Vegetable Gardening Tips And Advice

Planting Your Vegetable Garden

2008-07-08T11:05:00.005-04:00

In my last post I explained how to dig up the lawn and get your vegetable garden laid out and ready for planting. Let's say that we have an area about ten feet wide and twenty five feet long with five rows for planting. That is plenty of room for planting various assorted vegetables. Decide what you want to plant and make sure that they will grow during that time of year. You can find all of the information by going to your local garden supply store and reading the seed packets. If they are selling tomato plants then they are in season. Same with collard green plants, egg plant and peppers. If they are selling them that time of year then they are in season. Tropical plants usually grow all year long.
You have three choices. Seeds, plants and bulbs for onions and garlic. You can grow peanuts by buying a bag of raw peanuts from the super market, shelling and removing the outer membrane and planting. Do not use cooked or salted peanuts. They will not grow. It would be even better if you can find shelled raw peanuts.
Let's say that you want to plant bush bean seeds. Here is how you will prepare the row. Make sure that the hill is solid and not falling apart from recent rain. Take your hoe, and with the corner of the hoe make a trench about 1 1/2 to 2 inches deep at the apex or very top of the hill going the whole length of the row. Drop the seeds into the trench as directed by the seed packet. Once the seeds are in the trench, cover and gently pat the soil down. The seeds are planted.
You can mix seeds, plants and bulbs if you prefer. If you are using plants, plant them far enough apart to separate when they mature. Take the plant out of the cup and try not to let the root ball fall apart, if it does that's okay but it's easier to plant when it is intact. Scoop out enough soil from the top of the row for the root ball to fit into. Don't dig any deeper, we don't want to completely bury the root ball, and do not cover the whole top. Pat the sides in to secure. If you are planting onion bulbs or garlic simply make a hole about 1 1/2 inch deep at the top of the row with your finger, drop the bulb in, cover and gently pat.
Once everything is planted it's time to water. Run your garden hose in the gully or irrigation system between the rows until saturated. Use this method of watering for the first few days until things start to take root. You can sprinkle water on top of the seeds but don't over do it. We don't want them to wash away. Once the vegetable garden begins to mature you can use both methods of watering. Just be careful in the beginning. Of course, it's not just vegetables you should be growing. Growing A Herb Garden would be a great addition too.

Building A Home Vegetable Garden

2008-07-02T18:41:00.011-04:00

Everybody likes fresh vegetables straight from the garden so that thay can prepare nutritious vegetable recipes, but most of us don't want to do the work to start and maintain a vegetable garden. Some don't even know how to make a garden. The hardest part is digging up the fresh ground in your lawn grass but it has to be done. A garden tiller is a great tool but it can be awkward to use and separating the sod from the soil still requires manual labor. So there is no way around it. It's still work.
Before starting your vegetable garden, consider the time of year it is. Consider the time of year it will be when your vegetable garden is ready to harvest. A good time almost anywhere is mid-spring to plant and/or mid to late summer for a fall vegetable garden. This way we can avoid the winter freeze at harvest time. Think about what you want to plant. Can it grow in the summer? can it grow in the fall? Go to a store that sells gardening products in your local area and ask what grows at what time of the year. If you can't find a gardening expert then go to the seed section and read the seed envelopes. They have all of the information.
Once you know what your going to grow, stake out your garden in your yard. Figure out how large or small you want it to be. Don't over estimate because you don't want to dig up more of your lawn than you have to. If you don't have a garden tiller you can rent one at a garden equipment or garden supply store. Home improvement stores even rent tillers. You will only need it for one day so it should be inexpensive.
As I said earlier, tilling can be awkward. You don't need an over sized machine especially if you have never used one before. Let's start digging up the lawn. The garden should be rectangular in shape with rows or hills running lengthwise. Start the tiller at the estimated first row and till the whole length of the garden. Turn around and till the second row back in the direction that you started. Repeat this until the whole garden is tilled. Shut the tiller down and put it aside. Time to get on your hands and knees. Take a stiff rake and shake the large pieces of sod out of the garden. Shake the soil out back into the garden and discard the grass. Go through the soil shaking and discarding any grass that you find. You won't be able to find every speck of grass, but the more that you remove the less likely it will be to grow back. Start up the tiller and till the whole garden again. It will be easier this time with the sod removed. If you feel good about it, till it again. The more times that you run the tiller through, the softer the soil becomes.
The hard work is done. Now you have a rectangular patch of dirt in your yard. Let's turn it into a vegetable garden. If you choose to use fertilizer this would be a good time to get it into the soil. Do not over fertilize. I take a plastic cup, fill it with fertilizer and lightly sprinkle it on top of the soil. Imagine the vegetable garden as a giant plate of food and the fertilizer as salt. You are only sprinkling salt on the food. No more no less. Of course you can always read the fertilizer bag for ratio directions. Take your stiff rake and work the fertilizer into the soil. Mix it up as good as you can.
By now you should know how many rows you're going to have. Use the same stiff rake and start building your rows or hills. Once you have the rows done take a break. Take the tiller back to the gardening equipment store. You don't need it anymore. It's time to get your garden good and wet. Saturate it because the water will only soak in. You can buy a stand up sprinkler at the garden products store that connects to a garden hose. Put it in the center of the garden and let it go. After the garden is well saturated, take your garden hose and let the water flow freely between each row. Using a hoe to level out the spots where the water stops or dams up between the rows so that it flows from one end to the other creating an irrigation system. If you do this right the first time you will have no problem with irrigation when the garden begins to fill up with vegetation. You are ready to start planting your home vegetable garden. A vegetable garden can be as simple or as complex as you like. Some people who are doing major landscape gardening choose to buy Landscape Design Software to make things easier for them.

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2008-07-01T12:49:00.006-04:00

Updated April 2009
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