Summary:
With rising food prices, a deepening recession, and global uncertainty, it makes sense to develop self-sufficiency by learning how to grow your own food. This article outlines everything the beginner needs to know to successfully grow a vegetable garden.

Details or Sample:
Sustainable Living: A Beginner’s Guide to Growing Vegetables
By C.R. Donovan

We live in uncertain times. Rising prices for energy and food have strained the budgets of many households. Calamities such as Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath, combined with warnings of weather emergencies, an economy on the verge of deep recession, and predictions of a bird flu pandemic, are causing many people to think of ways to develop self-sufficiency.

As a culture, we are not used to self-sufficiency. We have become a society of highly specialized interdependent workers, many of us very removed from the production of food. This system works when everything we need is readily available at the local market (whether we can afford it is another question). But in these times of spiraling prices, food shortages, food-borne illnesses, and worldwide unrest, it seems prudent to know how to fend for yourself, at least in the short term, as Hurricane Katrina so grimly illustrated.

During World War II, self-sufficiency became a national pastime. Wartime shortages resulted in food rationing, prompting many families to start their own vegetable gardens, called Victory gardens. Though rural folk had always grown their own food, during the war suburban and even city families tried their hands at growing their own produce. They did very well. Americans grew nearly half of the produce consumed nationally during the war years. Their reward was in knowing that they were helping the war effort by reducing demand on scarce supplies, providing fresh food for their family, and being empowered by the sense of self-sufficiency that comes from being able to grow your own food.

There is nothing particularly tricky about growing vegetables. A small vegetable garden can be started relatively inexpensively, with just a few basic tools and materials. Nor does a start up garden require a great deal of space. A very small plot will do, for example a space just a few feet square is sufficient to grow a small assortment of vegetables. For those who are apartment bound, vegetables can be grown in a container garden set out on a porch, fire escape, or rooftop.

If you have not grown vegetables before, you will want to start with realistic expectations about what you will get out of it. The abundant gardens you see in magazines are the result of years of trial and error in gardening technique. It is best for the beginner to make a modest start by choosing a handful of easy to grow vegetables to plant. As you go through the steps of choosing a garden location, preparing the soil, choosing vegetables, planting them, and then caring for them over the growing season, you will acquire valuable skills and experience that you can build on in years to come. This knowledge, of planting and growing, is something that used to be passed down from one generation to the next. What was once common knowledge now needs to be relearned through information gleaned from the Internet, gardening books, and practice in our own gardens. So in addition to providing fresh home grown veggies for your table, you will be reclaiming lost skills that allowed our ancestors to be self-sufficient.

Here’s how to get started. First, find a location for your garden. A beginner’s garden can be small. Any bit of yard can be made to work. A square plot 3 foot by 3, or a long narrow plot of 5 foot by 2 can do nicely. Those without a yard but with access to a rooftop, fire escape, or porch, can work with a collection of good sized pots, or if handy with tools, can build a small raised bed (think of a window box size and shape).

Look for a garden spot that gets a reasonable amount of daytime sun. A south facing location is best. If you don’t have a garden spot facing south, don’t give up. Plants can grow in a variety of places, and while a plot south facing and sunny is optimal, gardens can thrive in less ideal conditions. Simply take garden conditions into consideration when choosing which plants to grow, and go for those plants which can tolerate partial shade. Also, make sure to choose a spot that drains well.

Once you’ve found your garden space, you are ready to prepare your soil. Start by marking the boundaries of your garden with stakes, small posts, even sapling branches or popsicle sticks, anything that will clearly define the work space. You need to dig down to a depth of at least 18 inches throughout the garden plot. Simply turn the earth, loosening soil, and breaking up any hard clumps of dirt, as well as pulling out all rocks and roots that you find. Try not to disturb any earthworms you see as they help aerate and condition the soil. You are preparing the place where delicate roots will easily grow. Dark rich soil is the best kind, but many gardeners don’t have that to begin with. Luckily soil can be improved.

Once you have dug (or tilled) your garden, you can improve the soil by adding bagged compost, manure, or fertilizer. You will find these at a nursery or, during growing season, at many supermarkets and hardware stores. Go easy on the pesticides. You’re putting food in there! Whatever you put into the soil will go into your vegetables, so look for organic non-toxic products. After all, having food grown free of toxic chemicals is one of the big advantages of growing it in your own backyard. There are many non-toxic products to help plants grow and keep pests away.

Bags of compost or fertilizer bag will include instructions on how to apply the product. A fertilizer might require just a few shovelfuls sprinkled over the top of the soil, whereas a composted manure might direct that you spread 6 to 8 inches of compost evenly over the top of the entire garden and then loosely turn it in.

