Why bother growing your own vegetables when it’s easier to buy them at the store? The simple answer is that the flavor of ultra-fresh vegetables is incomparable and you can be sure that they have been grown organically and not sprayed with synthetic pesticides.
Another reason: if you grow from seed, you have access to all the best, latest, and more unusual varieties. And you can save money by growing vegetables like cherry tomatoes, sugar snap peas, and filet beans, that are relatively expensive to buy.
You don’t even need a great deal of space for vegetables – you can grow them in pots on the patio or plant them among flowers in the border. But once you’ve tasted the fruits of your labors. You’ll probably want a larger plot!
Growing success
Garden centers sell only a limited range of vegetable transplants, but if you want the best crops, growing from seed is the best option. Free seed catalogs, advertised in newspapers and gardening magazines, are filled with information.
Select seed varieties according to your family’s tastes – there’s no sense growing a beautiful eggplant; for example, if no one will eat it. And take the yields into account: you may want to raise only one type of a heavy producer like zucchini.
To ensure success, choose a sunny, sheltered spot, and if the soil is poor, improve it by digging in plenty of well-rotted manure. In future years, this manure can be applied as a 3-4 in/7.5-10cm mulch in fall – the worms will do the digging for you by taking it into the soil. In pots and tubs, use a multipurpose soil mix or mix your own.
Once they’re growing vigorously, it’s important to keep the vegetable’s weeds free and well watered during dry spells. Keep an eye out for pests and diseases too-they shouldn’t become a big problem if you deal with them immediately.
Getting the most out of raised beds
This is a great way to grow vegetables, offering numerous advantages over traditional methods of vegetable gardening. Instead of being grown in widely spaced rows in a big plot, the vegetables are densely planted in a narrow bed, usually just 4 ft/1.2m wide. All the sowing, planting, weeding, and harvesting can be done from the side, without ever having to walk on the soil or bend excessively.
Here are some of the benefits:
- The soil stays loose.
- The crop yield is higher than in traditional gardens because the plants are spread closer together.
- Fewer weeds because they’re smothered out by densely planted crops.
- Food and water are not wasted on the spaces between rows.
- The beds are easier to manage than large plots – great for beginners, children, and busy gardeners.
- It’s an ideal way of compensating for poor soil because you can build up a good fertile bed on top of it.
A raised bed should be no more than 4 ft/1.2m wide, so that you can easily reach the middle from either side, but it can be any length you like. Clear the ground of weeds and dig it over thoroughly, adding plenty of organic matter such as well-rotted manure or homemade compost. Don’t walk on the soil at all after it has been dug.
Edge the bed with wooden boards, bricks, or cement blocks – this keeps it looking neat, keeps the soil in, and hopefully, helps discourage children and pets from running through it.
Plants are set in short rows running across the bed. Because you have created high soil fertility with all the organic matter, plants are grown closer together than usual – in staggered rows that maximize the available space. When the plants are mature, they should just touch their neighbors, so that no soil is visible. Add more organic matter to the raised bed every fall, and each year the soil will become more fertile and even more productive.
If you’re a beginner at vegetable gardening, start with one small bed and see how it goes. We think you’ll be amazed by the results.
Image: by Tobyotter
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