Growing Your Own Vegetables
Eat healthier and save on grocery expenses by growing your own food!
As we move towards spring and gardening season, it’s the perfect time to consider what you might need to know if you plan on starting a garden. Gardening is a wonderful thing to do for yourself. It’s a great way to spend time outside getting exercise and fresh air, and best of all, it’s incredibly rewarding to walk outside and pick and eat fresh produce or herbs that you’ve grown yourself. If you’ve spent time and energy growing your own fresh foods, you’re more likely to incorporate these things into your diet and less likely to eat fast, easy-to-buy junk food.
Coupons for Gardening Supplies
However, before you get started, it’s a good idea to do some planning ahead of time to ensure a successful gardening experience. The first thing you’ll want to find out is in which climate zone you live. Certain plants are going to grow better in warmer areas, or in areas with more rainfall, while others will thrive in dry areas, or cold areas, or places at different elevations. The USDA has created a climate zone map that compares climates specifically for gardeners. After you find out which zone you live in, do some research about which types of plants thrive in your climate zone. When you purchase seeds, most will list a range of ideal climates for that plant.
Next you’ll want to evaluate how much space you have available for gardening. Don’t be discouraged if you don’t have as much room as you’d like; there are many creative ways to maximize what you can grow with limited gardening space. For some suggestions on how to do this, you may want to look into Mel Bartholomew’s Square Foot Gardening: A New Way to Garden in Less Space with Less Work. If you live in an apartment with little or no space to grow outside, you might consider starting a small container garden. There are a number of herbs and other plants that you can grow successfully in containers or grow boxes, so long as you ensure that they get adequate sunlight, water, and nutrients. Parsley grows well in window boxes. In addition, many of these plants, particularly ones that bear produce on vines such as tomatoes and green beans, can be grown in hanging planters.
Getting A Square Foot Garden Planted
If you do have space outdoors, you’ll want to think about where you get the most sunlight, what kind of soil you have, and how level your gardening space is. If you live in a hilly area and don’t have a lot of level ground, you may want to consider terracing. Terracing, while requiring significantly more work in the beginning stages of creating a garden, can be much lower maintenance later on, particularly when it comes to efficient irrigation. If you have a terraced garden, you will usually only need to water the top level. The levels lower down will generally have enough water trickling down to keep them healthy. If you don’t have good topsoil in your yard, or have red clay very close to the surface, you may want to consider gardening with a raised bed. Raised beds can be purchased or built fairly easily. They are also ideal in terms of drainage; your plants will be less prone to stem and root damage from rot caused by over-watering in raised beds.
A garden with access to full sun exposure will be ideal for growing vegetables that bear fruit from a flower, such as tomatoes, squash, peppers, beans, and snap peas. Root vegetables will need a at least full half-days of sunlight as well. Shady areas in your yard can be used to plant leafy vegetables and greens, which tend to be more shade tolerant. Spinach, lettuce, broccoli, kale, chard, arugula, cabbage and a number of other leafy green plants are advantageous in that they will do well in the shade, and can also more versatile in that they be planted later in the summer after many other vegetables have gone to seed. There are also a number of herbs that grow well in partial shade, including chives, parsley, mint, lemon balm, and ginger. They will tend to grow taller, as they will by trying to reach the sun, so you will want to pinch them back to encourage them to grow bushier to produce more edible leaves.
Another thing you will want to consider are what sorts of pests might be a problem in your area. Fences may help keep out larger pests, such as dear and rabbits. Many garden pests are repelled naturally by certain kinds of plants that you might consider planting in your garden for that sole purpose. For example, Marigolds are a natural and effective pest repellent for deer, rabbits, and certain types of beetles. Often strong smelling herbs such as garlic, onions, sage, mint, rosemary and oregano will repel a variety of insects, snails, and slugs. To discourage weeds in your garden, you can mulch around your plants once they have come up, or plant a low-growing ground cover around your garden bed to keep weeds away.
If it is your first time starting a garden, start out simply, with low-maintenance plants that are easy to care for, and not excessively time consuming. Set aside a certain amount of time for your garden that will give you time to care for your plants without overwhelming you. Your garden can become incredibly rewarding and worth the effort, particularly over time.