Discover intriguing ways to grow vegetables

Vegetables are usually planted in rows. That’s tried-and-true, but we have other ways to plant a garden. Gardeners are experimenters, so maybe you’d like to try one or more of the following vegetable planting methods.

Square-foot garden: First, enrich your garden box soil with compost, fertilizer or composted manure. Then divide the box into square-foot sections with a grid of wood or any other marker that will survive gardening season. Each square is planted thickly with one type of vegetable or herb. Lettuces, carrots, beets, radishes, Swiss chard, spinach and basil are all good candidates for this type of bed. The enriched soil allows you to plant in a denser array than you normally would, allowing you to get a lot of food from a small space.

Straw bale garden: Source a bale or two of straw and put them in a part of your yard that gets six to eight hours of sun a day. You will need to condition the bales for two weeks before planting. Water the bales thoroughly so they’re completely wet. Next, put a half cup of high nitrogen fertilizer on each bale. Water the bales daily and every other day add another half cup of fertilizer. During the second week, cut the amount of fertilizer down by half and continue to water. At the end of two weeks, the bales should feel warm if you work your hand into them. If it’s hot, water the bales for several days until they cool. Once slightly warm, start planting. It’s helpful to add a little garden soil to the tops of the bales. Dig into the straw where it has started to decompose and set in your plants or seeds. You can grow two full-size tomato plants per bale or any other vegetable or herb you want. As the bales continue to decompose, they feed the plants.

Vertical garden: This garden style is a space saver. Peas and beans grow on trellises, but any vining plant can be grown up rather than along the ground. Small- to medium-size squash can be grown this way, as can cucumbers. It’s so simple, but it does require a few trellises. Use hog panels for heavy plants like squash or chicken wire strung between posts for lighter vegetables. It is best to position these trellises on the north side of the garden so they don’t block the sun for shorter vegetables. The trellises can be used year after year.

Three simple methods — with a twist. Have fun with them.

Learn more about gardening from the WSU Mason County Master Gardeners by submitting questions to the Plant Clinic at [email protected] Mason County Master Gardeners can be reached at 360-427-9670, ext.687.

■ Erika Stewart is a WSU Mason County Master Gardener. She volunteers on the Education committee and has given several workshops on growing vegetable gardens. She is part of the team at Catalyst Food Bank garden, a contributing writer and all-around garden expert.