Common Sense for Novice Green Fingers

If you have finally decided that you will have to change your way of life and save money by growing your own vegetables, then you still have time to get a crop in for this year. If you have never done it before there are many sites online and many magazines that take you through it, step by step. If you are a total novice, here are a few tips for easy vegetable growing.

First you need to decide where to put your vegetable patch; it’s best to choose an area that gets good sunlight. When planting, always remember that taller vegetables will stop the sunlight reaching other plants, so always keep the direction of the sun’s rays in mind when planning your rows.

Tall plants that require support such as pole beans are often best against a fence, as this gives them slight support on windy days. You do not have to grow everything in your vegetable patch if it so happens that you have some suitable fencing elsewhere.

Perhaps you just want to try out growing vegetables in your flower bed at first, if so, then carrots can also look pretty, as they have feathery foliage. (Both beetroot tops and carrot tops can be eaten.)

Many gardeners also plant decorative vegetables such as the red leafed beetroot in the back of their flower beds where they just grow unobtrusively until the fall harvest. Swiss chard can be bought which grows with candy-pink or citrus-yellow stalks and these also can look pretty in a flower bed.

If you are planning a vegetable plot, however, make sure you plan it near to your water supply as this will save you a lot of hose unraveling in the summer.

One of the most important things to do before you buy any seeds is to pay attention to your soil. If you can resist the temptation to rush out and put those seeds in the ground – and instead spend time working on your seedless soil, you will be repaid a hundred-fold!

This is the secret of gardening success and two aspects are important here, drainage and nutrients. If you take the trouble to tend to these, you are almost guaranteed success.

Drainage is of the utmost importance so that your seeds do not drown and rot in the rainwater that is being held in the soil. Alternatively, if the rain whizzes right through the soil, then they will shrivel up and die of dehydration.

Your soil must be light enough to have good drainage. This means that it must not clump into heavy clods of soil. If it does you may need to add some sand or wood ash or buy a bag of compost that specifies that it has drainage qualities.

Nutrients are important to plants in just the same way that they are important to us. If your soil is rich, your plants will grow more quickly, they will grow bigger and you can sow the seeds more closely which means that you will get more vegetables.

If you have been smart and you have been digging in your dry leaves and composting your kitchen scraps all winter long then your soil may well be ready to go, as is. If you are planning to buy some compost or manure to dig in, then this is a good time. Look in the stores now, as this is the time of the year for compost and manure sales.

If you really are trying to grow quantities of vegetables, then it may be worth investing a few dollars for a soil test. This will indicate to you whether you need to add extra sand/bone meal etc., to adjust the soil to give you a high volume return.

When you are planting vegetables, such as lettuce and radish which comes up very quickly, you may wish to plant a dozen seeds in indoor pots and a dozen seeds outdoors. Any seeds that you ‘start’ indoors should be ‘hardened off’ once they are about two inches tall. This is done by placing the baby plants outside during the day only (not night) for a couple of weeks..

Transplant the indoor seeds out into the vegetable patch once they have become used to being outdoors during the daytime, and they will be ready for picking while the outdoor dozen are still growing.

As you start to eat your lettuce prepare to plant another ‘wave’ of seeds. Lettuce do not store very well in the garden, so it is best to plant the seeds on what is called a ‘rotation’; this is when new seeds are planted successively every three weeks. Spinach and the ‘mixed salad greens’ also work best this way.

Many gardening enthusiasts have already been out there planting their peas, broad beans and many of the early crops. Lettuce rows can be planted beneath the peas, and many gardeners use this way of doubling up on their vegetable patch.

Some winter harvesting crops such as beetroot take a long time to grow, so while they are silently growing, month after month, you can push some quick growing vegetable like lettuce or radish in with them, too.

This can also be applied to the growing of spinach and carrots. Mix all the seeds up and sow them together. The spinach will be up and eaten before the carrot is more than two inches tall. This method also means that you do not have so much weeding to do; weeds need space to grow and you will have your space stacked with vegetables!

Green or yellow bush beans always seem a hardy choice. They grow without needing stakes, and as the beans can be eaten hot or cold (with a salad dressing) they are an adaptable vegetable.

Another handy vegetable to grow is the green onion or scallion. If you run out of onions whilst you are cooking up a storm, you can run into the garden and yank a couple out of the soil – pronto!

This easy access to vegetables is one of the nicest parts of having your own vegetable patch. At the end of the first year, you will know which vegetables grow the best in your soil type, and which ones you found the most handy to have ‘available’ outside your door. Next year will be a ‘doddle’!