Nurseries give plants safe place to start growing

ALITTLE PLANT nursery is useful in any garden. Here is where young plants are carefully tended until they are ready to go out in the “real world.”

I’ll bet you’re thinking, “Why would I need a nursery bed? I already bought and planted all the seedlings I need for this year’s garden.” Well, anyone who takes pride in their fall vegetable garden — and here I mean the vegetable garden that thrives after that first frost blackens tomatoes — could use a nursery bed.

Tomato, pepper, lettuce, cabbage, and broccoli plants you bought in the last few weeks were for spring and summer, not fall, harvests.

This week I am sowing seeds of cabbage and broccoli in nursery rows a half a foot apart. When the seedlings emerge, I will thin them to about four inches apart in the row. In a month, each seedlings’ leaves will be brushing up against those of its neighbor, at which time I will dig the plants and move them to the garden, where the pea crop will just have finished.

Beginning next month, and through August, I will similarly sow endive, fennel, and heading lettuces.

Even if you’re not interested in growing vegetables — or, at least, fall vegetables — you still could use a nursery bed. For flowers, for example. With the spring planting rush past, seeds of perennials and biennials can be sown at a leisurely pace anytime from now through next month. The nursery can hold these plants for planting late this summer or early next spring. Also sow annual flowers such as marigolds, zinnias, and calendula in a nursery bed for small plants to transplant to fill in gaps in the flower garden through the season.

All these vegetable and flower seeds that I recommend sowing in a nursery bed could be sown out in the garden at each plant’s permanent loca- tion. But why take up space there now? Besides, small seedlings hidden amongst larger plants in the garden too easily fall prey to careless weeding, slugs, or cutworms.

A plant nursery need not be large. An area as small as 6 by 3 feet can hold about a hundred seedlings.

A nursery area also is useful for growing trees and shrubs. A number of commercial nurseries sell good quality, small plants at discount prices. Nurtured for a year or two in a nursery bed, these plants become fine specimens for transplanting to their permanent locations. I even occasionally am lured into buying bargain plants of low quality, knowing that I can nurse them to vigorous health in the nursery bed, losing only perhaps a season’s of growth as compared with larger — and more expensive — plants.

If cheesecloth or wooden lathe strips are held up with a simple frame over the nursery bed to cast dappled shade, then the bed could be used to propagate plants from cuttings. By the end of this month, the bases of new shoots on trees, shrubs, and vines begin to get woody; these semi-woody shoots can be cut, then stuck in the ground to root.

A plant nursery need not be large. An area as small as 6 by 3 feet can hold about a hundred seedlings. Since plants in a nursery need close attention, the bed is best located near the house, preferably right near the back door so you can at least glance at the plants each time you go out or come in. Near the house also is ideal because that’s the most likely location for a hose spigot. With water handy, there’s no excuse to let even one plant go just a little longer without water to save the trouble of dragging the hose or watering can all the way out to the garden. Proximity to the house also provides some shelter from the wind, which is important if the bed is used to root cuttings.

The nursery’s soil needs special attention. By mixing into the soil lots of peat moss, compost, leaf mold, or rotted sawdust, the soil will be well-aerated yet retain water. In such soil, germinating seeds will effortlessly break through the surface and transplants are easily lifted. Don’t fertilize too much because too much nitrogen fertilizer will make weak, sappy plants ill-adapted to the rigors of transplanting and subsequent life out in the garden.

Any gardening questions?

Email them to me at garden@ leereich.com and I’ll try answering them directly or in this column. Come visit my garden at leereich.com/blog.