If you are gardening in containers, you will need to gather a few big pots, 9 to 12 inch diameters should do; or a slightly bigger than flower box size container that offers at least one foot in depth. You’ll also have to supply soil. Use bags of potting soil, available where plants are sold.

Once your garden plot is prepared, you’ll need to collect a few final materials before planting. Small hand trowels are very useful, a wide one for digging and a narrow one for transplanting seedlings. Also a hand cultivator, which looks like a big fork, helps you weed around plants. You’ll need a watering can or hose. If planting seeds, popsicle sticks and twine are very useful for marking the location of plants that have not yet come up; also twine can be used to mark the boundary of a planting area while it continues to resemble plain dirt. If you have wildlife in your area, dogs and cats that like to dig, or rambunctious children, you might want to consider putting some wire mesh around the perimeter of your garden. Also, if you haven’t yet invested in garden gloves you might want to consider a pair, as you will frequently have your hands in dirt, and a great deal of it will be caked under your fingernails every time you look.

Additionally, some vegetables need staking or trellising. If you grow climbing vines, such as pole beans, you’ll need to provide a support system. A few 6 to 8 foot stakes, set a couple of feet apart along the back of your garden will do. String heavy twine or wire from pole to pole, starting low when plants are small, and moving upwards, creating a horizontal ladder of twine. You can add some additional vertical twine to create a latticework. Vines will naturally attach themselves to this lattice, or they can be easily “trained” by hooking their tendrils onto the lattice. If growing tomatoes, you will need to provide support, either by using wooden stakes or wire cages. Stakes should be driven into the ground close to the tomato soon after it is planted (before roots begin to spread out). As the plant grows and branches become heavy with fruit, you can tie them loosely to the stake with twine. Or, buy some wire cages which are placed over the plant when it is young. The plant then grows up inside the cage which supports its branches at different heights.

Once you’ve prepared the garden space and collected essential materials, you’re ready to decide what to grow. To make the best decisions about what to plant you should determine what zone you live in. North America is divided into eleven hardiness, or growing zones. Your zone is important to know because it is based on the seasonal weather patterns in your area. Thus, your zone will help you determine which vegetables grow well where you live, as well as when you can plant seeds outside, or when you can transplant seedlings into your garden. The zones range from coldest, zone 1, to warmest, zone 11. Gardening zone information is readily available online, or by calling a local greenhouse, or from most general informational books on gardening.

After determining your zone, you can research which vegetables easily grow in your area. You need to look at two factors. First, consider vegetables that are easy to grow anywhere. Some vegetables are finicky. They require that conditions be exactly so. They demand a great deal of attention and specialized care. Other vegetables are sturdy workhorses. They grow like mad, producing abundant fruit no matter how much you ignore them. These are the kinds of vegetables you should choose. Good choices for easy to grow veggies are green beans, tomatoes, lettuces, radishes, squash, cucumbers, and pumpkins.

Second, you’ll need to look for vegetables that are well suited to your climate. Again, a local greenhouse is a good source of information here, as well as any neighbors with a green thumb. The general rule is that vegetables that require a longer growing season, like melons, eggplants, and peppers, do better in warmer zones. Vegetables that are hardy, frost resistant, or prefer cool weather, such as lettuce, spinach, or peas, do well in northern zones. Note that it is possible to grow vegetables which require long growing seasons in northern zones, however the growing season must be extended, either by starting seeds inside a month or two in advance, or buying seedlings ready to go in the garden. Conversely, cool weather plants can be grown in warmer zones, by planting in early spring or fall.

Finally, don’t forget to consider what you and your family like to eat. There’s a special
pleasure in growing food for favorite family recipes. Also family members are better motivated to help with garden work if their favorite foods will result.

The last task before you purchase plants or seeds is to roughly map out how you will use space in your garden. This will help you determine how many plants to buy. Depending on which plants you’ve chosen, you’ll need to consider what each type of plant requires for space and light. You can find this information on the back of seed packets, on the Internet, or in gardening magazines or books. Generally, you want to put larger plants in back, smaller plants up front where sunlight won’t be blocked (unless they are shade loving, then do plan to tuck them behind a larger plant). Some plants, like basil, don’t mind being a little crowded; others, like squash, need space to spread out. With just a rough idea of space requirements and light requirements, you can calculate how many plants of each type to buy.

Don’t forget to leave room for yourself in your garden map. If you cannot easily reach into all parts of the garden from the sides, you should consider putting a few stepping stones into your garden space. That way you that you won’t have to trample your garden beds in order to water or weed.

