Lesson 7: Vegetable Gardening
Growing your own vegetables is a healthy and rewarding pastime. This lesson guides you through the steps necessary to grow great vegetables.
Planning Your New Vegetable Garden
Planting your first vegetable garden is always an exciting event. Visions of red, ripe tomatoes, crunchy green peppers and sweet, sweet corn dance through your imagination. And nothing tastes better than hot, buttered summer squash with a dash of salt and pepper.
In order to fulfill the promise of each tiny seedling, a little planning is necessary. Vegetables have very particular sun/shade needs, along with individual soil conditions. The first thing you need to learn is how much sun each veggie requires. Next are their growth habits. Some vegetables are indeterminate and sprawl all over the place, bearing multiple crops. Cucumbers, squash, melon and tomatoes fit this category.
Determinate plants are much bushier in their growth habit and only bear one crop of fruit. This makes them ideal for small spaces or containers. Tomatoes, squash, cucumbers and certain melons fit this class of plant.
The indeterminates can be staked or trained up fences and trellises to save room. Under ideal conditions they can be prolific bearers, so it’s important not to overplant.
Prepare the soil in the beds ahead of time. Be certain all rocks, debris and weeds are removed. Using black plastic as a mulch around cucumbers and melons helps keep wet soil away from leaves and helps speed ripening. Once the bed is prepared, lay the plastic down and cut openings to place the plants in. Cucumbers are very prone to mildew from wet leaves so this method really helps cut down on the problem.
Always water new starts as soon as they are all planted to get them off to a healthy start. I recommend feeding them with fish emulsion to help them establish better. If you don’t let them dry out or become weed choked, you will wake up each morning to bigger, healthier plants.
Topic of Discussion: Which vegetable have you always wanted to grow, but were afraid to try?
