How to Plant a Vegetable Garden in Four Easy Steps

If you love to cook, growing your own vegetable garden is one of the most rewarding things you can do. When you grow your own garden, you can harvest fresh seasonal fruits, veggies and herbs as you need them instead of having to drive miles to the nearest grocery store. It just doesn't get any fresher - or healthier - than that!

Here's How to Plant a Vegetable Garden in 4 Easy Steps:

Step #1. Decide What You Want to Plant.

Cover of a Burpee Seed-Sense catalog (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

This is the fun part. Start by making a list of all the recipes you frequently make. Note which vegetables and herbs you use over and over again, because this will tell you not only what you should plant, but also in what quantity. 

Don’t forget to jot down other items your family enjoys, even if you aren't using them in your cooking currently. Growing your own vegetable garden is a great way to expand your culinary horizons.

This planning phase is a great time to get your children interested in gardening, too. Ask what they might like to grow or make fun suggestions if they are too young to come up with ideas on their own. Pumpkins, ornamental gourds and sunflowers (for their beauty and seeds) are popular choices with kids of all ages. Fast growing plants, such as lettuce and beans, are also great choices for children because they produce noticeable results quickly.

Once you've made a list of plants you want to grow, collect mail order catalogs, search online or stop by your favorite garden center to find seeds and transplants. You can learn a lot about what grows well in your area by tapping into these resources, as well. This is a really fun way to pass the time in late winter before it's warm enough to get outside and start planting!

Step #2:  Pick a Location for Your Vegetable Garden

Just like in real estate, planting a successful vegetable garden is all about location, location, location. If you want your plants to thrive, there are a few non-negotiable items you will need to provide:

1. Sunshine. Pick a sunny location with at least 6 hours of direct sunlight per day.

2. Water.  Make sure the location you choose has easy access to water. You will need to water your plants whenever Mother Nature refuses to cooperate, so make sure you have a convenient source of water nearby.

3. Accessibility. Gardens need care, so position your vegetable garden in an area that is convenient to get to with the tools you need to work in it. If you place it too far from the house or garden shed where you keep your tools or in an area difficult to reach with a wheelbarrow, you may find yourself tempted to neglect it.

Make your life easier and plant your garden in the most convenient sunny location you can find.

4. Good Drainage. You may have to do some work for this one, especially if you live in an area with heavy clay or compacted soil. If you find the area you want to plant tends to collect standing water, you will want to build your beds up to protect your plants from overly wet feet.

Step #3: Create Your Garden Beds

Once you’ve identified where you want your garden, you will need to decide where you want the individual beds within it. As you are doing so, keep in mind the orientation of the sun throughout the day because taller plants or those growing on trellises can cast shadows and stunt the growth of nearby plants if they aren’t positioned correctly.

To create the individual beds, many old school gardeners swear by the traditional practice of removing heavy layers of sod, then tilling and amending the soil beneath it before planting your vegetable plants. 

Although this method will certainly work, you simply don’t have to work that hard.   Instead, you can use one of my favorite methods - the Lasagna Gardening method - of building your beds UP instead of digging down to create them. This methods works equally well with raised garden beds or directly on the ground.

To get started, add flattened cardboard or a thick stack of newspapers on top of the ground and then add alternate layers of peat, topsoil, aged manure or barn litter, organic mulch, yard clippings and/or compost. 

You can either prepare these beds months in advance or right before you plant. Either way, the layers will meld together into a beautiful, rich soil for your plants.

For more details on this no-dig gardening method, check out Lasagna Gardening: A New Layering System for Bountiful Gardens.

Step #4: Start Planting!

Once your beds are ready, it’s time to start planting!

Before you start digging, you have some choices to make: you can sow seeds directly into the soil, start seeds indoors then harden them off outdoors before adding them to your garden, or plant established transplants you’ve purchased directly into your prepared beds.

Some plants require direct sowing, while others need to be started indoors several weeks before the frost-free date in your area in order to perform well. While you are creating your list of plants you want to grow, make a note of the growing requirements for each so you can give your plants the best chance of survival. 

