Before you begin your garden you will need to decide where
you are going to put your plot. Gardens do not have to be large fields. A small
patch will fit you and your family’s needs perfectly. Many square food gardens
are only about 4 feet by 4 feet. A patch this small can provide more than
enough food for a family of four plus enough for preserving for later use or to
give to a food pantry. Decide how much food you want to grow and create a
garden that will fit that amount. A garden plot also needs to be in a sunny
area, with well draining soil. Most food plants need full sun to grow properly.
Next, you will need to create exceptionally healthy soil.
Building a raised bed is perfect for this and there are many square foot
gardening kits available that have cut down on a considerable amount of work.
Also raised beds allow you to fill the space with the kind of nutrient rich
soil that will grow extremely nutritious organic food. The soil is the most
important part of any garden as this is where the vegetables get their
nutrients. You will want to put in a many nutrients as you can. To do this you
will need to add compost to your raised bed. Compost is decomposed organic
matter from grass clippings, dead leaves, kitchen scraps and other materials.
It has so many healthy microorganism that a garden would not be complete with
out it. You can start you own compost pile by putting kitchen scraps and dead
leaves into a outdoor compost bin or in a big pile surrounding buy chicken wire.
The matter needs to be rotated to make sure all of it breaking down and that it
won’t start to smell like rotting food.
Once you have planned out where your plot will be and the
kind of soil you will use, you need to decide what to plant. This should follow
your taste buds—plant the foods you normally eat. If you eat a lot of bell
peppers, plant a row of those. If you eat a lot of broccoli, plant a row as
well. Pick whatever vegetables are your favorites and that you believe are easy
to grow. If you are growing from seed, start them inside about 6 weeks before
you plan on planting them into the ground. Planting from seeds is much less
expensive than buying plants at the garden nursery. You certainly can buy the
plants at the nursery as well and plant as soon as you get home. If you start
your plants from seed you will need ample time to harden them off, or get the
used to being outside. To do this take the plant outside every day, for an hour
at first and then lengthen the amount of time the plant is outside. This method
will ensure to not shock the tender plant. Once it has been exclusively outside
for a few days you can plant it in the garden.
During the course of the season, water and weed to make sure
your plants grow properly. It also helps to put some compost around them to
beef up the nutrition of the soil. Check you garden daily to see how the plants
are doing and keep a log of which plants are doing very well and which ones are
not performing as you would have hoped. Continue to plant ones that do well, as
they will produce the most food.
Image courtesy of nirots at www.freedigitalphotos.net
