Filed under: Gardening Techniques | Tags: fertilizer, Natural Fertilizer, new vegetable gardener, safe fertilizer, starting seeds, vegetable gardener, vegetable gardening, vegetables
This year, there is a ton of interest in vegetable gardening! There is even a vegetable garden on the White House lawn for the first time in decades. Something we care about a lot is making sure that all of the new gardeners joining our ranks hit the ground running and get a good start to their vegetable experience. There is nothing to kill the enthusiasm more than failure! We’d like to help you prevent that. With that in mind, here are some tips for new vegetable gardeners.
- Start with the soil. You will have many times more healthy vegetables-in terms of quantity and quality-if you start by building up the soil. There are a number of ways to do this. You can order a load of compost from a local soil company. For instance, in Wilmington, NC, you can order compost, or compost/topsoil blend from a place called Seaside Mulch. You can also fertilize with a natural fertilizer like proto-gro, which is full of trace elements and nutrients that many soils lack. Your vegetables are only as nutritious as the soil in which they grow, so make your soil healthy!
- Plant your vegetables in full sun. Some vegetables will grow in a bit of shade, in the hot south. Most vegetables need at least ten hours of full sun a day, and you will be disappointed with the results if they don’t get it.
- To feed your family sustainably, grow open-pollinated vegetable varieties. This is especially important these days, because many of the seeds you can get at the store are hybrids that will not produce reliable seeds from year to year. Look for seeds that are NOT labeled as F1 hybrids in your local garden center.
- Plant flowers and vegetables together. Flowers attract the bees that pollinate the vegetable plants so that you’ll have vegetables.
- Provide plenty of water. If you live in an area that is prone to drought, set up rain barrels under the gutters to catch the runoff from your roof, and use that to water.
- Invest in a good vegetable gardening book. One of the best books out there is the A-Z Guide to Growing Organic Food by Storey Press. It tells you when to plant seeds, when to transplant, which plants grow together well, what to do about pests, and good varieties to grow.
- When planting fine seeds like lettuce or dill, cover with a thin layer of lightweight potting mix instead of regular garden soil. This will hold water well and be easier for young plants to push up through.
- Don’t be tempted to bite off more than you can chew. Start with a few vegetable beds and gradually expand. For people with little time or space, the book Square Foot Gardening or the All New Square Foot Gardening are excellent books about gardening in small spaces, on a couple of hours a week.
There is almost nothing as fun as watching your own veggies sprout from seed and grow into delicious ingredients for meals. The most important part about getting started with vegetable gardening is, well, getting started. Scratch a bit of soil, plant some seeds, water and watch them grow!
Filed under: Gardening Techniques
Early June is the perfect time to get a jump on plant staking before plants become too large to handle. Some plants grow well on their own without any staking; however vegetables such as tomatoes and peppers, and perennials that grow tall and have heavy flowers will need to be staked.
Staking Individual Plants
Some plants grow best when staked individually. Tomatoes fall into this category. Tomatoes are susceptible to a variety of pest and disease problems, many of which may be prevented by providing good air flow. There are several techniques for successfully staking individual plants, all of which can be put into place now, before the plant gets too large.
1) Cages–Wire cages are best for vegetable plants because they are not the most beautiful thing to look at on a daily basis. If your plant is going to grow particularly huge, a cage might not be strong enough to hold the plant. Cages can also make pruning difficult. They do contain plants with a more vine-like growth habit.
2) Metal spiral stake–These stakes offer the best opportunity for air flow around the plant. This type of stake is great for producing fewer, larger fruits. For this stake to work well, you need to prune your plant so that it has a single stem.
3) Bamboo garden stakes–bamboo is a highly renewable resource, so it makes a great choice of staking materials for natural gardeners. These stakes come in a variety of thicknesses and lengths, so there is likely to be a stake to meet the needs of any size of plant. For smaller, slender plants such as delphinium, bamboo stakes work well. You can trim your stake with pruners if it is too tall. Bamboo stakes will last for four or five years without replacement.
4) Grids–A round grid attached to three legs works well for multi-stemmed perennials with heavy flowers. Peonies are a good example of this, although it is too late for peonies this year. False indigo and chrysanthemums also benefit from this method. You should purchase the grid size that you need and put it in place before the plant starts growing. The plant grows up through the grid, and is well-supported by the time flowers develop.
5) Bamboo and individual twin ties– Large perennials with attractive, sprawling habits like joe pye weed or meadow rue look best when one or two stakes are inserted near the center of the plant, and individual ties are used to support each stem. This way, you can still keep the “natural” look, and also support the plant.
Staking Groups of PlantsThere is only one method that is attractive and works well. This method is best for plants that grow in large clumps, or have numerous stems without large flowers. Plants such as cosmos, tickseed, wildflower mixes, and other similar plants can be attractively staked without taking away from the beauty of the planting.
Best Method–Bamboo stake and twine combination–make a zigzag pattern through the clump (or eventual clump) with stakes. String the twine from one stake to the other, creating a Z pattern between stakes. The plants will grow up through the twine. This staking method can be put in place either before or after plants start growing.
Either Way You Stake It
Regardless of the method you choose for staking, you want to be certain to stake in a manner that will support flowers and fruit, and also allow good air circulation around the plant. The methods described above accomplish this dual task.
Above all, avoid tying a string around your plants and cinching it tight. That does not help the plant, and it is ugly!
