Vegetable Gardening Is A Fun Hobby
Vegetable gardening is a wonderful way to feed your family safe and healthy food at a fraction of the cost. Most Americans spend just 2-5 hours per week cultivating their gardens and, in the end, they wind up saving 0 in food! With just , you can begin home vegetable gardening, growing tomatoes, cucumbers, beans, squash, peppers and more! Here is everything you need to know to get started — from picking a spot, to making raised beds, to cultivating the ground and choosing your planting patterns.
The first step in starting a vegetable garden is choosing the right size and location. First, be sure your location is very, very sunny. Most vegetables need a good six to eight hours of direct sunlight each day for the best results. If you have a shadier area, you can stick your spinach and lettuce there. As you assess your yard, be sure to take into account the shade cast by the deciduous trees and the house during certain times of the day. Ideally, the garden will be conveniently situated near the kitchen, so you can tend to it more easily and harvest without hiking long distances. The best soil will be full of nutrients and drain well, so you may need to add organic compost and use garden tools to aerate the soil before you begin.
First you must plan how large your garden will be. Usually, several beds in a 20 x 20 plot for space hogging vegetables like corn, tomatoes or squash is good, or a 12 x 16 plot for cucumbers, peppers and herbs. Once you plot out your garden, you’ll need a few garden supplies, such as a tape measure, string, 12 to 18-inch stakes and a hammer. Situate the rows running from east to west, with the taller plants on the north end. Stake down the four corners of your garden and then set to work roto-tilling to turn up the soil. Get rid of all the weeds and test the soil before your vegetable gardening can officially commence. Ideally, you want a pH between 6 and 6.8. For low pH, use limestone. For high pH, use sulfur.
The last step before planting is to feed the soil and make it ready for productive vegetable gardening. Whatever the plants take up out of the soil, you’ll need to ensure microorganisms or soil puts back in. Several inches of compost or natural manure fertilizer usually does the trick. For a 12 x 16 (200 square-foot) garden, use about 75 pounds of commercial compost or horse manure. If you’re using uncultivated soil, the best garden advice is to apply five pounds of organic fertilizer with 5% nitrogen for every 200 square feet. Rake the fertilizer into the first few inches of top soil to break up clay clumps and create a nutritious environment for growing plants.
Kenny Leichester is a foremost expert in the interior design industry specializing in the outdoor or patio settings using outdoor patio furniture, patio umbrellas outdoor cushions, patio heaters, patio lighting and so on to create exquisitely beautiful layout. His articles and work is widely distributed and is a regular contributor to PatioShoppers.com.
Children Blossom While Learning to Garden
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