If you decide to follow these four easy steps to planting a vegetable garden, you will be rewarded all season long with an abundant supply of fresh and healthy produce. Plus, you’ll have the added satisfaction of knowing you did it with your own two hands!

Also Check Out These Helpful Resources for Planting a Vegetable Garden:
   

Garden Planning: Choosing the Right Plants for Your Garden

One of the most important rules of creating a garden is to ensure that you have the right plants for the right place.

There are many plants that will suffer if they aren't growing in conditions that are suited to them, and by planting in these conditions you will always be fighting a battle to have them looking their best simply because they will always be struggling to survive.

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

If you have a specific theme that you would like to follow when planning your garden and that theme doesn't suit the growing conditions you only have two alternatives: You can change the plants you intend using to something more suitable but still in keeping with your overall theme, OR you can try to change the conditions that the plants will be growing in.

While it is not possible to change the climate, you can make changes to the layout of the garden and surrounding area to create your own 'micro-climate' with other plants or trees offering shading or shelter.

You can plant windbreaks or construct them to reduce the effect that the wind might have on some of the more fragile plants.

If you are looking for a specific color in your garden but the plants you prefer would suffer in the conditions your garden presents, then look for alternative plants that can offer the same color but are more suited to those conditions.

By using native plants that are more suited to the conditions, they will thrive better and require a lot less maintenance while still giving you the 'look' you desire.

It's all about getting your planning right before you even buy the first plants. If the plan is well executed the garden will look better, be easier to maintain, and you will enjoy ownership more than a garden that is a constant struggle.

Choosing Healthy Plants for Your Garden

Whether you are buying or receiving plants from someone there are a few things that you need to look at before deciding to plant them in your garden.

You will generally get a better quality plant from a garden center and it will be less likely to have disease or other problems that could spread to other plants in your garden. But there is still the possibility that the garden center plant might not be the healthy specimen that you might expect so you should still check it out before parting with your money.

Image via Flickr

The first thing you need to do is look at the plant and see whether it looks healthy. This might seem very obvious but we often assume that buying from a garden center will assure us of a healthy plant when in actual fact even garden centers can have problem plants and you don't want to be the new owner of their problems.

Plants are very good at showing any signs of distress so if a plant doesn't look healthy, it generally isn't.

Check the conditions of the leaves, stems and roots of the plant where possible. You should also look at the condition of the soil that it has been growing in, as this will have had an effect on its health.

If you are buying flowering plants it is always best to buy the ones that have yet to flower, as they will withstand the trauma of transport and transplanting better than those that already have flowers. If there is no alternative but to buy or receive plants that already have flowers then many people suggest that you should remove all the flowers to give the plant a better chance of survival.

While you might be reluctant to do so, you will probably have a better plant that will be stronger and healthier and produce more flowers in the future.

If there is anything on the plant that concerns you, seek advice or decide against having that plant in your garden.

Achieving Success with Organic Vegetable Gardening

Whether you are a beginner or a seasoned gardener, you may find that you can be more successful in your organic vegetable gardening with these tips. Some of them are very simple points that you may never have considered, and all of them can help you to get the most from your home grown organic vegetables.

First, when you are planning what to grow, don't forget to take the circumstances of your own garden into account. This includes your soil type and what will grow in it. If you have problem soil, it is possible to alter factors like the acidity over time, but it is usually easier to go with the flow and grow what suits your soil rather than the other way around.

 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Your climate needs to be considered too. This does not only mean the average temperatures and weather conditions of your local area, but the microclimate in your vegetable garden too. In the hottest, sunniest parts of your garden you may be able to grow plants that will astonish your neighbors.  Consider the whole area of land that is available to you when you are thinking about this.

Pest control is one of the top questions from any gardener interested in successful organic vegetable gardening. Non-organic gardeners have the simple solution of buying pesticide sprays, but as organic gardeners, we do not want pesticides all over our home grown vegetables. So what can you do?

