Vegetable Gardening

Vegetable gardening is a very enjoyable pastime, where growing a wide variety of vegetables provides the healthy fruits of your labor to satisfy you and your family.  Outdoor gardening is a delightful way to bring fresh, natural ingredients to your meals while keeping the cost of supermarket vegetable shopping to a minimum as well as giving you a sense of accomplishment.  Your gardening can be done with traditional methods of fertilization and pest control or can be done with organic methods.  Vegetable gardening consists of 6 general categories: Planning, preparation, planting, maintenance, harvesting and clearing.

The beginning steps of your vegetable gardening can be broken down into three steps, Planning (the garden), Preparing (the soil) and Planting (your vegetables), also know as “the 3 P’s”.  Planning consists of choosing a garden plot location which has good sunlight, easy access water source, good drainage, good air flow and a fence or motion-activated sprinkler to keep out animals, if necessary.  Mapping of your crops is always very helpful.  Vegetable garden preparation consists of removing stones, tilling, fertilization and possible treatment with other soil enhancement materials.  Soil acidity may need to be modified as well, depending on what you plan to grow.  Planting consists of marking your rows and locations according to your crop map, sowing your seed and planting your vegetable starts which were started from seed indoors.  Of course, the proper use of gardening tools and effective protection like Gripper gloves during preparation and planting is essential.

Vegetable gardening maintenance includes many steps which need to be done on an ongoing basis, including responsible irrigation methods such as using a soaker hose, weed control, mulching, insect control and disease control.  Harvesting of your crop needs to be done when the plants are mature without waiting until they are overmature.  Harvesting should be done when it is cooler or the plants can be cooled immediately after harvesting in order to preserve flavor and quality.  Clearing of your vegetable garden involves removal of all vegetation, turning the soil over, adding organic amendments, adding fertilizer, rototilling to mix the elements and to aerate the soil and raking the surface smooth.  Clearing is an important step to do to your garden before winter and will save you work in the long run.

Vegetables and fruits today are most often genetic hybrid varieties such as Whopper tomatoes, designed to be better suited for survival in many different growing conditions and are intended to offer a consistent yield.  However, many people prefer to plant their vegetable gardens with heirloom varieties.  Heirloom varieties are “open-pollinated”, grow “true to type” displaying the same characteristics as the parent plant, meaning their genetic make-up has not had other genetic varieties mixed-in, and these identical varieties grown are most often grown directly from the seeds of the parent plants, year after year.  Heirloom varieties with identical genetic make-up can be traced back 50 years or longer.  Additionally, many of these varieties have been collected and maintained throughout the years from their European or South American beginnings.

The many methods of vegetable gardening and multitude of vegetable varieties offer those who are seeking good home-grown, fresh vegetables a healthy, productive and satisfying hobby.  You can start your garden from seedlings or you can plant vegetable seed. Vegetable gardening is an enjoyable pastime allowing you to grow healthy, natural vegetables for your meals, keeping the cost of vegetable shopping down and giving you a sense of accomplishment.  The simple processes involved in vegetable gardening and the large number of different crops you can tend for yourself or others provides endless possibilities.