A truck garden is traditionally a large garden that grows food to be sold at market. Here, Leslie Land updated the concept. She created a plot that will produce plenty of vegetables, and she included varieties that aren’t often found at supermarkets — ‘White Currant’ cherry tomatoes, ‘Boothby’s Blonde’ cucumbers, and ‘Red Noodle’ yard-long pole beans.
It used to be that if you wanted to eat any of the more exotic varieties of vegetables, you had to grow them yourself. Happily, you can now find many more varieties of produce at markets, though Leslie lamented you’re still unlikely to encounter edibles like “ferny, anise-flavored sweet cicely; earthy torpedo-shaped ‘Crapaudine’ beets (the oldest variety still being sold); or ‘Monstruoso’ basil, named for leaves large enough to wrap a jumbo shrimp.” The solution? Enter Leslie’s truck garden.
Unlike cottage gardens, which have informal beds of food and flowers not designed for production, truck gardens are laid out for easy care, with straight-edged beds and rows. Leslie’s truck garden is a basic square measuring 40 by 40 feet and divided by a series of paths. Although you may not wish to sell your harvest, you will certainly have enough to share with friends and family, or you may choose to preserve and can your excess.
No-fuss rotation. To keep crop rotation simple, the perennial crops such as asparagus, raspberries, strawberries, herbs, and flowers have been placed around the perimeter of the garden. At the back, near the asparagus bed, sit three compost bins: one for gathering fresh organics (kitchen and garden scraps), one for decomposing materials, and one for finished compost.
“The main production area for annual vegetables and herbs is in the center, where there are four beds, two large and two somewhat smaller to allow for different plants’ space needs,” said Leslie. “Tomatoes and squash take a lot more room than greens or trellised beans and peas, but as long as you organize your plants by family it will be easy to rotate the beds each year.” To keep the production beds on a four-year rotation cycle, move the 3-foot horizontal path every two years, Leslie advised.
Leslie noted that this is a general plan; specific plants will vary depending on your taste and climate, but to get you started, she included a few of her favorite varieties.
‘Aunt Ruby’s German Green’ tomatoes. “This super-juicy heirloom has a great balance of sweet and sour taste and is a brilliant emerald color,” said Leslie. “It has a very short shelf life, but the fruits keep coming all summer after they get started, gradually dwindling in size as the season progresses.”
‘White Currant’ cherry tomatoes. “The fruits are more of a cream color than white when fully ripe,” she noted. “The tiny fruits are difficult to separate from the stem, but they are incredibly flavorful and beyond abundant.” Plants become enormous and are very disease-resistant.
‘Beaver Dam’ hot peppers and ‘Ashe County Pimento’ sweet peppers. Listed in the Slow Food’s Ark of Taste, ‘Beaver Dam’ is a Hungarian heirloom pepper with pointed fruits that ripen from green to bright red. They are medium hot and excellent in fresh salsa. ‘Ashe County Pimento’ is an heirloom pimento-type pepper with squat red ripe fruits that grow 3 to 4 inches in diameter and just 11/2 inches tall.
‘Rosita’ eggplants. Productive plants produce a generous supply of teardrop-shaped purple-pink eggplants that grow 8 inches long and 4 inches wide at maturity.
‘La Ratte’ potatoes. ‘La Ratte’ is a yellow-skinned and yellow-fleshed heirloom fingerling variety with a delectable buttery texture and flavor.
‘Boothby’s Blonde’ cucumbers. A popular heirloom cucumber with oval-shaped fruits and soft yellow skin.
‘Yellow Crookneck’ squash. “Not a commercial animal, the plants are slower to bear than hybrids,” said Leslie. “The squash, best picked around 4 inches long, get too big if you so much as look away.” She also added that the tiny necks are vulnerable to breakage, but the flavor of this heirloom is fuller than that of other yellow squash, and when cooked it has a creamy texture.
Basil. “Basil is easy to grow from seed and expensive to buy,” noted Leslie, adding that there are all sorts of flavors and shapes that are hard to come by unless you grow them from seed. “Replant several times over the summer so that young plants, which have the best flavor and texture, are always coming along.”
‘Sugar Snap’ peas. “There are about a dozen varieties of snap pea seeds available to gardeners, but none of the others is as sweet, crunchy, or prolific as the original ‘Sugar Snap’,” revealed Leslie. “Strictly a home garden plant, the vines are long and must be trellised and they’re slow to start bearing, but once they get going they produce for a long time.”
‘Gold of Bacau’ and ‘Rattlesnake’ pole beans; ‘Red Noodle’ yard-long pole beans. ‘Gold of Bacau’ is a Romano-type bean with flat butter-yellow pods that can reach 10 inches in length. The green, streaked-with-purple pods of ‘Rattlesnake’ pole beans are both beautiful and delicious. ‘Red Noodle’ beans are also rather unusual with lengthy 18-inch-long pods in an arresting shade of burgundy-purple.
