn't get it before we do, I can report back later.
Ken Johnson: 26:44But the, like, the back to the raspberry shortcake. That's a nice mounted plant. I think it's probably 18 inches tall, maybe maybe two feet tall. So it's not, again, when you think about your normal raspberry plant, which is significantly larger than that. So, yeah, those are those are good apps.
Ken Johnson: 27:00And, like, blueberries, they've got all kinds of different types of it. Some have pink berries, traditional bluish ones, and and everything in between.
Chris Enroth: 27:10Yeah. Well, you know, the other thing about that baby cakes blackberry, you say that's, like, growing out of the pot and going crazy. That that's just blackberries for you. They're crazy. They're unruly.
Chris Enroth: 27:22I I grew a Illini hardy. This is not a dwarf plant. It grows, like, twelve, fifteen foot tall, but Illini hardy, thornless blackberry, and that thing will take over your garden if you let it. Yeah. Those blackberries are bananas, which they're still pretty darn tasty when you get some fruit off of them, though, especially well, if your timing's right.
Chris Enroth: 27:44I've definitely had some sour ones, but, boy, you get that harvest just right. Oh, blackberries are excellent. I love blackberries.
Ken Johnson: 27:53So I'll let you know when they're ripe.
Chris Enroth: 27:55I will come down. I'll bring the drip irrigation material. We'll we'll get it all. We'll we'll do this all as one thing.
Ken Johnson: 28:02Pay you in blackberries.
Chris Enroth: 28:04That's yeah. I will leave with a stomachache. Alright, Ken. Well, we did talk about containers, which plays into a lot of small space gardening. But there are other strategies that we can employ when we're we're growing in a smaller space, and and one of those is just growing up.
Chris Enroth: 28:26You know, if you have a vining crop that might creep and crawl, maybe going up would help. Or what I did I don't know if this technically counts as trellising, which is what we're talking about now. But when I grew my cucumbers last year, I cascaded them down the retaining wall. So my one of my full sun locations, I ran out of horizontal growing space, But I still had these lemon cucumbers that had to grow somewhere. So I planted them along the retaining wall, and I had them cascade downward and over.
Chris Enroth: 29:02So when I was watering the plant, I was actually uphill. I was on top of the wall. But when I was harvesting, I would walk around and I would harvest, with the fruits kind of at eye level. That would seem to work out very nicely. The lemon cucumbers, it's a smaller ish cucumber about softball, baseball size, and so it didn't really need any additional support.
Chris Enroth: 29:23But, yeah, trellising, growing up or down, I would say Yeah. As options.
Ken Johnson: 29:29Yeah. Yeah. I think usually we define it as up, but, yeah, I hadn't thought about trailing.
Chris Enroth: 29:34Mhmm.
Ken Johnson: 29:34Yeah. And I think usually I wouldn't reason it's a lot of times it's thick cucurbits because they do take a lot of space. Cucumbers, pretty much any cucumber would be a good option because if we're harvesting the fruit on time, they're not getting too big and too heavy, to pull those, to pull the vines down. Maybe some of the smaller, like, mini pumpkins and stuff you can get away with. But if you're growing, some medium or larger sized pie pumpkins or jack o'-lantern pumpkins, you're you're gonna have to support those fruit in some way.
Ken Johnson: 30:06Otherwise, they're gonna pull your vines down. Making a hammock, tying that, you know, somehow supporting that fruit as it grows larger to do that. So best bet is probably smaller for your stuff, but you can do it for larger stuff if you're willing to take a little extra time. And you've got a sturdy enough trellis to support fruit that may be ten, fifteen, 20 pounds on top of all the plant material as well. And even things like zucchini, don't really get all that big, you can still kinda grow those up and and save some of that space on the ground.
Ken Johnson: 30:41And and depending on how you trellis stuff, you could even grow maybe you could try growing some cool season stuff, lettuce, stuff that may may that you can get away with a little less sunlight. I'm gonna shave you a little bit, make a little bit cooler microclimate there. Maybe extend out some of that stuff a little bit longer into the summer, than you would be able to otherwise. Mhmm.