Finally you are ready to purchase some plants. Your choice is generally going to be between buying packets of seeds, or buying seedlings (small plants). For a first garden, you might want to choose a combination of both. Seedlings are easier to start with, but some vegetables, such as beans or radishes, grown wonderfully well from seed. Also some plants, like beans again, don’t like to be transplanted. Another thing to consider is that buying seedlings allows you to choose vegetables with longer growing seasons, as they are already 30 to 60 days into their growing cycle.

Don’t go overboard. It is easy to buy too much, which is a common mistake for beginners. Limit your choices to 5 or 6 types of vegetables. For example, you might choose the following seedlings from a greenhouse: a six pack of lettuce (a container with six small separate lettuce plants), 3 or 4 tomato plants, 2 or 3 basil plants, and two bush cucumber plants. Then buy 2 or 3 packets of seeds, one radish, one green beans ( pole beans take less space than bush beans - it’ll say on the packet), and one carrot. This combination will be more than enough to keep you busy for your first gardening season. You can always go back and buy a few more things later, if you have the room. You can also plan to expand what you grow by adding new vegetables next year.

To transplant seedlings, try to buy seedlings in peat pots rather than plastic. Peat pots look like dark brown cardboard, but they are biodegradable organic containers that make transplanting a snap. You simply bury the whole pot in the ground and it decomposes and enriches the soil with peat.

Plants will often develop crowded roots in their greenhouse six packs. If your plant is in a plastic six pack you can use kitchen shears to snip the sides of the pot to open them up. Invert the entire pot, guarding the plant with your hand so it doesn’t tumble out, and gently tap the bottom with a hand trowel. If it doesn’t come out, tap more firmly, or pull the pot apart to loosen it further. When the plant slides out, be as careful as possible with the roots. Prepare a suitable size hole, just bigger than the root system, and deep enough so that the roots will be entirely covered. Carefully place your seedling into the hole, and cover the roots, gently patting the soil firm around the plant. Give each a plant a little water after it goes in the garden. Transplanting is traumatic for plants, so treat them carefully. Plant when it is cool out, in early morning or at dusk. Overcast weather is also ideal for transplanting.

If planting seeds, follow directions on each packet as to timing, space, and depth of planting. Mark where you put in seeds with a border of popsicle sticks and twine, because it can be difficult to remember exactly where everything is, when all you can see is dirt. Most seeds like to be misted while they are germinating (or sprouting) – a light spray that slightly wets the soil. They generally don’t like to dry out, nor do they like sodden soil.

Once your garden is planted, you’ll need to provide plants continual care by watering, weeding, and perhaps mulching. Watering should be done regularly, ideally early in the morning or at dusk, so that soil can absorb water before it is evaporated by the sun. Keep your garden as free of weeds as possible, as weeds compete for space and nutrients. This is especially true of root vegetables, such as carrots. Mulching can help keep weeds down. You can mulch by spreading grass clippings, leaves, straw, sawdust, manure or even black plastic around the base of the plant. Mulch protects the plant from temperature extremes by insulating the soil, so it benefits plants that are sensitive to heat or cold.

Keep an eye on your plants. Some plants set fruit, such as tomatoes, squash or cucumbers. Watch for flowers on these plants, as they signal the start of fruit production. For other vegetables, like lettuce, it is the leaves that we eat. In this case, you don’t want the plant to flower, or go to seed. Keep picking the leaves, and mulch as necessary to prevent flowering. Some vegetables should ripen fully on the vine, such as cucumber or squash. Other plants continuously produce fruit, like green beans. These you can harvest continually, picking beans as they mature. The more you pick, the more the plant will produce. Again, check with your local greenhouse or on the Internet to research the care of each type of plant. Keep a notebook to keep track of what you do. That way, you can repeat what is very successful, and modify what doesn’t work so well.

Finally, enjoy your garden. A garden is a work of art. It is food for the soul and for the palate. It is an exercise in patience. It is an act of hope. A garden can be a source of exercise and family activity. As your garden grows, your skills as a gardener will also grow. These are skills you can use again and again, to feed your family fresh wholesome vegetables for years to come. They are skills, too, that ensure that if the need ever arises, you have the self-sufficiency to provide for your family.

Purchase this content for your website...

Pricing:
Usage:	$100	[Add to Cart]
Unique:	$125	[Add to Cart]
Full Rights:	$150	[Add to Cart]

Downloads: 0
Written by: C.R. Donovan
Available File Types:Text
Words: 2900