Starting A Vegetable Garden
Whether you have a large backyard, an apartment balcony, or a small yard, growing your own food can be a rewarding and delicious experience. But it’s important to start off right.
Vegetables thrive in well-draining soil that’s rich in nutrients and full of organic matter. So, before planting, prepare your soil with a healthy dose of nutrient-rich compost.
Gardening is a fun hobby that provides endless hours of enjoyment and serenity for individuals who love growing their own food.
There are a variety of steps gardeners must take, however.
This will help them build a sustainable patch and optimize the growth of their vegetables by the time they harvest.
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Read the tips below to find out how to build a long-lasting garden with various vegetable crops.
- Organize your garden
- Get to know the soil
- Be careful when planting
- Decide what you want to grow
- Feed and water your plants
- Keep an eye on weeds
- Protect the plants against diseases and bugs
- Be sure to prune
- Prepare for animals
- Find time to enjoy your garden
1. Organize your garden
The first step of a successful garden is sitting down and planning out how you want your garden to look, where you want to grow it and what kind of vegetables you want to harvest.
Sometimes gardens overwhelm themselves with a hodgepodge of vegetables that don’t necessarily match together or suit their gardening preferences.
It takes time to write down and structure your garden so that it looks the way you want throughout the different seasons and grows vegetables you actually look forward to eating.
Growing your own vegetables can be incredibility rewarding and an exciting hobby. (Jeffrey Greenberg / Universal Images Group via Getty Images / File)
Moreover, the location you decide on should take into account the amount of sunlight it gets on a daily basis because most vegetables tend to grow best the more sunlight they receive, such as melons, peppers, tomatoes and cucumbers. You do not want to pick a spot with a lot of trees that will block out direct sunlight, and their roots will deprive your vegetables of their soil water.
2. Get to know the soil
One of the most important factors for your vegetable garden is the type and quality of the soil it will grow in. Poor soil is often cheaper and more cost-efficient for gardeners, but it will often make it difficult for roots to grow. Soil that is too sandy will dry fast in a short time, making it difficult for the plants to absorb the water, and other soil will be too nutritionally poor for some vegetables.
Therefore, gardeners should purchase soil test kits to see what fertilizer is necessary to improve the quality of the soil and improve it by adding different organic matter.
3. Be careful when planting
Gardeners who have never organized and started their own gardens before should research and watch videos online and reach out to friends with more experience in the process of planting vegetables.
If vegetable seeds are not planted deep enough or properly, their optimal growth will be shortened or stunted for many months, causing a delay in the harvest. Plants can die if they are planted too deep or if they are too close to the surface, then their roots will not be able to grow.
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4. Decide what you want to grow
Discovering the right seed variety for certain vegetables that fit your needs is difficult because it requires experience and time to experiment with different seed brands and growth methods.
Planning out your garden before getting started can help save you from a lot of headaches and uncertainty down the road. (iStock)
Some tomatoes or cucumber seeds vary in size, yield and time it takes to harvest based on the quality of the seed and how it was bred or selected by the company. Take time to research the best brands to purchase to make the harvesting process easier and to grow the tastiest vegetables.
5. Feed and water your plants
It’s a simple rule of thumb, but developing a schedule to water and feed your plants is essential for their growth and life. When you water your plants, always make sure to prioritize the root ball instead of the plant leaves because the roots need to absorb the water directly in order to grow.
You should also soak the roots of the plants once or twice a week rather than in small sessions of water every day. Moreover, in spring and summer, you should feed your plant every couple of days.
6. Keep an eye on weeds
Weeds create some of the most disastrous conditions for plants and can lead to death if the gardener does not properly control them. They take away moisture and nutrients that are necessary for the vegetables to grow. You should keep an eye on weeds on a daily basis as the plants start to emerge from the ground and even in the early seeding process.
To prevent weeds in a larger garden, you could also create a layer of mulch around your plants to block them from invading the garden.
Nearly all gardens are affected by routine plant diseases and pests such as slugs and snails that will destroy the vegetable and stall the growth of the garden. However, you should spray your garden with the correct and safe pesticide if you notice a disease forming on some of the plants. In addition, you should monitor and control the pest population growing around your vegetables.
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To protect your vegetables from deer and other wildlife, you should install fencing or a barrier around the perimeter of your garden. (Lauren A. Little / MediaNews Group / Reading Eagle via Getty Images / File)
8. Be sure to prune
Pruning is an essential task to which a gardener must commit when overseeing a large number of plants. Pruning helps your plant and fruit grow more efficiently for harvest. Knowing when to prune your plants properly and in what shape is one of the first things all gardeners should research.
9. Prepare for animals
Another threat to everyday gardens is animals animals, such as dogs, groundhogs, rabbits or deer, who enjoy munching off your plants as they grow close to harvest. These animals will always annoy gardeners, but standard fencing around the garden’s perimeter near the plants should provide the necessary protection.
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10. Find time to enjoy your garden
Building and overseeing a garden is a lot of work and takes an individual’s discipline and time. However, the reward and achievement you feel from growing your own food make all the effort worthwhile. Therefore, you should always find time to enjoy and reflect in your garden – when you’re not busy keeping out hungry deer.
Source: foxnews.com