Chris Enroth: 31:02You know, Ken, when I I visited your garden last year, I got some really great inspiration of how you just ripped two by fours in half and used that as your trellis. So these are, like, eight foot long two by fours. You ripped them in half. So I I did the same thing at my place, and I had to get on a ladder to, like, sledgehammer them into the ground. But they were super sturdy once they were in the ground, and I used them primarily for my tomato supports.
Chris Enroth: 31:34And so we got plenty of height, fairly sturdy. When I use some of those, like, wooden stakes for, like that you can get at, like, a a hardware store or somewhere, a lot of times they'll rot by the end of the summer. Like, base will be rotten and they'll be falling over. But just a straight up pine two by four just lasted me a whole summer. I got them still this year, so we're gonna put them back in the ground for this growing season.
Chris Enroth: 32:03So, yeah,
Ken Johnson: 32:05a
Chris Enroth: 32:05lot of trellising, I found people have just sort of found stuff around the house to create these trellises. A lot of times they don't work, but sometimes you build a pretty sturdy structure, and they they work very well. So thank you, Ken, for such a great idea to just take an old two by four and rip it in half, and though that became two posts for me.
Ken Johnson: 32:27Yeah. I mean, sometimes we have had them where they have started to warp, and they're almost c shaped Mhmm. By the end of the year depending on how that grain is. But, yeah, it's it's worked out. We got pressure treated boards, so we've had them in the ground for three or four years now.
Ken Johnson: 32:44Mhmm. Haven't had any issues, and that's the the copper stuff. So I'm not really concerned about that, you know, leaching into the soil where it's gonna cause any toxicity or anything like that. Just thinking, you know, one thing if, like, green beans, if you're a divining beans, you know, teepees, things like that, you know, you could still just a regular trellis too. Yeah.
Ken Johnson: 33:08Just get stuff off the ground, save that space for other things.
Chris Enroth: 33:13Yeah. Yeah. I I particularly like at our food donation garden here in in Macomb, our just it's just a cattle panel that's just bent in kind of a, I guess, upside down u, lowercase n shape, basically a tunnel. We have a green bean tunnel very often or on opposite years, we'll have a a cucumber tunnel. Then we trellis up our our green our pole beans or our cucumbers.
Chris Enroth: 33:42And so it it's a great place to to be and to spend time because it's trellised. You you find your I find myself in the shade there more often, you know, picking and things. And then that yeah. We we have space then in the beds, that allow us to plant things like lettuces, you know, on underneath of those.
Ken Johnson: 34:06Yeah. And we're, you know, talking about the space saving here, but ease of harvest as well. Because, yeah, like you mentioned with your your cucumbers, all this stuff is now high level or at least up off the ground, so you're not as bending as much, and it's not not as taxing on the body, maybe Mhmm. When it's when it's up higher eye level and stuff. So just another advantage of of trellising.
Ken Johnson: 34:29Yeah.
Chris Enroth: 34:30Well, you mentioned treated lumber. So another space saving technique that that I'm reading a lot about is using raised beds. And I think a lot of what some of these articles that that mention this as a space saver are assuming, well, maybe you have lousy soil in your yard that does not allow you to grow garden a garden successfully, or maybe you have contaminated soil where you you can't grow a vegetable garden. I know, probably for me, a raised bed wouldn't be much of a space saver, but there are ways we can utilize raised beds to, to help us grow perhaps maybe a bit more densely or maybe a bit more calculated. I know one of those is a square foot gardening method where where essentially you have a raised bed, and you are calculating out every single square foot and what that square foot can hold in terms of a a crop.
Chris Enroth: 35:30So with tomatoes, it would be you would need four square feet of that bed for one tomato plant. But for carrots, you could maybe take 12 carrots in one square foot. And so it's calculating that all out to maximize space utilization, with that square foot gardening method. And so, yeah, that that's one way I've seen raised beds used to save space. But, also, if, again, you just have lousy soil, just don't grow in it.
