Starting your own kitchen veggies garden

Growing vegetables in your backyard is not only a way to save money, but it’s also fun. [PHOTO: JOHN GATHUA/STANDARD]

Starting a vegetable garden at home is an easy way to save money. Having just a few of your own vegetables can help offset the relatively high cost of buying them from the grocer or supermarket.

Planting vegetables also gives you the pleasure of enjoying a delicious, fresh produce from the garden. In nearly every case, the flavour and texture of varieties you can grow far exceed the best grocery store produce.

Plus, growing vegetables can be fun. It’s a great way to spend time with children or have a place to get away and spend time outdoors in the garden.

Learning what to plant in a garden with vegetables, and how to tend them for the best harvest, is probably easier than you think — it just requires time, good advice and common sense.

Planting a garden that includes vegetables and flowers means you’ve combined natural companions, and that can turn a potential eyesore into an attractive landscape feature.

At first, when deciding what to plant in a garden with vegetables, it’s best to start small. Many gardeners get a little too excited at the beginning and plant more than they need — and end up wasting food and feeling overwhelmed by their garden.

So, first take a look at how much your family will eat when planning a vegetable garden.

Keep in mind that vegetables such as tomatoes, peppers and squash keep providing throughout the season — so you may not need many plants to serve your needs.

Other vegetables, such as carrots and radish, produce only once. You may need to plant more of these.

Choosing your site

Before you commit, make sure the plot is right. Choose a site near where you live. Every mile to drive will be a disincentive to go.

Proximity to the water supply will ensure continuous production even during dry season.

Most vegetables need at least six to eight hours of direct sun. If they don’t get enough light, they won’t bear as much and they’ll be more susceptible to attack from insects and or diseases. If possible, shun shade-casting perimeter trees.

Good soil: As with any kind of garden, success usually starts with the soil. Most vegetables do best in moist, well-drained soil that’s rich in organic matter (such as compost or peat moss).

Don’t feel obliged to take the first or any plot offered to you if you don’t feel it can work. It is better to wait and get one close by than struggle with one that’s not right.

Designing your vegetable garden

Once you know what you want to plant, figure out a vegetable garden with the right amount of space.

Keep in mind when figuring out what to plant in a garden with vegetables that you don’t need a large space to begin.

If you choose to grow in containers, you don’t even need a yard — a deck or balcony may provide plenty of space.

In fact, a well-tended 10x10-foot vegetable garden will usually produce more than a weed-filled or disease-ridden 25x50-foot bed.

There are two basic approaches to planning the layout of a vegetable garden—row planting and intensive planting.

Choosing varieties

Once you start deciding what to plant in a garden with vegetables, you’ll realise that the possibilities for varietal choice are endless. For instance, there are hundreds of tomato varieties alone!

When selecting varieties, pay close attention to the description on the tag or in the catalog.

Each variety is distinctive: Some produce smaller plants that are ideal for small gardens or containers, others offer great disease resistance, improved yields, better heat or cold-tolerance, or other characteristics.

Seed catalogs are one of the best sources for vegetables (get one from your agro-dealer). Once you narrow your choices to types of vegetables, pick two or three varieties that seem promising.

That way if one variety doesn’t perform well, you’ll have other plants to make up for it. Next season, grow the best performer again, and choose another to try.

Care and feeding

Most vegetables like a steady supply of moisture, but not so much that they are standing in water. About an inch of water per week is usually sufficient. Irrigation is necessary should the rains fail.

Weeds compete with your vegetables for water and nutrients and could host pests, so it’s important to keep them to a minimum. Use a hoe or hand fork to lightly stir (cultivate) the top inch of soil regularly to discourage weed seedlings.

A mulch of clean straw, compost, or plastic can keep weeds at bay around larger plants like tomatoes. Pests and disease are ongoing problems for most vegetable gardeners. Should they occur, seek assistance from experts.

Fertilising your crops is critical to maximising yields. Experienced gardeners often find that digging in high quality compost at planting time is all their vegetables need. Inorganic fertiliser supplement is also recommended.

Crop rotation: the sensible farming practice of not growing crops in the same place doesn’t work on a small scale, as the crop turnover is too fast. Instead, try not to grow things in the same spot two years running.

Harvesting

Many vegetables can be harvested at several stages. Leaf lettuce and spinach for example, can be picked as young as you like; snip some leaves and it will continue to grow and produce.

Squash and cucumber can be harvested when the fruit is just a few inches long, or it can be allowed to grow to full size.

The general rule: If it looks good enough to eat, it probably is. Give it a try. With many vegetables, the more you pick, the more the plant will produce.

Keep good records

In conclusion, we end up where we started — with the realisation that, although vegetable gardening can be rewarding even for beginners, there is an art to doing it well. There is also a mountain of good information and advice from other gardeners available to you.

Yet one of the most important ways of improving your garden from year to year is to pay close attention to how plants grow, and note your successes and failures in a garden notebook.

Just as drawing a garden plan each year helps you remember where things were growing, taking notes can help you avoid making the same mistakes again, or ensure that your good results can be reproduced in future years.

For instance, write down all names of different vegetable varieties, and compare them from year to year, so you will know which ones have done well in your garden.

Many people keep a book in their car to record when they change their oil and perform other routine maintenance. In the same way, get in the habit of jotting it down whenever you apply organic matter or fertiliser to the garden, or the dates on which you plant or begin to harvest a crop.

Over time, this careful observation and record-keeping will probably teach you more about growing vegetables than any single book or authority.

Additionally, the notes you make will be based on your own personal experience and observations, and will reflect what works best for you in the unique conditions of your garden.

As in so many other pursuits, so it is in the art of vegetable gardening: practice does make perfect!

 The writer is a consultant on sustainable agriculture and agricultural innovations.