vegetable gardening

Last week, I provided you with basic information on getting a vegetable garden started, including site selection and preparing the soil for planting. This week, we will move on to planting and maintaining the garden.

We plant vegetables most commonly either by using seeds or transplants. Which we choose depends largely on the vegetable. There is a strong trend these days for gardeners to pick up transplants of whatever vegetables they want to grow. But many popular vegetables are easily grown from seeds planted directly into the garden where they will grow — notably the legume vegetables and cucurbits.

Seeds

Legume vegetables for planting during the warm season include snap beans (green, purple, yellow and filet), Romano beans (large, flat pods), dry shelling beans (red beans, pinto beans, black beans), lima beans, butter beans, edamame (edible soybeans), Southern peas (black-eyed peas, crowders, cream peas) and yardlong beans.

The seeds of these vegetables are large, germinate quickly and are easy to plant directly into the garden where they will grow. There are bush types and vining types in this group of vegetables. Vining types will need to be planted next to trellises for them to climb on.

The cucurbits include cucumbers, squash (summer and winter squash are both grown during the warm season), pumpkins, gourds (cucuzza and luffa both produce edible fruit), cantaloupes, melons and watermelons. Gourds and cucumbers are grown on trellises.

Other warm-season vegetables generally planted by direct seeding include okra and corn.

Transplants

Vegetables that are best planted from transplants this time of the year include tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, mirliton (plant entire, sprouted fruit), Swiss chard and most herbs.

Learn how to space them

When planting any vegetables, either from seeds or transplants, proper spacing is critical. Gardeners often don’t appreciate how large vegetable plants will grow to be when planting young transplants or seeing the small seedlings that grow from seeds planted directly in the garden. There is also the idea that the more plants you grow in an area the more harvest you will get.

But vegetables spaced too close together compete with one another, and this actually reduces production. And crowded vegetables are likely to have more insect and disease problems. Check the labels of transplants and the packets that seeds come in for proper spacing recommendations or look them up online and make sure you space your vegetables properly.

Be sure to mulch

Mulch is a material applied to cover the soil surface, and you should always mulch your vegetable beds. We most often use organic mulches, such as leaves, dried grass clippings, pine straw and newspaper, in home gardens.

Organic mulches help prevent weeds, keep the soil from packing down, moderate soil temperature and conserve moisture. They can also help prevent some diseases, such as buckeye rot of tomatoes. When direct seeding, do not cover the newly seeded area of the bed with mulch until the seeds come up and have grown to be several inches tall.

As soon as you have planted transplants, apply an inch or two of leaves, grass clippings or pine straw. If transplants are small, pull the mulch slightly away from the transplants until they have grown larger.

Watering the right way

Proper watering is a critical part of home vegetable gardening. Newly seeded beds and newly planted transplants will require careful monitoring and frequent watering until the vegetable plants are well-established and growing. After that, it is a matter of watching the weather (temperature and amount of rainfall), checking the soil (to see how damp or dry it is) and looking at the vegetables (slight wilting generally indicates a need to water).

It is better to water thoroughly and deeply, occasionally rather than lightly, frequently. Vegetables in beds are generally best watered slowly over time with sprinklers, soaker hoses or drip irrigation rather than by hand. For vegetables in containers, watering by hand is fine — apply water until it runs out of the drainage holes.

To minimize disease problems, water your vegetables in a way that avoids wetting the foliage, such as drip irrigation or soaker hoses.

Weeds be gone

One of the challenges of growing vegetables is keeping the garden weeded through the intense heat of summer. Even with mulches, weeds will still need to be dealt with. Physical control by hand pulling or hoeing is the typical method.

Make a commitment from the very beginning to deal with weeds frequently — every few days as needed. Once weeds are allowed to get out of hand, it’s tremendously difficult to get things back under control.

Controlling the myriad insect and disease problems that affect vegetables is far too large a topic for here. But rest assured that you will have to deal with them if you grow vegetables. When symptoms first appear, you must properly diagnose the problem and choose the best and safest method of control. Contact your parish LSU AgCenter Extension office for help . Prompt action when pest problems arise is almost always critical.

The harvest

Finally, the reward for all your money, time and hard work is the harvest of fresh, quality vegetables you get from your garden. Make sure you are aware of how to properly harvest the vegetables you choose to grow. Allowing vegetables to go past their prime and lose quality is a real pity after all the work.

