A Little Bit of Green

Dreaming of a beautiful, fresh, organic vegetable garden but not sure if you have a green thumb, the space or the time? Here are some tips to help anyone get started. (Also known as if I can manage not to kill it so can you! )

1. Show no fear. Let’s get one issue out of the way right away. You are going to kill some plants. Accept and make peace with that fact. 10 years later when your friends think of you as a master gardener you will still occasionally kill some plants. It will just happen a lot less often. The nice thing is most plants, especially vegetables, are cheap. As I recently heard a farmer put it, “The cool thing about gardening is you always get a fresh start next year.” It’s a good thing too since this year I tried growing cauliflower. I’m not sure what I did wrong but it went from angry to dead in about 2 days.
2. Size doesn’t matter. To grow fresh produce you don’t need a farm. You don’t need a yard. You don’t even need a balcony. All you need is a location where you can combine a little sunshine and a little dirt. A garden can be as simple as a single herb or lettuce plant in a pot in the window or as complex as a multi-acre field. In fact if you are just starting out think small. Grand dreams can lead to grand burnout. Dig a little. Plant a little. See if you can maintain it and then expand. I loosely follow the Square Foot Gardening system because it lets you expand literally one foot at a time.
3. Plants forgive a lot. If you sit down and read a garden book you will quickly find yourself overwhelmed with descriptions of soil acidity, sun/shade levels, proper fertilization, etc. By the time you are done reading it will seem like you need a PhD just to plant a tomato. The truth is if you get all these right you will have bigger, stronger, healthier plants. However if you get them all wrong you will still have plants. When starting out don’t let perfection get in the way of having something. Plant a little. See how they do. Fix things if they turn out to be broken. Plants will forgive a lot. For example a strict follower of Square Foot Gardening digs in certain proportions of compost, peat moss, and organic fertilizer. When I did my plots I dug in a layer of each but I have no clue of the exact proportions.
4. Plants need water. This may seem obvious but I actually had to pause at this point and go water my garden… a day late. Sorry plants! Some of you may be lucky enough to live somewhere that rains routinely and your soil is always perfectly moist but not too moist. I will try not to curse you. For the rest of us there will be times when your garden needs water. Usually this will occur the moment you leave for a 2 week vacation. If at any point in the growing season you need to run sprinklers on your lawn you will need to water your garden. Make your life easy and protect your investment in money and labor. Set up a low effort watering system. For example my husband setup a drip irrigation system on a timer for me last summer. This weekend I’m re-enabling it before I almost kill off any more plants. It was relatively cheap from parts at the local hardware store and let me go on vacation… or just have a rough week, garden worry free.
5. Plants can be picky about temperature. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that my kale plants survived all winter long. Now I know they are cold hardy and will plant accordingly. On the other hand my tomato plants died the first night it frosted. That’s expected in the fall but it can be quiet a surprise in the spring. The first warm day in early spring is not the time to plant everything. Each plant has a certain amount of cold hardiness. Some will just stall if it frosts… others will die. To save a lot of frustration look up the average frost dates for your area. Then for each plant look up how many weeks before or after the date they like to be planted. Peas are forgiving and can go in early. On the other hand tomatoes better wait until you sure they aren’t going to get frost tinged

Filed under: Food by Rose |