Carolinas fruit & vegetable gardening : how to plant, grow, and harvest the best edibles

258 Pages·2013·26.87 MB·English

by  Katie Elzer-Peters

CAROLINAS
FRUIT & VEGETABLE GARDENING
How to Plant, Grow, and
Harvest the Best Edibles
CAROLINAS
FRUIT & VEGETABLE GARDENING
How to Plant, Grow, and
Harvest the Best Edibles
KATIE ELZER-PETERS
MINNEAPOLIS, MINNESOTA
contents
dedication
6
acknowledgements
7
preface
8
PART I
growing edibles in the carolinas 10
CHAPTER 1
the carolinas region
14
CHAPTER 2
seasonal gardening
18
CHAPTER 3
planning your garden
24
CHAPTER 4
building great soil
30
CHAPTER 5
planting your garden
38
CHAPTER 6
growing your garden
48
PART II
fruit & vegetable Profiles
68
CHAPTER 7
fruit & nut Gardening
72
Growing Citrus in the Carolinas 104
Fruit Shrubs & Brambles 108
Vining & Garden Fruits 120
CHAPTER 8
Vegetable & herb gardening
130
Cool-Season Gardening Tips & Tricks 133
Cool-Season Vegetables 136
Cool-Season Herbs 176
Warm-Season Gardening Tips & Tricks 186
Warm-Season Vegetables 190
Warm-Season Herbs 218
resources
240
glossary
242
index
249
meet katie elzer-peters
256
dedication
For Margaret Shelton, the greenest thumb in North Carolina.
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acknowledgments
I always liked to write, but without the patient instruction of Mrs. Wilhoite,
Mrs. Quandt, Mrs. Libby, Dr. Swasey, Dr. Garrison, and a graduate student
teacher at Purdue whose name I’ve long forgotten, but whose influence was
enormous, I would not be the same person today, and would not have the 
privilege to do what I do. Billie Brownell has continued to nurture my
writing over the past few years, and I appreciate all of the insights and
improvements she has helped me make. Billie, I hear your voice in my ear
when I write—and that’s a good thing.
My thanks go to Roger Waynick, original Publisher of Cool Springs
Press, and to Mark Johanson, my Acquiring Editor for this project, each for
taking a chance on me. 
Once you start working on a book, there are people along the way that
take the word doc and make it into a beautiful book. For that I have to
thank the copy editors and designers and hort editors and indexers for their
work. Without them, it’s all just words on the computer that might or might
not make sense, and are certainly not very interesting to look at. 
Every writer needs a cheerleader, and Tracy Stanley at Cool Springs has
been that and more. She is the most patient, encouraging, and helpful editor
one could ask for. This has been much easier with you to help me. Thank
you so much, Tracy! 
The Owner and Chef of Epic Food Co., James Bain, along with his staff,
have been so friendly and nice, allowing me to camp out, drink their tea, eat
their chocolate chip cookies, steal their WiFi, and devour their glorious
vegetable creations while working on this book. Thank you. 
And I couldn’t do anything without the love and support of my parents,
who never said no when I wanted them to buy me a book and my husband—
chief garden-waterer and dog wrangler in the house. Joe, you have the
patience of a saint, and I’m glad you’re mine. 
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preface
I have been gardening since I could walk, and I have enjoyed, throughout
my professional career, teaching others how to garden.
When faced with the task of making vegetable gardening an easily
digestible (pun intended) topic for new gardeners, I tried to come up with
a method of organization that differed from the usual A–Z list of plants.
Organization by Function, Not Name
Gardens don’t grow well when alphabetized. I know this because I’ve tried
to plant alphabet vegetable gardens for kids. The cucumbers end up growing
all over the beets, and the grapes shade the eggplants. It’s messy. So why
should your gardening book be organized that way? Sure, it’s easy to look
things up alphabetically, but what if the book, through the way it is
organized, could help you plan your garden?
Now we’re talking! (There’s always the index and the alpha-order plant
list to help you look up the location of your favorite veggie’s information.)
In the Carolinas, you can garden year-round. Greens and root crops
flourish in the winter, and tropical vegetables such as tomatoes and peppers
thrive during the hot summer. This book has sections covering cool-season
gardening and warm-season gardening.
Your fruit or vegetable garden doesn’t need to be this big in order for you to enjoy
fresh produce!
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A few holes in the leaves of this eggplant plant won’t affect the fruit.
It isn’t just weather you have to be concerned about, though. The plant
families (stone fruits, cabbage relatives) and their growth habits (tree,
shrub, vine) also influence where you plant them and how you grow them.
The fruits section is organized by growth habit to make it easy for you to
figure out where to plant the plants, so that they produce well for you
without taking over your entire garden.
Hopefully this admittedly unusual style will help when you’re ready to
put shovel to soil. Just open to the section you want to tackle and go!
Never Too Ugly to Eat
If there’s one piece of advice I could give to any new gardener—the one
thing you can’t ignore—it is this: your garden doesn’t have to be gorgeous to
produce well. Your tomato plant could look like it is on its last legs, but if it
is still flowering and pumping out tomatoes, don’t sweat it.
The eggplant leaves might have spots. The eggplants will probably be
fine. Just because you see a few holes here and there doesn’t mean you need
to bring out the big guns and spray everything.
If you see aphids on the plants, get out the hose and spray them. If that
doesn’t work, try insecticidal soap. (Read on to learn how to deal with
aphids and other pests.) If you see a giant tomato hornworm, pluck it and
squash it. But don’t feel discouraged if your garden doesn’t look like a
magazine cover. Is what you’re growing tasty? Good. That’s what you’re
going for.
Now get out there and get your hands dirty! Get the book dirty, too!
That’s what it’s for.
—Katie
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PART I
growing
edibles
in the
carolinas
I
firmly believe that if you understand how plants grow,
you’ll take better care of them and have better results.
It isn’t enough to know just the how-to. To be successful
at gardening, you also need
to know the why-do. With a
bit of information, gardening
suddenly goes from mysterious
to predictable. You’ll learn
that if you prune a plant this
way it will grow that way.
Part 1 of this book gives
you everything you need to
know to grow the best
edibles in your home garden.
Carrots are easy to grow in
the Carolinas.
10