Planting vegetable gardens is a very rewarding pastime. Not only does it keep you fit because of all the exercise you will get, but for me it's the pleasure that you get from seeing all your hard work come to fruition. You produce healthy crops, crops that are free from pesticides because you know exactly how you have grown your produce. You have provided healthy nutritious food for your family table and have saved on the weekly grocery bill, now that can't be bad - can it!
Vegetable gardens are much easier to maintain than the flower garden because they are more resilient to the different types of weather we get. Flowers are typically more susceptible and don't adapt to the changes in the weather conditions so easily. Although a garden full of flowers look beautiful and you can decorate your living room table with them to brighten up the lounge, you can't eat them. You can't sit round the table on an evening and eat them, they don't provide a meal for you and your family like potatoes, peas, beans, cabbage, lettuce, carrots and many more types of produce can.
People think that planting your own vegetable garden requires a lot of space, especially people who live in the city, but this is not the case. An area as small as 2 metres wide by 4 metres long can reward you with produce for many months. Vegetables can be grown in tubes, boxes, containers or raised beds depending upon the type you choose to grow. Vegetables require a lot of sunlight and not too much shade.
PLANTING STYLES: The more traditional way of growing vegetables is laying them out in straight, organised lines. Some vegetables growers prefer to plant alternate rows of different types of vegetables. This enables you to harvest one type of vegetable whilst the rows in between them have another type of vegetable that are not in season. With this style of planting, you have to leave soil paths between each couple of rows so that you can tend to your crop. The one disadvantage of this planting style is that the soil path becomes compressed through walking on it, thus making it more difficult to hoe or dig at the end of the season.
A more popular way of planting vegetables these days is planting them in beds rather than the more traditional rows as explained above. The beds have to be small enough in size so that you can reach into them from the path around the beds. The advantage of this is that you can tend to the plants, pull out the weeds that will grow between the plants without having to tread on the bed, therefore not compressing the soil. This then becomes much easier to dig at the end of the growing season. Raised beds can also be used to grow vegetables, where the raised soil area is supported by wooden or brick structures about 40cm or so high. Wooden planks are ideal for a bed of 2 metres wide by 4 metres long. There is one advantage to having raised beds and this is that the soil retains the heat longer in the cold weather. A raised bed also lends itself to good drainage.
Another planting style is the "Kitchen garden" style referred to as "potager". This is a combination of planting vegetables, flowers and herbs together in a way that is aesthetically pleasing. Planting in this style brings colour and fragrance into the vegetable garden.
PREPARING THE SOIL: This is a very important fact and should not be ignored. It doesn't matter whether you plan to grow your vegetables in a small area, large area, raised beds, tubes or containers; soil preparation is an essential step that must be addressed.
Soil can be categorized in a number of ways, the most common ones are SANDY or GRAVELLY, CLAY, CHALKY,LOAMY and PEATY.
SANDY or GRAVELLY: This type of soil feels gritty when rubbed between the fingers and if you try to form it into a ball it will not hold together. After it rains, surface puddles will drain away in a short period of time.
CLAY: This type feels smooth to the touch and if rubbed between the fingers the surface becomes shiny. If you take a ball of clay, roll it and shape it into a ring it will not crumble or break. When it rains, a clay soil quickly becomes "sticky mud" and puddles take time to drain away. One point to note with clay soil, it will set like concrete and will crack when it is dry.
CHALKY: This type of soil is usually pale in colour with white pieces of chalk often visible in it. It drains freely after rain so that puddles don't last that long.
LOAMY: Dark in colour and will hold moisture well but after heavy rainfall the excess water will drain away so that puddles don't last long. If you take a handful of this type of soil and roll it, it will hold its shape, but if you try to form it into a ring it will crumble and break.
PEATY: This soil is almost black in colour when moist. Its composition is partially of decomposed organic matter from bogs or fens. If you rub it between the fingers it will crumble and after it rains it seems to glisten with the intake of moisture. It absorbs water like a sponge thus surface water only forms if the soil is totally saturated. If you pick up a handful, squeeze, the water will run through your fingers and it will hold its form.
To establish what type of soil you have in your garden, you don't have to wait for it to rain, take your garden hose and spray. Do the simple tests as described above to establish what type of soil you have to work with.
IMPROVING THE SOIL: Whatever the type of soil you have to work with you can always improve it. If the soil is SANDY, CHALKY or GRAVELLY it can be improved by digging in well-rotted organic matter (stable manure) in spring and autumn. In areas where you can't dig, leave a good layer on the surface until such time that you can dig it in. Because this type of soil is fast draining, you may have to add the organic matter on a regular basis. With CLAY soil, again dig in plenty of your well-rotted organic matter but also dig in horticultural grit to open up the soil. You can also use coarse, sharp sand or fine washed gravel, NOT BUILDERS SAND as this contains lime or GRAVEL dredged up from under the sea as this is too salty for the plants. LOAMY soil requires occasional dressings of organic matter just to keep it in good condition. For PEATY soils, again add well-rotted organic matter as this adds lots of nutrients to the soil. Because this type of soil is also acidic, applying lime will counter act this. The use of a good general purpose fertilizer will need to be applied on a regular basis as this will benefit your vegetable crops.
Perhaps you may think as a beginner to vegetable gardening, there are a lot of things to consider and no doubt question is it all worth it. Well believe me, YES IT IS! DON'T BE PUT OFF. Even whilst preparing your vegetable garden you may still have doubts, in the end when you harvest your crops you will feel a great sense of achievement. You will have tended and nurtured your plants all through their growing cycle, you will have spent many hours feeding them and then you will have the satisfaction that when you harvest your crop they are free from commercial pesticides. You have provided a fresh nutritious healthy meal for you and your family whether it is a summer salad or vegetables for the Sunday roast. THERE IS NO BETTER FEELING and all at a cost much cheaper than the vegetables you get from the local supermarket.
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