1. In many cases, you can control pests by encouraging their natural predators in your garden. If you have an aphid problem, buy a ladybug feeder and a stock of ladybugs, or some braconid wasps (these are also great if you have tomato horn worms!). If you have a slug problem, try nematode worms.

2. Some plants are particularly susceptible to disease. One example is tomatoes. To avoid having to spray your tomato plants with anti-fungals and other chemicals, choose disease-resistant varieties.

3. Always rotate plants, so that you grow them in different parts of the garden in different years. Sometimes this is difficult because you need certain plants to be in the sunniest areas, as we have already seen. Still, try to move them at least a few yards and have something from a different plant family growing where they last were. This will help protect against disease.

Successful organic vegetable gardening means doing the right things at the right times. Don't forget to thin out your crop if it is planted too thickly. This is a tip for beginners especially. A lot of new gardeners are reluctant to pull up excess plants but in most cases this will increase both the quantity and the quality of the vegetables and fruit that your garden produces.

Companion planting of carrots and onions (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Overcrowded plants suffer from inadequate light, insufficient ventilation, easy spread of disease, and general failure to thrive. Do them a favor by thinning them, to make sure that the strongest ones have the best chance to grow. For most plants, when full grown, the tips of their leaves should touch, but no closer.

Companion planting is another important consideration in organic vegetable gardening. This means selecting plants that grow well together and/or protect each other from pests, and locating them together in your garden. Examples are the marigold/basil family and the nightshade family (tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, potatoes). Planting basil next to your tomatoes can keep off some pests. They make a great combination on your plate too!

Another example of companion plants is the 'three sisters': corn, beans and the pumpkin/squash/cucumber family. If you want more tips about using companion plants in organic vegetable gardening, check out the resources below to extend the possibilities for your garden.

Helpful Organic Vegetable Gardening Resources: 
   

A Fun Day of Planting

Lettuces & cilantro, planted last fall!

Today I thought I'd share some of my gardening fun! With all the rain lately in so many parts of the country, it has been quite a challenge to get anything done in the garden. We've had record rainfalls all month, flooding, and general sogginess. I intended to plant potatoes weeks ago, but the garden has been nothing but mud.... We've had a rare 2 days of sunshine now, so I took advantage of one dry day this weekend to get out and get the rest of the garden planted. It was still pretty chilly, but at least not raining! 

Luckily, my soil is getting pretty nice after 4 years of adding the results of my composting efforts, and it drains well - it was nice and moist, but not at all muddy. I had laid some sheets of black plastic over the area a few weeks ago, in an effort to warm up our cold Ohio soil a little faster. I think it might have worked, as the soil didn't feel all that cold while I was digging.... We shall see!

I dug trenches, put my little sprouty potatoes (left over from last fall's CSA share), and filled them most of the way in, leaving some extra piles of soil - I plan to hill them up once they start to come up, in hopes of getting a bigger yield? Perhaps?  This is my first time growing potatoes in quite a few years, and my goal is to grow enough to get me through all of next winter, with plenty of soups, stews, and yummy mashed potatoes!

Red, white, & yellow onions, and garlic chives.

So, as of today, potatoes are in, the flower bed is planted, as well as morning glories along the fence. Onions are lovely and growing well, as well as my gorgeous lettuces, which wintered over under the snow, all by themselves! Gladiolas are just starting to pop up, as well as little volunteer cilantro everywhere. I am posting a couple of pictures here of the onions and lovely lettuces - hopefully more great pictures to come, as it warms up!

Planning Your Summer Garden

If you happen to be like many of us you want a summer time garden plot to bring a little life to your landscape through these so very warm summer months. Many of us though, would like a garden that does not demand perpetual care or attention. That’s why proper planning becomes important in favor of developing a summer time garden of your dreams.

There are several things you will want to ask yourself while setting up your summer garden. Each of these items will to a certain extent shape the kind of  garden your garden will accommodate. To begin with, what space in your landscape would you want your summer season garden to fill and on the whole how significant is the area. The majority of us live in houses that have sadly insufficient gardening room these days. Because of this it is important to develop a sensible idea concerning how much of that prime area you are prepared to devote for a summer garden plot.

