April 15th, 2009
8 – Plant your own veggie garden (or one for your school).
There’s never been a better time to plant a vegetable garden, from the perspective of the economy and the planet. The best advice for families is to know what climate zone you’re in. There are 11 zones in the U.S. and each one follows its own rules for planting. Go to the National Gardening Association website to find out more about the zones and just type in your zip code to find yours.
Next step: decide what veggies you and your family enjoy. We started with tomatoes, lettuce, cucumbers, green peppers, squash and a variety of herbs – cilantro, basil, mint and parsley.
Horticulturalist Russell Greenleaf, of Greenleaf Gardens, suggests planting both seeds and plugs. Stagger your plantings. “Since you can plant tomatoes where I live (New York) from May until August, don’t plant all your tomatoes at the same time. That way you don’t have more tomatoes than you need in July and you can stretch the harvest season until frost.”
The size of your first vegetable garden is important. It’s easy to get overly ambitious. Garden experts suggest about 8-by-8-foot for starters. Another idea is to plant several 4-by-2-foot beds, which makes it easier to maneuver without stepping on the plants. Remember: Location. Location. Location. Be sure your garden is in the sun. “The bare minimum is six hours of sunlight for most vegetables,” says Greenleaf (yes, that’s his real name).
Prepping the soil and watering properly are the next key ingredients. Greenleaf recommends a “double dig” which means putting in one foot of manure below the soil you are planting on. He also suggests hand-watering or using an oscillating sprinkler on a timer. “The key is to water deep, not shallow,” he says. “Less frequent watering, but longer duration.” Another tip: practice companion planting. He often plants a furrow with radish and lettuce seeds. You can do this, he says,“because they have different growing times, the radish comes out in 30 days, and the lettuce in about 60 days.”
A nice touch is to add flowers. Greenleaf says zinnias, marigolds, cosmos, begonias, petunias are a great addition to the vegetable garden. “They look beautiful and when you’re harvesting your vegetables, you can cut a bouquet for the dinner table. “ In addition, he says, flowers attract beneficial pollinators and fool pests. It’s also important to leave no empty space in your new vegetable garden, otherwise weeds will take over. Staggering the growing times and planting flowers make a world of difference.
For the first-time gardener, How to Grow More Vegetables by John Jeavons is a good choice. Jeavons tells and shows readers how to produce a sustainable home-scale garden. He breaks down the process by season and by the size of your family. Greenleaf highly recommends the Jeavons tome saying, “It’s the perfect primer and he’s been doing it for 40 years all over the world.”
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