Paul James, host of HGTV's Gardening by the Yard, offers suggestions on making your vegetable garden more productive. First is a technique known as thinning, which commonly applies to crops whose seeds are so small that it's difficult to space them properly at planting time. As a result, vegetables such as lettuce and other greens, carrots, turnips, etc., are often planted too thickly. Too many plants in a limited space means less moisture and fewer nutrients to go around. By thinning them to the proper distance between plants as indicated on the seed packet or planting guide -- that is, by gently pulling out the extras when they're young -- you can make sure there's plenty of food and water for the plants that remain. Thinning may stress the surviving plants if their roots are disturbed. When you're finished, apply a little fertilizer, and water well. Succession planting is one of the surest ways to increase and extend your harvest. For example, stagger plantings of lettuce several weeks apart instead of sowing all the seed at the same time. If weather permits, you may be able to get in three or four lettuce crops. Succession planting works best with quick-growing crops: greens, radishes, carrots, turnips, squash, beans, cucumbers, and so on -- vegetables that are ready to harvest within 60 days or so when sown from seed. Here's a technique that's especially useful for those who have a small garden. When you've filled every square inch of soil with spring vegetables and it's time to plant summer crops, try interplanting. For example, a bed of onions may not be ready to harvest for several weeks, but by pulling a few tender scallions early, you can create room for a young tomato transplant. The onions will grow to maturity while the tomato develops, and you'll be able to harvest two crops from the same bed. Peppers, eggplants, squash and all sorts of other vegetables can be sown this way. Corn and cantaloupe make a good combination. On either side of a raised bed, sow a row of corn down the full length of the bed. Sow a few hills of cantaloupe between the rows, roughly 3' apart. Corn grows straight up without creating much shade, and cantaloupe hugs the ground, so you can get two crops out of the same bed. One of the easiest ways to increase production of peas and beans is to inoculate them by giving them a shot of bacteria. Because they're legumes, peas and beans get the bulk of their nitrogen from the air rather than the soil, thanks to beneficial bacteria that live in little nodules on the roots (figure A). If the bacteria aren't present in your soil, you must add them to the soil at planting time. Inoculant is available from most nurseries or home and garden centers, and $2 worth goes a long way. To use it, place pea or bean seeds in a container, pour in a little water, and add powdered inoculant. Mix so each seed gets a coating of inoculant, and plant. Or prepare a shallow planting trench, add seeds, and sprinkle inoculant on top of the seeds. Both methods work well, making a noticeable difference in the plants' vigor and production. Here's a simple technique for increasing your potato harvest by at least 25 percent. By hilling -- adding a 2" to 4" layer of compost or soil to the planting bed -- or simply drawing soil into the bed with a hoe, you create new space for developing tubers, which tend to grow in the top 4" to 8" of soil. Continue hilling every few weeks, or whenever 6" or so of top growth has emerged. Stop once the plants flower. The following planting methods will result in stronger tomato plants, which should bear more fruit. One way to plant a tomato transplant is to dig a shallow planting hole and drop the plant into it. If you look closely at a tomato stem, however, you'll see hundreds of little white hairs, each one of which is a potential root. More roots mean a more vigorous plant, so why not take advantage of the tomato's unique ability? One way to do so is to plant the tomato in a trench on its side. Very shortly the plant will begin to grow straight up, and hundreds of small roots will begin to grow straight out into the surrounding soil. Another way to accomplish the same thing is to bury the plant. With scissors, remove all but the top set or two of leaves from the transplant, then dig a deep hole, and bury the plant up to those leaves.
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