How to Grow Miniature Vegetables

Prepare the soil in the vegetable garden the same way you prepare it for growing full-size varieties of vegetables. Add at least 1 inch each of compost and peat moss to the surface of the soil. Incorporate them into the garden bed by turning the soil over with a garden spade or tilling with a rototiller.

Choose varieties of vegetables bred to produce small, mature fruits and/or varieties that produce smaller fruits when grown closer together. Many seed catalogs have specific sections devoted just to miniatures.

Plant seeds or transplants of varieties that naturally produce smaller fruits following the timetable on the individual seed packets or care stick. Lettuce, spinach and root crops like radishes, carrots and turnips, prefer cool weather and should be planted in early spring. Plant corn, squash, tomatoes, melon, eggplant and peppers in early summer, after the soil has warmed up and all danger of frost has passed.

Plant seeds or transplants closer together if planting varieties of full-size vegetables that grow smaller at maturity if the plants are grown close together. As a general guide, plant them about 30 to 40 percent closer than recommended on the seed package or care stick.

Sow seeds of both types of miniature vegetables in blocks or wide rows to increase yield. Wide rows are strips of seeds sown by broadcasting the seeds over a wide row about 6 to 12 inches wide, rather than sowing one row of seeds in a straight line from one edge of the garden to the other.

Monitor the growth of miniature vegetables daily. Because it is necessary to pick the vegetables while quite small, they mature quickly and can just as quickly become overripe or too large to be considered miniature, depending on the variety.