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Vegetable
Gardening Pointers
- Vegetables gardens develop faster
when they get a lot of water and a lot of sunshine, regardless of what you are
growing. Take care to plant your garden in the sunniest place you have in your
yard, and in easy reach of a garden hose.
 Sowing Seeds Randomly
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To plant leafy vegetables similar to lettuce, you can easily scatter the seeds
on top of the soil. Cover the seeds with just enough soil to cover them. Water
the area gently with a sprayer. You can also use a watering can. Avoid washing
them out of their bed by giving them too much water.
Planting Seeds in a Furrow -
Use of a hoe to make a straight furrow in the ground, place a few seeds every
couple of inches along the length of the furrow. Then use a hoe to cover the
furrow back in with earth. Plants are simpler to thin out and weed when they are
in a straight line.
Paper Seed
Strips - You can
purchase the small seeds of particular vegetables like carrots and radishes on
paper strips. You can then stretch the strips out, place it in the furrow, and
cover with soil. It is a lot quicker than planting tiny seeds. As the seeds
grow, the strip will decompose.
Starting Your Plants Indoors
- You can begin your vegetables from
seed indoors by planting them in individual smaller containers, and then
bringing them outside for planting in your garden. Take the plants out of their
containers, and then set the plants in a small hole. Cover the plants root ball
with soil. This method is commonly used in cooler climates that have a shorter
growing period.
Planting Cool Season Vegetables
- The gardening season starts
with the cooler season vegetables. They are the heartier seeds and transplants.
Cool season vegetables are the least at risk to rapid frosts and can in fact
be planted a couple of weeks earlier than the date of the usual final frost in
your location.
General Cool Season
Vegetables Include: -
Swiss Chard
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Radishes
- Carrots
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Broccoli
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Onions
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Lettuce
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Beets
Planting Warm Season Vegetables -
Many
vegetables are vulnerable to the cold; these are know as warm season vegetables
and should not be planted until after the time of the normal final frost.
Arrange to leave space in the garden for warm
season vegetables. Plant them later in the spring.
General Warm Season
Vegetables Include: -
Tomatoes
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Peppers
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Zucchini
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Squash
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Corn
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Beans
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Cucumbers
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Eggplant
If you sow all your corn at one
time, you will wind up reaping more than you can use all at one time. If you are
planting four rows of corn, aim to plant them one row at a time. Leave a week
between each planting to draw out the harvest.
Succession Planting - With
faster growing vegetables like radishes, broccoli, and lettuce, you can get at
least two, or three crops from the same area of your vegetable garden. Watch the
development of the first crop and harvest that when it is full-grown. Rid
yourself of the remains of that planting and plant new seeds in the same area.
Maintaining Vegetables
- So
long as your garden gets a sufficient amount of sunshine all you have to do is
make certain your vegetables get roughly an inch of water each week.
To keep your soil reasonably cool and moist,
and to control weeds, you should mulch between your plant rows. Mulch with a
layer of newspaper covered with grass clippings. This will also keep you from
stirring up soil when you go to work in your garden.
 Tomatoes
do well if you use a low-nitrogen mix high in phosphorus and potassium, which
promotes flower and fruit production. Work a small quantity into the soil close
to the root of the plant. Corn develops quicker with a few treatments of a
high-nitrogen fertilizer. Fertilizer when the plant is roughly a foot tall and
then again when the plant is about two feet tall.
Harvesting Vegetables
- Harvesting
a huge garden can turn into a nightmare if you do not keep an eye on it,
particularly in during a thriving growing season.
It is a good idea at the time of planting to make up
an anticipated harvest timetable based on each vegetable's expected harvest
date, located on the seed package.
Make it a goal to get into the garden at the correct
times and pick the ripe vegetables. If not, they can rot rapidly under the hot
summer sun.
Do not be surprised if you are harvesting a
basketful of vegetables every day for two or three months.
Preparing for Winter
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After a summer, it is easy to let your garden
cleaning go until spring. Taking the following measures will save you working in
the spring.
- Remove all plant life.
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Turn the earth under with a shovel.
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Add mulch.
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Add fertilizers to replenish soil as directed on package.
- Roto-till to mix the
soil and aerate..
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Rake the soil level.
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