When you have decided how much space you might be prepared to commit to your garden plot you need to decide about the site. Location is essential to identify before beginning the preparation phase since you’ll have to to plan in respect to the site. You need to be able to resolve the next few questions as regards your garden location. How much uninterrupted sunlight will  the location get in an average day of the week?

Mustard & kale in my early summer garden.

Is this a spot that is generally wet or typically dry? And also how much filtered sunlight will  this portion of lawn see in any given day? These are things which are important since they will, for the most part, determine what sort of crops your sustainable garden will have the ability to contain. You additionally will need to understand a little about the topography for the spot as well. Is it flat, rock-strewn, or muddy? These answers will each bear a different and significant impact regarding the manner of garden that will be grown as well as measures you may need to undertake in order to make a summer garden work out in this specific spot.

The next issue you may need to raise and then resolve prior to moving on to the preparation and shopping stage is how much time, on average, will you want to devote to your summer garden plot on a particular day of the week? Gardens often need tending and you should be ready to commit some time to keeping your garden in decent running order (although some certainly entail more maintenance than others.) You ought to hold a sensible idea of the amount of time and attention you will be ready to allot to making your sustainable garden the wonderful refuge it could be in mind before you make your mind up about the different types of plants or flowers that will comprise your summer garden.

You must furthermore keep in mind what kind of summer garden you wish to start. Do Image via Wikipedia you want crisp produce, a flower garden, or would you only aim to add a little of added sparkle to your front lawn? Would you wish to add a water feature or have a sitting area?

When planning a summer garden you need to take into account all these questions and more. Another thing you may want to have in mind will be the local environment. Is it average, dry, wet, or cool most mornings? These questions could also have a fairly considerable effect on the sort of garden is suitable for your current setting.

Setting up a garden involves a great deal more than just strolling outside and just tossing some seeds over the soil. There is a significant amount of work that goes into setting up a flourishing summer season garden. Asking the right questions can be a helpful place to initiate this process. When you have discovered the answers it is time to start the more exciting elements of planning your garden plot, such as working up the soil and selecting what plants may presently dub your front lawn home. Just keep in mind that devoting careful attention to the fine points in advance will prevent a great deal of wasted time as well as money later.

For more  on summer gardening, tools, and resources, please visit our main website at http://www.newholisticliving.com/sustainablegardening.html 

Happy Gardening, and stay tuned for our next post, as we are going to do a brief series on natural pest control!
Rose.

Tips On Planting Your New Garden

Good morning!

Today, we are going to get down to planting and organizing your garden, so grab your tools, and let’s get started!

Now you’ve picked out what type of garden you will have, where it will be located, and what plants you will be growing, you can really get started in creating your garden environment, and planting your seeds! (See previous post on choosing seeds.)  There are several items you will want to address in this process.

First, you’ll want to select what your garden barriers or borders will be. What will separate your garden from the rest of the world? Next you’ll want to select the types of support needed for your plants. Often some kind of mesh, stakes, or other supports are necessary to keep your plant upright. You will also want to plan how much soil and fertilizer to buy, and how to arrange all the plants in your garden.

Borders
Choosing a border can be a fairly important step in getting your garden started. While it might not actually affect the health of the plants, many people enjoy a garden that is aesthetically pleasing, as well as functional. Metal, wood, brick, or stone can be used as attractive edging and border materials — that choice is yours, depending on what you want your garden to look like.

Red tulip in my spring garden.

Supports
Finding something nice-looking to support your plants can be a little bit more challenging. Sometimes a short pole can work well, but often for larger and heavier plants, such as tomatoes, you will need a wire mesh for it to pull itself up on. You can find these at almost any gardening store, usually pre-shaped in a sort of conical shape well suited for plants. The plant will then grow up through it, and you can tie the branches to the cross spokes with twine if they need more support.

