It’s that time of year. If you plant a garden now, you’ll be able to get nice, organic vegetables by fall. For lettuce and spinach, you’ll have them even faster. Kale and Swiss chard, too.
If you don’t have a yard, you can grow a lot of great vegetables in pots on a patio. Try it, you’ll like it.
Another idea for gardening is to see if your community has a program that offers gardening plots to individuals or groups.
Here are the steps for planting a garden:
Decide where to put the garden and what type you want. I have a raised bed garden made of cinder blocks. I went out to Black Lake Organic and looked at theirs made with cinder blocks. After I ordered them, I found the blocks were too heavy for me to lift. I hired a friend to build it for me. You can buy kits to construct a raised bed garden at home and garden stores that have wood sides. If you don’t want a raised bed garden, you can spade the ground for your garden.
Figure out how to amend the soil. You can have your soil tested and determine how it should be amended from the report. However, you can also ask neighbors what kind of soil you have and get organic fertilizer to improve it. I have clay soil so for my first garden, I order a load of rich, organic soil for it. Now, I get compost from the local co-op every year and spade it into the garden.
Amend the soil. Spade the soil and add the compost. Spade again to mix the soil and amendment.
Add fertilizer formulated for vegetables. I get organic vegetable fertilizer from the local co-op. You also can find it at home and garden stores. Follow the directions for adding the fertilizer, usually working it into the soil about 3 to 4 inches.
Buy organic seeds and seedlings. For seeds, I plant Swiss chard, carrots, kale, collards, lettuce, spinach, and green beans in the raised bed garden. For seedlings, I plant one eggplant, one green pepper, strawberries, cucumbers, and zucchinis. I used to grow tomatoes, but, due to the mild summers in the Seattle area, the tomatoes usually didn’t ripen. I got tired of green tomatoes in the fall. This year, however, I did plant one cherry tomato plant.
Plant the seeds and seedlings. Follow the directions for the seeds on the package. For cucumbers and zucchinis, they need a lot of room, so plan ahead. Usually, you need to figure out which seeds can be planted before the last frost and which seeds can be planted after it. However, for most of the United States, it’s warm enough now.
Water regularly. I water my vegetable garden daily except when it rains. Since my garden is small, I water it and the pots where I grow vegetables by hand. When I was growing up in apple farms in Central Washington, my mom watered the garden with a sprinkler. We had a really big garden.
Weed as needed. I don’t get many weeds in my raised bed garden or in the pots where I grow vegetables. However, the rest of my yard is a different story.
Enjoy your vegetables. I think I love the green beans the most. I’ve only had too many zucchinis one year, although many people complain about them. Sometimes, I grow more cucumbers than I can eat but they’re easy to give away – people like to get them.
I hope you give vegetable gardening a try. It’s easier than you think. I enjoy working on mine and eating the great organic produce.
