All the Dirt on Gardening

Most of know of Mel Bartholomew from his Square Foot Gardening fame. His latest book is "High-Value Veggies" in which he lists and describes the results of extensive testing on what veggies we should plant and why. Mathematically inclined Bartholomew studied the return on investment for dozens of typical garden plants and calculated their worthiness for our gardens based upon #1 productivity, #2 cost per pound if you had to buy them, #3 other usefulness. Here are some of the lists he and his staff came up with. The bottom 10 (make the least sense financially to grow): Potatoes, Brussels sprouts, bell peppers, Swiss chard, asparagus, okra, beans, celery and green cabbage. The ten that have the most financial reward for your garden space: Herbs, parsnips, cherry tomatoes, garlic, heirloom tomatoes, turnip, leek, winter squash, spinach and hybrid tomato. At our house we love parsnips and, based on his list, I'm planting seeds. But we don't need very many tur...

Spring garden preparation has begun: seed orders are in, pots are cleaned, leaves are raked and the remaining bits of last fall’s garden will go to the compost pile. Early spring vegetable and flower seeds can be sown indoors under lights now to get ready for planting outside in April. Also, it is time to order from the Tulsa Master Gardener’s spring plant sale. Orders are due March 28 for April 18 pick-ups. The pre-order form is at http://tulsamastergardeners.org .   Between now and the first planting day of spring there will be plenty of time for learning new tricks and discovering new plants, so here are five books from a new crop of publications that would be good late-winter reading.   “Starting Seeds: How to Grow Healthy Productive Vegetables, Herbs and Flowers from Seed” by Barbara Ellis, 120 page pocket-size paperback, published by Storey ( www.storey.com ). List price $9; $4 at online vendors. Ellis says “seeds set the rules” and to be successful we j...