Chris Enroth: 35:59Hey. Now you've created yourself a whole new garden area with a raised bed on top of it.
Ken Johnson: 36:04Yeah. I think with know, I'll speak for myself here. Like, when I'm doing in ground, it's small, you know, nice straight lines. And I and I kind of spread out more than I would maybe need to, but because I've got the space. But in raised beds, you know, you've got that.
Ken Johnson: 36:22I'm usually doing more of that grid. Regardless of what I'm doing in square foot, I'm doing more of a grid just because I've got less room. I'm trying to squeeze as much as I can in there. So I think it kinda forces you to use that space more efficiently than sometimes you would in ground where you've got a little more room and, and stuff like that.
Chris Enroth: 36:41Yeah. No. That makes sense. Yeah. You're planting in blocks, and that's because with the raised bed, you can get at it from all different angles.
Chris Enroth: 36:50As long as you can reach across that bed, you'll be okay. Yeah. In ground, you got these long rows. Well, you don't wanna walk, you know, too far around or anything. So, you know, you have your one row, and you got you have your walking lane, and you got your other road, your walking lane.
Chris Enroth: 37:05And so, yeah, I can see how you would spread out more in an in ground garden situation.
Ken Johnson: 37:12Yeah. Sometimes in the ground, I forget to make my walking lanes too, which makes management and harvest interesting.
Chris Enroth: 37:20Well, yeah. Then you need to get the machete and hack your way through the plants to get to the actual crop that you want. So another strategy, and this was one that I don't think I read about, but it just is one that I have employed in the past, is just being more seasonal in the crops that you select. So, okay, I don't have room to grow lettuce and tomato, spinach, carrots, you know, some of these other other things. And so I in more intentional in that, okay, Earlier spring, I'm going to to focus on some these really short, cool season crops, radishes, arugula.
Chris Enroth: 38:06You know, the spinach can be short ish, but some of the lettuces. And then that then transitions over into a warm season crops, tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, all of those things. And then I then late in the season, I'll transition back to more of maybe more longer term cool season crops, some of our kales, some of those other brassicas out there. And so just just I'm just more intentional about my seasonality. This gives me a more diverse array of of vegetables that I can grow at least in a given year, not necessarily in a given space, though.
Chris Enroth: 38:46Like like, I can't grow it all at the same time, but I can grow it all there within the year.
Ken Johnson: 38:53Yeah. Getting into that that intercropping replacing. Mhmm. So if and even when, like, you you got your your cool season spring stuff, you could interplant your tomatoes with that as you're harvesting those, pulling those out, then your tomatoes are already there, filling in the space and vice versa in the summer. Or in the late summer, fall, start putting in your cool season stuff as your tomatoes are there, then either they get killed or you're tired of dealing with tomatoes and you remove them, then your cool season stuff is there to to to take over.
Chris Enroth: 39:26Yeah. Yeah. So just I and I think a lot of folks, they especially just starting out in gardening, you think, oh, the gardening season is from May, middle of May till, you know, maybe when the first frost is. But, no, we can grow stuff so long as we got enough sunlight in the day. So, you know, if we get over ten hours of sunlight in the day, plants are actively growing as long as they can handle the colder temperatures that they would be experiencing at those times, or if we protect them with using, like, row covers or low tunnels, something like that, a cold frame.
Ken Johnson: 40:03Alright. Last one we got here. So I guess this is kinda getting into, I guess, edible landscaping, but inner inner planting or, yeah, going that edible landscaping where you're integrating your your food crops, you know, with your ornamentals or ornamentals in with the food crops, vice versa. Not necessarily having a dedicated bed, which I think again, I don't think when most people think of vegetable gardening, you've got your vegetable garden, you got your flowers, and the two shall never meet. But it's it's kind of incorporating those into each other.
Ken Johnson: 40:32Again, you can use your space more efficiently. There are vegetable crops that do have some ornamental appeal to them. So some of the ochres can be very ornamental looking. Now some of the peppers, Some of the I think we talked about it. And if you're doing the grow along, the the Christmas pepper we're growing this year, it's got upright peppers.