Romano (flat-pod) bush beans. Compact, bushy plants yield a bumper crop of 6-inch-long, flat green beans. Exceptional flavor!
‘Romanesco’ broccoli. The apple-green heads of ‘Romanesco’ are almost too pretty to eat. Almost. Each domed head is composed of hypnotizing whorls of florets that have a mild nutty flavor and creamy texture.
‘Red Russian’ and ‘Lacinato’ kale. ‘Red Russian’ kale is an extremely cold-tolerant variety with wide gray-green leaves highlighted by purple-red stems. ‘Lacinato’, on the other hand, is an heirloom kale with straplike dark blue-green leaves that are a bit softer in texture than curly kales.
Wild (rustic) arugula. “Garden arugula’s spicier cousin, this stays tasty far longer than the common kind and is still a great salad addition when it has bolted and is peppery hot,” said Leslie. “The plants are big and bushy, and the pretty, edible yellow flowers taste milder than the leaves.”
‘Merveille des Quatre Saisons’ lettuce. This heirloom lettuce forms beautiful, dense heads that thrive in spring, summer, autumn, and even into winter if offered protection in the form of a cold frame. The tender, ruffled leaves have a pleasing, sweet flavor.
‘Piracicaba’ broccoli. “This Brazilian green is a twofer: it produces small, tender heads of broccoli as well as dark green leaves that are more tender than kale and more toothsome than cabbage,” Leslie said, adding that the plant keeps producing from late spring to late fall.
‘Crapaudine’ and ‘Lutz Winter Keeper’ (‘Lutz Green Leaf’) beets. ‘Crapaudine’ beets are a heritage variety that “even look pre-modern, from their fat carrot shape to their rough, barklike skin,” noted Leslie in her blog. “Of all the many beets I’ve grown, ‘Crapaudine’ is the tastiest, dense fleshed and sweet, with just enough — i.e. only a little — of beet’s classic earthy taste.” ‘Lutz Green Leaf’ is also considered a sweet-tasting beet, as well as an excellent keeper.
‘Bleu de Solaize’ leeks and ‘Nebechan’ scallions (if space allows). ‘Bleu de Solaize’ is an heirloom leek that produces fat shanks with attractive blue-green leaves, and with a thick mulch of straw, they can be enjoyed well into winter. ‘Nebechan’ is a Japanese scallion with upright foliage and no bulbing.
‘Mignonette’ alpine strawberries. “Aromatic and packed with flavor, the fruits from this plant are the tastiest of the little so-called wild strawberries that bear all season long,” noted Leslie. “The fruits take forever to pick but are worth it.”
‘Tristar’ strawberries. “This is an everbearing variety that produces a small crop in spring, a larger crop in fall, and sporadic berries over the summer,” Leslie said. “The berries are larger and juicier than ‘Mignonette’, with a sharper flavor.”
Sweet cicely. “This perennial herb is pretty enough for the flower garden,” Leslie said. “All parts — the downy fernlike leaves, stems, flowers, and green seeds — are edible and taste like a cross between anise and tarragon.”
Lovage. “This sturdy perennial herb has deeply cut leaves that taste strongly of celery,” described Leslie. “It gives the biggest crops in spring and fall but will produce all summer if flower stalks are promptly removed and the tired growth cut back.”
‘Evergreen’ bunching onions. “This is a hardy scallion that multiplies to form bunches,” Leslie said, noting that it also makes a nice addition to the perennial bed.
Asparagus. “An all-male variety of green asparagus such as ‘Jersey Knight’ produces more spears over a longer time than a mixed-sex planting,” said Leslie, noting that this is because female plants use energy to make fruits. The fruits will also self-sow, becoming weedy. “ ‘Purple Passion’ is a mixed-sex variety, and even the male plants are less productive than green asparagus.” However, she added that because it is so beautiful and delicious, it’s worth giving garden space to a few plants.
Raspberries. These berries “are the grow-it-at-home fruit supreme, since they don’t travel well and are very expensive,” Leslie said. “Because they are quite climate-sensitive, the best varieties will be the ones recommended by the raspberry vendors at your local farmers’ market.”
1. Nightshades: Cherry and full-sized tomatoes, hot and sweet peppers, eggplants, and potatoes
2. Cucurbits and annual herbs: Cucumbers, squash, and basil
3. Legumes: Peas and pole and bush beans
4. Brassicas and root crops: Kale, broccoli, arugula, lettuce, and beets
5. Perennial flowers and herbs: sweet cicely, lovage, and bunching onions
6. Alpine and regular strawberries
7. Raspberries
8. Asparagus
9. Flowers
10. Annual herbs
“If you are a gardener with limited space and time whose primary goal is the largest amount of tasty, organic food for the smallest amount of effort, the following crops are winners. They are easy to plant, easy to care for, easy to pick, easy to prepare, and — in some cases — all four,” says Leslie.