Spring gardens start off the growing year. Plants that are grown in the spring garden are cool season crops. Most are leafy greens or are underground crops. Today’s column has a list of the most popular below ground choices for a spring garden. All can be started now from seed.
• Beets. Sow seed in the garden as soon as the ground can be worked. Since beet seed has a hard seed coat soak seed in tepid water for several hours to hasten water imbibition and kick-start germination. Grow a rainbow of beets. The most common color is the red beet and the most common red variety is Red Ace. Golden beets have a sweet flavor; Touchstone Gold has bright yellow flesh. A fun red and white variety is Chioggia, with concentric circles of red and white. The last color is a white variety Avalanche, which has a mild flavor. An advantage of growing beets is that the young shoots can be harvested and eaten as fresh greens.
• Carrots. Plant seed early. Carrots are a great crop for a kid’s garden. Carrots can be harvested very young for baby carrots or left in the ground and harvested well into the summer. The most common color is orange, but there are white, pink, yellow, red and purple carrots. Spend time looking through a catalog for different shapes. Carrots are an easy crop to grow.
• Radishes. Radishes are another great crop for a kid’s garden. Radishes can be harvested within a month after sowing. For a longer season of fresh radishes, sow a new planting of seed every few weeks. The most common radish is the round red type. For variety try these: the watermelon type that has pink flesh and surrounded by light green skin and white radishes that are small and round or others that are oblong. The Spanish type is black with robust, hot taste. Asian types like the daikon can be huge, oblong with a root that can be 18 inches long.
• Turnips. Seems folks either really like or really dislike turnips. They are easy to grow and give two crops—the roots but also the greens are super nutritious. Seed can be planted early. The traditional turnip has a purple top and white bottom, the longtime favorite variety is aptly named the Purple Top White Globe.
Ellen Peffley Harp, a retired professor of horticulture at Texas Tech University, writes about gardening for several Texas newspapers.
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