Buying Soil
If your soil is poor, you may want to buy some soil and/or compost to add in, but the goal should be to build up your own soil over time, so that it will be able to support a garden without adding too much from outside sources. (Some people try to solve the problem of poor soil by loading up their plants with every type of chemical and fertilizer known to man. This usually works to some degree, but to me it seems kind of unnatural to rely on man made materials to keep your plants alive. Also, as a sustainable gardener, and especially if I’m growing vegetables, I don’t feel very comfortable eating something that is full of chemicals!)

If you must add outside soil, try to find a source of organically certified soil, so you are not adding toxins to your new garden right off the bat. (Scott’s makes an organic topsoil mix, and for a good organic fertilizer, try Rainbow Grow Mix.)

We will cover making your own compost in a blog post coming up shortly, so be sure to check back!

Tulips along my garden fence.

Plant Placement
Arranging the plants can also be important to the success of your garden. I’m not talking about some kind of feng-shui thing, but depending on your watering, some plants might hog all the water and leave the other plants high and dry. Some plants have longer roots than others, and are more aggressive at seeking water. If you place one of these plants next to a plant with weaker, shorter roots, it will promptly hijack the water supply for itself, and can choke out the other plant.

Climate Considerations
Many gardeners live in areas where virtually anything can grow effortlessly. Just plant some seeds and water them for a few weeks, and you’ve got a beautifully lush garden. But if you live somewhere like Colorado, or other northerly climes, you’ll understand what its like to have a limited selection of plants that will grow naturally. It can be rather a challenge to facilitate the growth of a large variety of plants, especially when the very world you live in seems to be rooting against you.

This can be an important consideration, and one method that can work well in these situations is to create a “microclimate” for each type of plant. This is when you regulate the sunlight, shade, moisture, and wind factors for each separate plant. It sounds like a challenge, and it is. But you can regulate these factors in such a way that the plant feels just like it is in the ideal growing conditions. This can be achieved by the use of wind barriers, shading umbrellas, extra water, or different types or amounts of compost. This is fairly time consuming, but can be very rewarding if done right, and in some climates, it can be the best option.

I can’t explain every phase of this process, because everyone’s goals, climate, and setups are slightly different. But you can do research on every plant that you would like to have in your garden. Find out everything you can about the zone that it flourishes in, and ask yourself how you can emulate that zone within your own backyard. In most cases, you can take control of the environment and recreate whatever you wish. Ordinarily all it takes is some preparation and strategy. (If you try to find plants that will grow well in your area in the first place, though, that is the most sustainable option.)

In our next post, we will discuss watering techniques, and a couple of other important items, before wrapping up this series with a bonus lesson on that all-important topic — composting!

See you next time, and happy gardening!
Rose.

Choosing the Best Plants for Your Garden

Good morning!

I hope you are enjoying the sustainable gardening series so far. We have a lot more great topics to cover, but today we are going to talk about how to choose the right (and healthiest) plants for your new garden.

Choosing the Right Plants for Your Garden

Pink hyacinth from my garden.

Many times we purchase plants on impulse then find there is nowhere in the garden that really suits them. Before buying plants, you should carefully examine your garden to see how much sun and shade it gets (more on this in the next newsletter!), whether the soil is well drained or waterlogged and whether your aspect is sheltered or windswept. You’ll then be better equipped to go and buy the best plants for your situation: shade-loving plants for the sheltered areas, sun-lovers for the warm spots, drought-resistant plants for the parched areas which may be either sunny or shaded, and swamp plants for the poorly-drained parts.

But first, it’s a good idea to test your soil, to determine the pH level of your soil and what kind of nutrients you need to add, if any. Is the soil acid or alkaline? Most plants prefer soil that is slightly acidic, but there are some that must have alkaline soil to grow. You can alter the soil’s pH level, but it’s much easier to simply plant for the soil you have. (Keep your eye out for more on soil preparation in a future issue!)

Now you are ready to plant. Well – almost…. Will you plant in groups or singly? If you buy ‘one of everything’ your garden may seem rather spotty. Group plantings are organized, harmonious and you can vary the flower or foliage color for visual interest.

