Greenhouses and Gardening

Local experts can be a great place to start your vegetable gardening odyssey. You may not get the one-on-one garden advice you need from a place like Home Depot, but local nursery store owners and master gardeners are great sources of gardening information. Be sure to visit the Farmer’s Almanac page to learn about your local growing season and when the last frost is expected to arrive. This can help you plan when you’ll begin your gardening season. If you’re beginning in late spring or summer, there are still a few quick-growing crops like lettuce and transplanted tomatoes that you may be able to salvage.

The first thing you’ll need to do when starting a vegetable garden is picking the perfect location and size. Firstly, make certain your location gets as much sunlight as possible. The majority of vegetables should have a good six to eight hours of direct light every day for optimal results. If you have a less well lit location, you can plant your lettuce and spinach there. As you evaluate your yard, make sure to take into consideration the shade cast by your house and trees throughout certain times of the day.

Ideally, the garden will be conveniently situated close the kitchen, so you can tend to it more easily and pick your crop without hiking a long way. The ideal soil will be filled with nutrients and drain well, so you might have to add compost and use garden tools to aerate the soil before you begin.

A gardening expert will usually tell you that raised beds are the best method for effective vegetable gardening. Garden guides love raised beds because they increase the growing area by reducing the amount of garden used for paths, they save fertilizer and compost materials, they are easy and convenient to work with, they work well with trellises, they are 12-15 degrees warmer than the ground so you can plant earlier, and they are beautiful to look at. To begin creating your raised beds, measure and stake down each garden bed and outline the beds with string. To raise the bed, loosen the soil with a shovel or fork and nestle your bed into the plot. Smooth the soil on the surface of the bed with the tines and back edge of a rake. Take your time when shaping the beds, for this step is very important. Each bed should rise eight inches above ground when all is said and done and the most productive raised beds are about three feet wide. You can line the beds with bricks, stones or wood, whichever you prefer.

Over the years, you’ll begin to fine-tune your vegetable gardening. You may find some crops do extraordinarily well, while others are a flop. You may decide to add new veggies to the mix or plant more of a certain crop that worked very well. Once your cool season crop finishes its season (like peas), you can try planting a warm season crop (like zucchini). You may also try a technique known as “interplanting,” which involves planting a quick-maturing crop like lettuce next to slow-growing broccoli. The idea is that you’ll harvest all your lettuce by the time the broccoli is looking to stretch out. Try growing plants from several different varieties to increase your chance of success and to find the best performing types.

Tags: gardening, greenhouse