Root vegetables like potatoes, beetroots, carrots, radishes, sweet potatoes and turnips, are an important component of most cuisines, and can be grown through the year in most regions. With staggered planting, these subterranean gems will supply produce all-year round. They come packed with vital nutrients like Vitamin A and C, Potassium, Magnesium and fibre, and are a natural source of complex carbohydrates and antioxidants. Additionally, as they are also gluten-free, they can replace grains as a base food. These valuable dietary staples can be grown in any garden space — in the ground, in large containers, and in sacks and grow bags, growing well with other companion plants. Most root vegetables are easy to grow, and can be added between other favourable plants, or in neat rows in separate beds.
Plan
Once the basic preparation with organic material is completed, an assortment of different root vegetables can be grown with slight variances. While you can grow enough potato for a few months, other root vegetables are best eaten fresh from the garden.
Remember to record your garden activities in your garden diary. Root vegetables do not tolerate fresh manure or heavy soil; well-prepared soil will yield a healthy harvest. Prepare your growing space with leaves, grass and manure, and a scattering of neem, and leave it for a month, to allow it to decompose and enrich the soil. These vegetables thrive in loose crumbly soil, as the plant roots spread freely, supplying air and water that is needed for their growth.
Potato
This will grow through the year in favourable conditions. You can use small seed potatoes or larger ones for planting.
Larger potatoes have a few ‘eyes’ that will regenerate shoots and become an individual plant; they can thus be cut into smaller pieces, each with an eye. After cutting, keep aside in a paper bag, to allow it to grow a protective coat around it. Prepare long trenches of about six inches depth, and mix in compost or manure.
Plant the seed potatoes with eyes facing up, about 12 inches apart, and cover with soil. Each row must be spaced three feet apart. As the shoots appear above ground and become plants, shore up soil against the plant. The plant withers and dies in about 10 weeks, indicating the crop is ready. You can harvest some of the new potatoes, leaving the rest in the ground to cure for longer storage.
Good companions — Beans, corn, cabbage, brinjal, marigold
Beetroot
A vegetable that is best eaten fresh, beetroot can be sown in small batches every 14 days, to get a steady supply of garden-fresh beets. Each beetroot seed is actually a seed cluster that will produce three or four seedlings each. Scatter seeds on pre-prepared soil — in a section of your garden, or in containers. When the seedlings are three inches tall, space them out, so the vegetable can grow. Alternatively, you can plant each seed with adequate spacing — roughly three inches apart — and eliminate this step. Tiny beetroot greens can be harvested as microgreens at this stage. Harvest the vegetables in about three months, using the leaves and stems too.
Good companions — Onion, beans, cabbage family
Carrot
Both orange and blood-red carrots are hardy garden staples, but grow best in cooler weather in full sunlight.
Like beetroots, they can be sown every two weeks to get an uninterrupted supply of fresh vegetables. A range of colourful carrots in purple, white and pink hues, have entered the market and they can be grown successfully following the same growing methods.
Loosen the soil in your prepared garden space, and keep a portion of the soil aside. Mix carrot seeds with an equal amount of dry sand and scatter this mix over the soil. This method helps to spread the fine seeds evenly. Cover the seeds lightly with the reserved soil and water lightly.
A fertilising compost tea can be applied six weeks after sowing. They can be harvested after two or three months in the required size. The carrots can also be stored in the soil, ready to be picked as needed.
Good companions — Peas, lettuce, chives, tomato, parsley, onions
Radish
Both cooking radish (white, long and pungent) and the small salad radish (red with a sweet and peppery flavour) are easy to grow. These are best eaten fresh, and therefore, another root vegetable to add to the list of stagger planting. If you have a taste for the exotic, look for seeds of Japanese daikon, black radish and horseradish, all suitable for hill gardens. Sow the seeds directly into prepared soil, one inch deep and one inch apart; press them gently into the soil and cover with soil and water.
Cooking and salad radish are ready to harvest in a month, but do not pick them all together; take just what you need each day.
Good companions — Lettuce, spinach, cucumber, beans, peas, nasturtiums, squash
Sweet potato
The delicious vegetable is an amiable companion as its name indicates, and comes with a bonus, as the dense foliage makes it an attractive houseplant.
It is one of the easiest root vegetables to grow in your kitchen garden, needing just moist, well-aerated soil and sunlight. They grow from slips — sections of an older sweet potato — that are used to propagate new plants.
Plant them 12-15 inches apart on eight-inch raised ridges in rows or large circles. No further care is needed till harvest. In about two months, gently dig around the roots to remove the tubers. Let them dry on the ground for half a day, rub off the dirt and store in baskets.
Good companions — to most plants
Turnip
— Another steady producer, turnips can be planted at two-week intervals to get fresh vegetables through the year. Loosen the pre-prepared soil and sow the seeds, either in neat rows or patches in your mixed garden bed.
For direct sowing, ensure a depth of half an inch, four inches apart. If you are scattering, the seedlings should be thinned out to these dimensions when they are three inches high. Water immediately and leave to germinate. In about two months, loosen the soil at the base to gauge the size of the turnips; harvest as needed daily or store away in a cool dry space.
Good companions —
Peas, carrot, radish
