Tip of the Week: Gardening for the Grill

Posted in Gardening Tips on June 14 2010, by Sonia Uyterhoeven

Sonia Uyterhoeven is Gardener for Public Education. Join her each weekend for home gardening demonstrations on a variety of topics.

Every year around Memorial Day weekend or shortly thereafter we observe the ritual of rooting through our kitchen drawers on a mission to find and inspect the condition of our barbeque paraphernalia. We locate the barbeque fork, the long-handled tongs, the broad spatula, and the tattered basting brush.

For gardeners the ritual starts well before Memorial Day, and by the end of May or early June preparations for the seasonal grilling fests are in full motion. Garlic was lovingly planted in the fall, perennial herbs were groomed in mid-April, and annual herbs and vegetables were started from seed indoors around February or March and popped into the ground as transplants starting in April and running into June.

If you’ll be spending weekends and evenings standing over the grill, you will want to grow plants that aid in this culinary endeavor. Sometimes the choices are easy. Sometimes the choices are easy. Gilbertie’s Herb Gardens has come out with a line of herbs that were destined for marinades and skewers. (Herb plants from Gilbertie’s are sold at Shop in the Garden).

On the front line is the rosemary with the cultivar name ‘Barbeque’. It is a handsome, deep-green, upright, and incredibly tasty specimen. Other good options are ‘Sal’s choice’ (named after the owner) and ‘Tuscan Blue’. Oregano is also an essential herb for the grill. I grew a cultivar named ‘Hot and Spicy’ last year whose kick was phenomenal.

Thyme is another culinary staple in my household. English thyme is easy to grow and is always tasty. French thyme, with its robust flavor, is another good option, although it may not be as hardy in your garden.

Along with the meat we place on the grill, which vegetables will find there way onto the inferno? Some vegetables fit nicely on a skewer, while others can stand on their own. On my personal list are cherry tomatoes, onions, eggplants, peppers, and summer squashes.

Cherry tomatoes slide on skewers perfectly and are so sweet that they can be eaten like candy. Burpee Seed Company has come out with a new cherry tomato this year called ‘Cherries Jubilee’. Johnny’s Select Seeds is promoting an exotic, luscious-looking black cherry tomato appropriately named ‘Black Cherry’.

There is a plethora of excellent cherries to choose from. In the world of heirlooms, Seed Savers Exchange offers a red ‘Reisentraube’, which literally translates to “giant bunch of grapes,” and a yellow ‘Blondekopfchen’, or “little blonde girl.” Some easy to find and popular F1 hybrids include the tangerine-colored ‘Sungold’, with its intense flavor, and ‘Sweet Million’.

I plant my tomatoes after the last frost date, May 15. I plant the transplants deeper than they are planted in the pot, burying part of the stem so that more roots will form. Cherry tomatoes grow beautifully climbing up trellises or staked. They are easy to grow, and by the end of July I will have more cherry tomatoes than I know what to do with.

Eggplants and peppers go in the ground at the end of May once the soil is nice and warm. They provide wonderful options for the grill. My onions were planted earlier in April as small transplants, and the summer squashes were planted from seed in early May, just ahead of the other warm season crops.

If you would like to hear about more options for your grill garden or good cultivars to choose from, join me for my Home Gardening Demonstration Gardening for the Grill this Saturday and Sunday during the Get Out and Grill Festival Weekend, which opens The Edible Garden.