Today’s economy leads most people to grow their vegetables to save on increasing grocery bills. Vegetable gardening is now a trend as most people find it affordable and are getting more aware of what they are putting in their bodies, says QualityGardenSupplies. Although it is easy to start a vegetable garden even in limited space. There are some ideas you need to borrow from the experts to ensure you are successful at your startup. This also gives you a great pass time activity, and you can start small and expand as far as you want to grow your vegetable garden. Choose a sunny spot, as vegetables need at least six hours of sun per day. Below are some ideas that you can borrow to start planting some delicious vegetables and enjoy the fruits of your labor in no time.
Know How Your Rows Should Run
As you plant your garden, planting on your space should not be without any plan. It is important to make neat and straight rows. Making rows helps to shade and also expose your vegetables depending on the climate you have in your zone. For instance, if you live in a hot country, you should setup the rows from top to bottom as this will help each plant to shade each other from the warm south side. While for temperate climates, the vegetable rows need to run from east to west, to ensure all vegetables receive enough sunlight.
Add Flowers to Your Vegetable Garden
Flowers in a vegetable garden have many benefits. Flowers add their beauty and make the vegetable garden a lovely place to work. Also, flowers are known to attract beneficial insects like ladybugs, bees, and lacewings that are beneficial to your vegetables. Other flowers help repel pests that attack vegetables, and thus the flowers are practical to have in your vegetable garden. Experiment with some common flowers such as marigolds and also some edible flowers like violets and nasturtiums. Thus, through leaving room for blooms you get yummy flowers and vegetables for personal use.
Do Companion Planting
The beauty of companion planting is it helps you shield your vegetable garden naturally. As you grow your vegetables, choosing companion plants will help you repel insects. Especially aromatic plants like mint, basil, and sage are beneficial in repelling these bugs. They are amazing companion plants to your valuable vegetables. Additionally, if you grow cabbage family plants like cauliflower, broccoli to fend off the cabbage moths, mint and sage are amazing companion plants. These herbs are not only to help keep off bugs, but you can eat them as they are savory herbs. Besides, if you love adding asparagus and tomatoes in your diet, these two are amazing companion plants as asparagus repel nematodes from tomatoes, and tomatoes repel beetles from asparagus.
Plant Beans
Nitrogen is an essential element for plant growth. For this reason, as you plan to grow an excellent vegetable garden, you need to enrich your soil with nitrogen. This is possible through planting legumes such as beans, peas, and others to boost the soil nitrogen level. When you add beans to your vegetable garden they first use the nitrogen they have stored as they blossom and set fruit. Then, as you harvest the beans or pull them out early they leave not only nitrogen in the soil but other nutrients as well for the vegetables to use.
Do Crop Rotation
This idea is from a long time ago and it is still useful today for a successful vegetable garden. Moving crops around your vegetable garden is important to prevent any buildup of soil-borne microbes that are harmful to some specific crops. Therefore, avoid planting a vegetable or a member of its family in the same area in your garden every year. For instance, rotating tomatoes with eggplants as they are in the same family will do more harm than good. It is best to rotate them with cabbages and broccoli, and through this, you optimize soil nutrients. Also, you can decide to divide your vegetable garden into sections, it will help you rotate easily. Plan your crop rotation to ensure you know how best to move your veggies around.
Plant All Season Long
Instead of allowing your garden to stay empty when you have done your harvest. It is important to plant all season long to ensure you have a surplus of vegetables for your day to day consumption. So, include slow and quick-growing vegetables as you cultivate your garden. This idea ensures you have an excellent vegetable garden. For instance, once you harvest spinach which is a cool-weather crop, you can replant that space with green beans which are warm-weather crops. Additionally, slow growers like tomatoes, you can interplant with quick growers like radishes. In this way, the quickly growing crop will be up and out before the slow-growing crop can shade or crowd it.
Plan and Organize Your Garden
Depending on the space you have to plant your vegetable garden. Ensure that you keep everything easy in reach by planning your paths. Plus, think vertical by making the most of your limited space. Thus, ensure your vegetable beds are not wider than the spread of your arms to tend to them easier. Also, ensure that you plant in vertical crops like pole beans that take little ground space. Others like lettuce as they are of dwarf varieties help to plan and organize the garden space too.
In conclusion, the above ideas are amazing if you aim to have an excellent vegetable garden. Once you have enough sunlight and a water source near you, you can easily practice the rest of the ideas to see the outcome. Monitor your vegetable garden to pull out weeds as they are unwanted company. Also, keep birds away by hanging strips of reflective tape to scare them off and watch your vegetables grow.