Vegetable Gardening Preperation

Tuesday, July 8th, 2008 at 4:37 pm

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Vegetables (and some fruit) for sale on a stre...

It seems that vegetable gardening is becoming almost as popular as heading to the grocery store for produce. Vegetable gardening can produce vegetables that are usually cheaper than store bought, and vegetables from a home vegetable garden definitely taste better by far as well as to eleviate a bit of the pain caused by buying produce.

Your vegetable gardening isn’t really much different than growing an herb garden in your backyard or having a flower garden and if the proper steps are taken and the plants are give the proper care they will flourish and produce very tasty vegetables. Probably the best tasting hobby I have.

Once we decided to start our own backyard garden we had to decide what size of garden we wanted to plant. Next we made a decision as to where we wanted our new garden.

The location for our garden had to have good drainage, good air flow, and good, deep soil. Our garden would also need as much sunlight as possible.

Keeping Critters Out

The fact that a vegetable garden is so tasty causes a few problems with animals that like a treat now and again and again and again. Rabbits, deer are the bigger culprits so putting up a fence can solve this problem, just remember deer can just a 5 foot fence from a complete standstill so make sure your fence is high enough to keep out the deer and the spaces in the fence can keep out rabbits.

If you find that you have mice, moles or other rodents you may find that you will need to trap them.

Proper Preparation

Good soil is vital to a good garden crop so before planting be sure to mix up the soil so that it gets turned over and add organic matter to make it more productive. Turning the soil also messes with the weed that have started growing by burying them.

The organic material you add to the soil will release nitrogen, minerals, and other nutrients plants need to thrive.

We have a small composter, about 4 feet high and 3 feet wide. This way we get to recycle some of what we would normally just put in the garbage. It takes a while but once your composter starts doing its job you will see brand new dirt. It’s pretty cool to see this happen with the scraps you put in.

While the kind and amount of fertilizer used depends on the soil and types of plants, there are some plants that have specific needs; leafy plants, like cabbage, spinach, and lettuce usually grow better with more nitrogen, while root crops like potatoes, beets, turnips, and carrots require more potash. Tomatoes and beans use less fertilizer, while plants like onions, celery, and potatoes need a larger amount.

Vegetable Garden Arrangement

It is really important how you place your vegetables in your garden. Of course there are no set plans that work for every situation but keep in mind that you want your plants to have all the sunlight they need so knowing which are the highest plants and which are the smallest will help you in planning their location.

Also keep the veggies that need limited space together. An example would be radishes, lettuce, beets, and spinach.

Those vegetables that need more room can go together, such as corn, pumpkins, and potatoes.

There was a rule on the farm where I was raised. No planting vegetables before June 10th as this seemed to be the time when it was least likely to get destroyed by frost.

My foster dad would do any planting that needed to be done earlier than June indoors. Then once the threat of frost had passed out they would go into the garden.

After you are finished planting, make sure your vegetables receive the appropriate amount of water, which depends on the type of plant. Most plants will need the equivalent to about an inch of water per week.

Weeds must be controlled in vegetable gardening, this was the job of we kids on our farm, because they will take up water, light, and nutrients meant for the vegetables and they often bring disease and insects to the garden. You can get rid of weeds by cultivation or mulching. To protect against disease and insects you can buy seeds that are disease resistant or use controlled chemicals.

I started vegetable gardening because we can actually taste the fruits of your labor. Mmmm. Vegetable gardening is not that expensive to start and the taste of home grown veggies definitely beat out that of supermarket vegetables. Your vegetable gardening days will be full of produce if you take the proper precautions when planting and continue maintenance of your garden.