Growing Greens by Byron Chitwood
Every year about this time, I write an article on greens. This year is no different. It is time to start preparing your garden soil and planting greens. Begin by tilling the soil and removing all the sticks, stones and other debris. Rake the level of the soil surface until it is level. If you have a large garden plot, you might want to form 4-5 foot wide raised beds by ditching outside of the perimeter of the anticipated beds. There are several advantages to these raised beds. The most important one is that water will drain away from the vegetable beds. Most greens as well as other vegetables like plenty of moisture but do not like wet and soggy ground. Also, this width of bed makes it easy to plant rows and pull weeds without stepping on the bed surface and preventing compacting of the soil. Most of these greens such as collards, broccoli, turnips, mustard, bok choy, kale and collards have very small seeds and do not need to be planted any deeper than ¼ inch with rows being about one foot apart. Turnip seeds are usually broadcast into the area reserved for them. However, they can also be planted in rows. Chard and beets are planted with a dried portion of the beet or chard root. After planting, hopefully just before a nice cool rain, the seeds should start to sprout within 7 to 10 days.
After the young plants are several inches tall, thin them out to a spacing of individual plants of about 4 to six inches. Use a spacing of about a foot for broccoli. There might be rows that have too many plants and some rows with large spaces. Carefully dig some of the plants up and transplant to the gaps. However, if you do not have enough plants for transplanting, reseed the gaps with some fresh seeds. You can begin harvesting greens for the pot whenever they are about half grown. Pull or snip a few leaves off the outside of the individual plants and within a few days, the remaining leaves will grow and fill in the blanks. If you broadcast turnip seeds, they will probably need thinned out to make room for the roots to grow. Clean and cook the greens that were harvested during the thinning process.
Greens are one of the most nutritious vegetables that are grown in your garden. Also, they are a tasty and welcome treat. Some folks make a meal just comprised of greens and cornbread. Cook the greens in a pan with some oil and canned chicken broth or meat with a little salt and throw in some chopped onions during the cooking process.
My favorite cornbread recipe is: mix a cup each of cornmeal and all purpose flour with a teaspoon of salt and 2 heaping teaspoons of baking powder. The wet ingredients should be a cup of butter milk, two eggs, a quarter cup of oil and chopped dill, onions, celery and peppers, either hot or mild. While all this mixing is going on, heat a cast iron skillet in a 425 degrees oven. Mix all the dry and whipped up wet ingredients together. Oil the cast iron skillet and pour all the batter into the skillet and cook at the same 425 degrees for about 30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the cornbread will come out relatively dry when pulled out. Note that I did not add sugar to the cornbread ingredients. If you want muffins, add sugar.
Remember all your friends without garden and shut-ins when harvesting greens. Plant too many for your own consumption and you will have friends forever.