Ken Johnson: 40:54Usually, those are hot, this is a sweet pepper, but they do have an ornamental look to them. Things like artichokes, you know, if you wanna grow that, they got a nice foliage. We're harvesting the the flower buds, but if you let those bloom, which you're not really growing the artichokes for food then, but they've got very pretty flowers. So if you miss one, you've got that. Cardoon is a basically relative of artichokes.
Ken Johnson: 41:15It gets much bigger. You're eating the leaves of that. It kinda looks like something Jurassic Park, when it's full ground or and the things like runner beans that have very, you know, red have red flowers, very ornamental flowers. The pods can be ornamental, but you can eat them as green beans. Let them dry down.
Ken Johnson: 41:34Use them as shelled beans, stuff like this. There's a variety of different ways we can incorporate some of these things, into our landscape. And there's flowers. A lot of flowers are edible too. So nasturtium, marigolds, all of that stuff.
Ken Johnson: 41:47Mhmm.
Chris Enroth: 41:49Yeah. And, Ken, you you don't do this for, like, edible vegetables. At least I don't think you did. But you've planted even the hell strip out in front of your house, an area between the street and the sidewalk, with ornamental plants, you know, native some native plants. But I remember one year, I had an extra pepper plant.
Chris Enroth: 42:09Like, where am I gonna put this? Well, there was a full sun spot over by the fire hydrant. And so I was by the road, and so I planted that pepper plant over by the fire hydrant, six feet away because I think that's what the city had required at the time. But I had great peppers growing there. I was always kinda like, well, what if someone takes my peppers?
Chris Enroth: 42:33But then I thought, I guess that's alright with me. I know if somebody wants to take some peppers, then they can have them. I guess I'll I can still go to the farmer's market or the store and get more peppers, so I'm not that worried about it. So but, yeah, I I but I've tried to throw as many vegetables as I could find full sun areas, and one of them just so happened to be right next to the road right there. You know, I'm not really thinking about any contaminants or anything like that pollution.
Chris Enroth: 43:02So dirty water, dogs peeing on it. That didn't come to mind until after the fact. Ignorance is bliss. That's right. So just pretend like I didn't say that, folks, and you'll feel great.
Chris Enroth: 43:16No. No. You have to take all those risks into consideration.
Ken Johnson: 43:20Yeah. I think yeah. But so, yeah, just you know, if you're if you're gonna do this, you know, think about those plants, and I guess you'd probably be able to speak to this better than I would. But, you know, the those landscape designs, you know, the different foliage and then the contrast and this, that, and the other. There's there's ways you can incorporate this stuff and, you know, some trial and error.
Ken Johnson: 43:40Sometimes it may look good, sometimes it may not. Yeah. You always got next year to try again.
Chris Enroth: 43:45Mhmm. That's right. At the eternal optimist as the gardener, there's always next year. So well, that was a lot of great information about how to utilize some of our smaller yard space to do more gardening. Well, the Good Growing podcast is a production of University of Illinois Extension, edited this week by Ken Johnson.
Chris Enroth: 44:07And a special thank you to Ken. Thanks for hanging out, giving some tips and tricks about gardening in small spaces this week.
Ken Johnson: 44:15Yes. Thank you. And go check on that deck, make sure it's not doesn't need replacing.
Chris Enroth: 44:21Go jump on it here just a little bit. Make sure me and the dogs will go out there and we'll just make sure our weight doesn't cause the whole thing to buckle.
Ken Johnson: 44:29And let's do this again next week.
Chris Enroth: 44:32Oh, we shall do this again next week. The horticultural hijinks continues on the Good Growing podcast. So tune in next week to hear the gardening topic that we shall devise between now and then. Well, listeners, thank you for doing what you do best, and that is listening. Or if you're watching us on YouTube, watching.
Chris Enroth: 44:51And as always, keep on growing. This is very interesting ASMR podcast. It's just called garden research. It's like watching paint dry. Yeah.
Chris Enroth: 45:16Just two guys reading. Ignore everything I just sit there in the meantime. Cut that all out.