Tired of high grocery store produce prices and of vegetables that don’t taste like you think they should? Maybe it’s time to consider growing your own vegetable garden. It isn’t hard to get started, and once you see how much fun it is to pick your own delicious crops you will be encouraged to continue. Here are some basic steps to beginning your garden.
First, study your yard to pick the best spot for a garden. Most crops need full sunlight and access to irrigation when necessary. Add an outdoor water faucet for those dry spells. Avoid locating a garden on the north side of your house unless the area is big enough to avoid the shadow cast by the house. West and south exposures give the maximum of sunlight, a good idea for climates with short summer growing seasons. In hot climates, an east exposure with mostly morning sun that avoids the intense afternoon heat may be best.
Then decide what kinds of plants you will grow in different areas of your proposed garden. Measure the gardening space with a tape measure and then translate those meaasurements to gridded paper or graph paper to have an accurate scaled-down version to plan your garden. Consult your state’s cooperative extension service information for your area for suggestions on what crops do well in your particular area. Look at seed catalogues or investigate nurseries that carry starts of plants you are interested in growing. Determine how much growing space each kind of vegetable needs and chart that on your plan. Tomatoes will need more space than eggplants; peas will need trellising and are tall enough to cast a shadow that will affect the light neighboring vegetables will get.
A garden is only as good as its soil. If your soil is heavy or is poor in organic material, amend it first by digging in compost or organic mulch once you have cleared the garden site and spaded up the native soil. Remove any large rocks and any plant roots that remain from the vegetation that was already there. You can also add organic fertilizers such as blood meal or bone meal, following the package instructions.
To begin with, choose vegetables that are easy to grow under most gardening conditions and in most climates, such as lettuce, radishes, tomatoes, and squash. If you have favorite vegetables that you really want to eat, include those even though they might be challenging, because you will learn a lot by raising something you will be motivated to grow. You can either put seeds directly in the ground or buy started plants from local nurseries. Follow the planting plan you drew up.
Become familiar with what the seed leaves and young plants of your chosen crops look like. Keep seed beds moist but not soggy until seeds germinate. Learn what weed seeds look like and control them by hand-pulling or hoeing. Keep your plants watered regularly if natural rainfall does not do this. Fertilize them at regular intervals. Mulch the soil around the plants when the plants get big enough to retain moisture and control weeds. If you are growing plants to harvest fruit rather than leaves such as eggplants, tomatoes, squash, melons or peppers, become familiar with the flower structure and pollination of flowers so you can monitor fruit formation. Inspect your garden plants each week for plant pests and learn about them and their control as they appear.
Now comes the part that is the most rewarding. As your vegetables grow to maturity, pick the lettuce leaves when they are showing best color, size and tenderness. You can just pick the outer leaves, allowing the plant to continue to grow. You have the luxury of picking green tomatoes for fried green tomatoes, or letting them ripen to perfection on the vine. Pick snow peas and eat them right there in the garden. Pick squash when they are only a couple days old while they are tender, sweet and unblemished or let them grow large to make stuffed zucchini. It’s your choice, and it’s all delicious.
As you continue to work in your garden, you will learn so much. Most states have a Master Gardener program in place to help people with their gardening questions, so you can learn even more if you find the Master Gardeners nearest you and let their knowledge help you gain even more experience. Notice which plants did well for you, and which garden locations work best for which crops, so you can refine your planting plans and cultural techniques. Next year’s garden will be even better, and you might find you have become hooked on the yearly cycle that gardening represents.
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