Imagine, for a moment, sweet strawberries,
juicy tomatoes, tasty peppers and fresh spinach, all directly from your
garden. The popularity of vegetable gardening has exploded in recent
years, as gardeners and soon-to-be-gardeners get reacquainted with
fresh, local and organic produce.
Personally, I was tired of buying produce that was low on flavor and
high on cost. I'm certain that those store-bought tomatoes spent their
last month on a slow boat from Chile or Argentina, because they now
taste like cardboard. With your own garden, you can go from garden to
table in minutes. There's no comparison to the store-bought vegetables
that have spent their last three to six weeks on a truck or in a cold
storage locker.Starting your own vegetable garden is easy. With some simple-to-follow help and a little planning, you're nearly guaranteed success. The first great thing about vegetable gardening is that it's fun. It does require some physical labor, but remember that the reward is freshly harvested, flavorful, high-quality and locally grown produce for you and your family. Take the time to plan your new garden. If you are new to gardening, then start small. An 8-by-12-foot garden can yield an astonishing variety of produce if planted correctly. Or, you can plant pocket gardens among your other existing beds.
Where to Start
Your vegetable garden can be anywhere with sunlight, water, soil and good drainage. Think about planting along a driveway, along a curb strip, in a side yard, by an entry or along a fence. Pick a location that gets at least six hours of direct sun a day. Vegetables like beans, tomatoes, peppers, squash, eggplant and cucumbers need those six hours to prosper. Other vegetables can make do with three to four hours and still produce. However, more is better when it comes to sunlight and vegetables. Plan your rows to run from east to west for best results.An inexpensive pad of quarter-inch graph paper can help you plan and organize your new garden. Deciding on paper where to place each vegetable now is much easier than digging up the garden to move plants as your garden takes shape later.
You can grow your garden in the ground, in raised beds or in containers. You will want to loosen the soil for in-the-ground gardens and raised-bed gardens. You can choose to do this by hand or you can rent a rototiller to do the work for you. They make quick work of stubborn soil.
Once the soil is loosened, mix in high-quality topsoil, compost and any amendments needed to improve your soil. One part compost to four parts soil seems to work the best. In places where the soil is of decomposed granite, increase the amount of organic material, compost and topsoil.
For container gardens, plant with potting mix instead of soil. Potting mixes are engineered to drain well, stay loose and not become compacted. The proper mix will be dense enough to anchor roots securely but light enough to handle easily in large containers. Potting mixes purchased from most commercial sources are sterile, minimizing the danger of plant disease and insect infestation.
When and What to Plant
In milder climate zones, you can grow vegetables nearly year round. In very cold climates, however, it's best to wait until a week or two before the final frost. Talk to your local experts at nursery or botanical centers for recommendations on which vegetable varieties are best grown from seed or from transplants for your area and climate zone.Cold season crops for your garden include arugula, beets, fava beans, broccoli, cabbage, carrots, endive, garlic, lettuce, onions, parsnips, peas, radishes and spinach. Warm season crops for your garden include green beans, corn, cucumbers, melons, eggplant, peppers, summer squash and tomatoes. Plant what you like, but remember that it's fun to sample a few new vegetables each season. I've discovered delightful new tastes by trying new vegetables and exotic greens.
Go Vertical for More Space
Adding arbors and trellises to the north side of your garden is an easy way to provide more growing space without blocking the sunlight. Squash, nasturtiums and pole beans are natural climbers. Look for arbors and trellises at nurseries, home centers and by mail order in redwood, bamboo and steel. A wire cage can be easily made from 5- or 6-foot-wide concrete reinforcing wire. Rolled into two foot cylinders, it makes a great vertical support for tomatoes, squash or beans.Feed Your Garden
Choose a fertilizer formulated for vegetables. Fertilizer labels state the percentage by weight that the product contains of the three macronutrients: nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P) and potassium (K), listed in that order. A fertilizer labeled 10-3-1 contains 10 percent nitrogen, 3 percent phosphorus and 1 percent potassium. This example is a complete fertilizer. Balanced fertilizers are composed of equal parts of each macronutrient, such as a 5-5-5 product. An incomplete fertilizer has only one or two of the nutrients. These are useful when you want to give crops a supplemental feeding of nitrogen after planting.How often do you feed your garden? If you dug fertilizer into the soil when preparing the vegetable bed, then that may be sufficient for asparagus, berries and grapes. But vegetables like tomatoes and corn, which require long growing seasons, will need more. Read the plant tags or talk to your nursery.
Vegetable gardening is fun for the entire family. Have a discovery trip to your local nursery to see which varieties are growing this month. Give the kids a garden row and encourage them to plant their favorite vegetables there. Harvest baby greens to give the kids an early reward for their garden project. Get creative, experiment and, most of all, have fun.