Successfully growing vegetables is not a matter of just buying a few plants, sticking them in the ground, sitting back and waiting for the harvest. It takes learning how to properly grow vegetables here, time, effort and plenty of sweat. But if you are willing to do it, the joy and satisfaction of providing fresh, home-grown vegetables to your family table and sharing them with friends is worth every bit of effort it takes.

Now is a great time for home gardeners to plant vegetables. If you have an existing vegetable garden, you should begin to plant warm-season vegetables now. If you are new to home vegetable gardens, here are some tips on how to get started.

SITE SELECTION: This is critical to success. The site should receive a minimum of six hours of direct sunlight. Full or all-day sun is preferable. That doesn’t mean you can’t plant a vegetable garden in a spot that only gets four or five hours of sun. But you must accept that vegetable plants that do not receive sufficient light will not be as productive.

The site must also be well-drained. Low-lying areas that hold water after it rains are not suitable. To improve drainage, we plant vegetables in raised rows or raised beds. Irrigation will occasionally be needed, so locate the garden near a water source.

WHAT ARE YOU HUNGRY FOR?: Next, decide what you want to grow. Plan to grow what you and your family like to eat. How much of a particular vegetable you plant depends on family preferences, available space and the productivity of a crop.

One or two jalapeño pepper plants will likely produce all the spicy peppers you need. One bush green bean plant, however, will only produce a few handfuls of green beans — it takes many bean plants to to have a decent harvest.

Preparing the garden bed

There are many variations when it comes to gardening in the ground, including traditional raised garden rows, wide raised garden rows and raised beds. Start relatively small. You should gain some experience before creating a large garden.

Wide raised garden rows are more productive than traditional garden rows.

DIG AND SPREAD: After removing any existing unwanted vegetation (such as lawn grass), the first step is tilling up the garden area to a depth of about 8 inches. Next, the rows and walkways are laid out. The rows are generally about 3 to 4 feet wide and walkways about a foot wide (basically, make the beds as wide as you can comfortably stand or squat in the walkway and reach into the middle of the row to plant, mulch weed and harvest).

Using a shovel or hoe, move soil out of the walkways up into the row area to form the raised rows. Use a rake to flatten the top to a width of 3 or 4 feet.

ADD ORGANICS: Next, the wide row is prepared for planting by spreading a 2- to 4-inch layer of organic matter over the soil. Homemade compost is free and an ideal amendment to improve the soil. If that is not available, use composted stable sweepings, or purchase bags of compost, bagged cow manure or bags of composted soil conditioner products.

Do not scrimp on this. Homegrown vegetables produce far better in soils enriched with generous amounts of organic matter. Organic matter improves the soil structure and encourages strong, healthy root systems. Organic matter also adds mineral nutrients to the soil and encourages beneficial microorganisms.

FERTILIZE: Additional nutrients are generally provided to the soil by applying some fertilizer. We expect our vegetable plants to live up their maximum potential and produce as much as possible. For this to happen, mineral nutrient levels, such as nitrogen, phosphorous, potassium, need to be at optimal levels.

Fertilizers supplement the mineral nutrients naturally present in the soil. To have a clear idea of what the mineral levels are, have your soil tested through your local parish LSU AgCenter office.

If you soil is especially low in any of the major nutrients, choose fertilizers, whether commercial or organic, that provide those nutrients. Generally speaking, soils on the south shore are typically high in phosphorous, so gardeners can choose fertilizers with an analysis that has a higher first number, lower second number and third number somewhere in between.

Gardeners on the northshore, where soils are typically less fertile, may choose to use a fertilizer with an analysis that has three numbers that are about the same. You do not need a different fertilizer for each different vegetable. Gardeners on the northshore may also need to apply lime.

Scatter the fertilizer over the organic matter and thoroughly incorporate everything into the raised row and rake the top smooth. After the organic matter and fertilizer are incorporated into the raised rows they will be even higher. The height of the rows is important as it ensures proper drainage during heavy rains.

Creating raised beds

You may also choose to grow your vegetables in 12-inch-high, 3- to 4-foot-wide raised beds. Sides enclosing the soil are constructed of 2-by-12 boards, cinder blocks, landscape timbers or other materials, and filled with purchased garden soil or topsoil.

There are a variety of advantages to raised-bed gardening. Raised beds drain faster than typical garden beds due to their height — important during periods of heavy rain. Overall, they are easier to maintain than traditional in-ground gardens. Raised-bed gardens are also attractive. As a result, vegetable gardening in raised beds is becoming increasingly popular. Fertilize these beds as you would in-ground gardens.

There is so much more to say, so next week I’ll continue to discuss getting started with growing vegetables — including planting, mulching and maintenance.