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Vegetable Gardening

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Garden Design
How your garden looks pretty much depends on what tools you use. If you're going at it with a spade, garden fork, and hoe, a smaller garden will probably be the way to start.

We use a front tine roto-tiller. The wheels following the tines make nice, straight planting rows.

Of course, you don't have to plant in rows.

Double Compost Bin
Note the Color Differences

With scatter planting you get more plants, can reach from either side to harvest, and the plants provide root shade for each other. The scatter planting in the photo was done before the final tilling.

Keep in mind, mulching and weeding is easier when vegetables are planted in rows.

Manure 

Well rotted manure is a mild fertilizer that adds some nutrients to the soil, and is completely "natural". Manure also adds "tilth", that mealy, crumbly soil that gardeners love.

BE CAREFUL! Only use well rotted manure. Fresh manure will burn your crops.

Rows of Garlic

Broad row planting is ideal for vegetables such as spinach, bush beans, and peas. The broad row is 2½ to 3 feet wide and you just scatter the seed.

Scatter Bed in Upper Left Corner of Tilled Garden

Onion Harvest

Anything Else?
Well, yes...Mulch

Most vegetables enjoy having a steady soil temperature and and steady soil moisture. Mulch helps in maintaining both these requirements.

We use grass clippings, old hay, or whatever comes to hand. Mulch should cover the root area but not touch the stem because it can harbor insects. It also keeps weeds down and decreases the amount of soil that splashes on the plants during a rain.

It is easiest to apply mulch when the plant is young. Trying to move around mature vines to apply mulch often results in damaged plants.

Crop Rotation 

Planting the same crop in a different location each year helps keep the soil from being depleted of a specific nutrient, and really applies to something like large fields of corn.

With the small home gardens what you want to do is move the vegetable a couple of rows and be sure to fertilize the entire garden with rotted manure or compost.

Soil-borne Diseases

The best way to keep a garden healthy is to pull weeds, remove sick looking plants before they infect the others, and planting disease resistant plants.

In a home garden, planting a couple of rows away from where the plant was planted last year won't help much. Tomatoes are especially suseptable to soil-borne diseases, so be sure to keep the leaves and fruit off the ground

What to Plant
There is nothing better than devouring the seed catalogs in the winter, anticipating the spring! But, what you plant depends on soil condition and pH, climate, sunshine, and other factors.

Your County Extension Agent has a list of plants that do well in your area. The agent can also have a soil test done for you.

Look around your area and see what others are planting. Odds are favored that they just didn't put the plant in the ground to watch it die.

Nothing brings people together more than talking about their gardens (unless it's watching chickens).

Air Drying Onions

Vegetable Garden

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When to Plant
There are "warm season" plants such as peppers, melons, tomatoes, and eggplant.

There are also cool season plants such as spinach, cabbage, broccoli, lettuce, and Swiss chard.

Cool season crops are planted in early spring. In our southern climate, we also plant them as fall and winter gardens.

For the warm season crops it's best to use the "rule of thumb": stick your thumb in the ground and if it feels warm, it's time to plant!

Garden Size 

You don't want to have "big eyes" and prepare a garden much larger than you can handle.

Start small and you can always add more later. There is nothing worse than being overwhelmed by your garden. Gardening should, and MUST be enjoyable. It's a hobby!

Crop Rotation 

Planting the same crop in a different location each year helps keep the soil from being depleted of a specific nutrient, and really applies to something like large fields of corn.

With the small home gardens what you want to do is move the vegetable a couple of rows and be sure to fertilize the entire garden with rotted manure or compost.

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