Picking Healthy Plants
When it comes to getting started with your garden, you have two choices; planting seeds, or buying whole plants. Both have their own benefits. If you plant seeds and care for them every day, you will find it is a much more rewarding experience when you have a full, healthy plant. However, this method is a lot more risky. I can’t tell you how many seeds I’ve planted and never seen any trace of whatsoever, or else the seedlings germinate, but don’t grow very strong or very quickly.

If you choose to buy the plant from a nursery and install it in your garden, it reduces a lot of the work involved in making it healthy. However, I have found in the past that many incompetent nursery workers will absolutely ruin the health of the plant by putting certain chemicals or fertilizers in. I have adapted to this incompetence by learning to choose the healthiest plant of the bunch. Here I will discuss some of the techniques I use in my screening process for plants.

It may sound superficial, but the one thing you need to check for on your prospective plants is how nice they look. As far as plants go, you can truly judge a book by its cover. If a plant has been treated healthily and has no diseases or pests, you can almost always tell by how nice it looks. If a plant has grown up in improper soil, or has harmful bugs living in it, you can tell from the holey or yellowed leaves and wilted stems.

If you’re browsing the nursery shelves looking for your dream plant, you want to exclude anything that currently has flowers. Plants are less traumatized by the transplant if they do not presently have any flowers. It’s best to find ones that just consist of buds. However if all you have to choose from are flowering plants, then you should do the unthinkable and lop off all of the blooms. It will be worth it for the future health of the plant. I’ve found that transplanting a plant while it is blooming results in having a dead plant seventy to ninety percent of the time.

Always check the roots before you plop down the money to purchase the plant. Of course if the roots are in absolutely awful condition you will be able to tell by looking at the rest of the plant. But if the roots are just slightly out of shape, then you probably won’t be able to tell just by looking at it. Inspect the roots very closely for any signs of brownness, rottenness, or softness. The roots should always be a firm, perfectly well formed infrastructure that holds all the soil together. One can easily tell if the roots are before or past their prime, depending on the root to soil ratio. If there are a ridiculous amount of roots with little soil, or a bunch of soil with few roots, you should not buy that plant.

If you find any abnormalities with the plant, whether it be the shape of the roots or any irregular features with the leaves, you should ask the nursery employees. While normally these things can be the sign of an unhealthy plant, occasionally there will be a logical answer for it. Always give the nursery a chance before writing them off as horrendous. After all, they are (usually) professionals who have been dealing with plants for years.
So if you decide to take the easy route and get a plant from a nursery, you just have to remember that the health of the plants has been left up to someone you don’t know. Usually they do a good job, but you should always check for yourself. Also take every precaution you can to avoid transplant shock in the plant (when it has trouble adjusting to its new location, and thus has health problems in the future). Usually the process goes smoothly, but you can never be too sure.

Also, before transplanting your new plants outside, place your chosen plants around the garden bed in their pots to see how they will look. Re-arrange them until you are satisfied.

When planting flowers, grouping plants in sets of threes or fives usually looks better than planting in groups of even numbers. Be sure that you have an interesting combination of colors and textures. Tall plants should go to the back, or the center if your garden will be viewed evenly from all sides.

Spring flowers in my garden.

The right color pallette is one way to maintain the harmony in your garden. Imagine the color of the flowers when they are in bloom. Some colors may conflict with others, but can still be planted side-by-side if they have a different blooming season. Foliage color is also important. Many flower plants have silver, grey or purplish foliage that is just as attractive as the flower. This means that they are still attractive well past the blooming season and so have added value.

Try to keep your plants away from trees. The roots of trees are ferociously competitive and will steal all the nutrients and moisture meant for your garden.

Hopefully this will help in choosing the right plants to put in your new garden, and making sure you get the healthy ones, if you purchase them pre-started.

Stay tuned for our next blog, when we will get into the real nitty-gritty, and start talking about planting!
See you then!
Rose.

P.S. I hope you enjoy the pictures — they are from my garden this spring!