It gives me great pleasure to share the with my audience the benefits of having your own veggie garden and provide age old tips the whole family can follow successfully.
There has never been a more important time in history to growing our own food! Most of the "food" we find in the supermarket has been deemed by experts more along the line "edible food like substances" due to the extensive chemical processing throughout all stages of manufacturing. Food that gives us the best amount of energy will be closely derived from the sun. The closer the food is derived from the sun, the better our bodies can process for maximum energy release. Remember that our health is not in the major corporation's best interests.
By having your own vegetable garden is about having complete control over our choices and what we put in our body.
Farming can be quite the challenge though there are some helpful tips that will make our lives much easier. The following tips came from some of my favorite gardener-bloggers. Catherine Boeckmann
and planetnatural.com respectively.
Plant in a sunny location. Most vegetables need at least 6 hours of direct sunlight per day. The more sunlight they receive, the greater the harvest, the bigger the veggies, and the better the taste.
Plant in good soil. Plants’ roots penetrate soft soil more easily, so you need nice loamy soil. Enriching your soil with compost provides needed nutrients. Proper drainage will ensure that water neither collects on top nor drains away too quickly.
Plant in a stable environment. You don’t want to plant in a place that’s prone to flooding during heavy rains, or in a place that tends to dry out a lot. You also don’t want to plant somewhere where strong winds could knock over your young plants or keep pollinators from doing their job. Plant in a location that would make Goldilocks proud.
1. If its getting cold and you have tomatoes still ripening on the vine — save your tomatoes! Pull the plants up and bring them inside to a warm dry place. Hang them up, and the tomatoes will ripen on the vine.
2. Companion planting is an excellent way to improve your garden. Some plants replenish nutrients lost by another one, and some combinations effectively keep pests away.
3. Paint the handles of your gardens tools a bright, color other than green to help you find them amongst your plants. You can also keep a mailbox in your garden for easy tool storage.
4. Compost needs time to integrate and stabilize in the soil. Apply two to three weeks prior to planting.
5. There is an easy way to mix compost into your soil without a lot of back breaking work: Spread the compost over your garden in the late fall, after all the harvesting is done. Cover with a winter mulch such as hay or chopped leaves and let nature take its course. By spring, the melting snow and soil organisms will have worked the compost in for you.
If you’re looking for the fastest ticket to a lush garden, start at ground level. Planet Natural offers a large selection of soils and amendments to help you produce healthy, productive plants year after year. Now, let’s grow!
6. Like vining vegetables, but don’t have the room? Train your melons, squash, and cucumbers onto a vertical trellis or fence. Saves space and looks pretty too.
7. Garden vegetables that become over-ripe are an easy target for some pests. Remove them as soon as possible to avoid detection.
8. Onions are ready to harvest when the tops have fallen over. Let the soil dry out, harvest, and store in a warm, dry, dark place until the tops dry. Cut off the foliage down to an inch, then store in a cool, dry area.
9. Keep dirt off lettuce and cabbage leaves when growing by spreading a 1-2 inch layer of mulch (untreated by pesticides or fertilizers) around each plant. This also helps keep the weeds down.
10. When planting a flower or vegetable transplant, deposit a handful of compost into each hole. Compost will provide transplants with an extra boost that lasts throughout the growing season.
11. Insects can’t stand plants such as garlic, onions, chives and chrysanthemums. Grow these plants around the garden to help repel insects.
12. Milk jugs, soda bottles and other plastic containers make great mini-covers to place over your plants and protect them from frost.
13. For easy peas, start them indoors. The germination rate is far better, and the seedlings will be healthier and better able to fight off pests and disease.
14. Healthy soil means healthy plants that are better able to resist pests and disease, reducing the need for harmful pesticides.
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