Vegetable Gardening Page 4
Save some cash
You can save big money by growing your own vegetables and fruits. In fact, depending on the type and amount you grow, you can save hundreds of dollars. By spending a few dollars on seeds, plants, and supplies in spring, you'll produce vegetables that yield pounds of produce in summer. Instead of having to go to the grocery store to buy all that produce, you've got it ready for the picking for free in your yard. It's your own personal produce department! You'll save hundreds of dollars on your grocery bill each year by growing a garden.
Here's just one example of how a vegetable garden can save you some cash. The 20-foot-by-30-foot production garden in Figure 2-1 highlights many favorite vegetables. I also include some plans for succession cropping and interplanting. (See Chapter 16 for more details on these techniques.) When I indicate succession crops, I'm assuming two crops in one growing season. I'm also assuming 8-foot-long raised beds with rows with space to walk between the beds down the center.
To show you how the garden in Figure 2-1 saves you money, the following list provides vegetable yields and the price per pound of each crop. However, keep in mind that these are general averages. I've erred on the conservative side with many yields. Yields, after all, can vary depending on the location, variety, and growth of your crops. The prices are based on national average prices from the USDA Agricultural Marketing Service for those vegetables grown organically in summer. Again, these numbers may vary depending on the year and location in the country. However, even with all these variables, you can see that you grow more than 300 pounds of produce worth more than $600 just by working your own garden!
Figure 2-1: An example of a vege-table garden that can save big money.
Vegetable
Yields
Dollars per Pound
Value
Beets
12 pounds
$1.50
$18
Broccoli
16 pounds
$2.50
$40
Cabbages
18 pounds
$1
$18
Carrots
16 pounds
$1.50
$24
Cauliflower
8 pounds
$3
$24
Cucumbers
10 pounds
$2
$20
Eggplant
12 pounds
$2
$24
Leeks
10 pounds
$1.50
$15
Lettuce
10 pounds
$2
$20
Onions
16 pounds
$1.50
$24
Peas (double row)
8 pounds
$3
$24
Peppers
30 pounds
$1.50
$45
Pole beans
12 pounds
$1.50
$18
Potatoes
25 pounds
$1
$25
Spinach
10 pounds
$3
$30
Summer squash/zucchini
25 pounds
$2
$50
Sweet corn (50 ears)
17 pounds
$0.50/ea
$25
Tomatoes
80 pounds
$2
$160
Winter squash (bush)
15 pounds
$2
$30
Totals
350 pounds
$634
If you grew the garden depicted in Figure 2-1, your initial investment of $70 to get started will yield 350 pounds of vegetables. If you purchased the same 350 pounds of vegetables in a grocery store, you'd have to pay more than $600. So, as you can see, you're saving money and getting great food to eat.
Help the environment
Your tomatoes, lettuces, and melons from the grocery store cost more than just the price to produce them. It's estimated that the average produce travels up to 1,500 miles to get from farm to grocery store, and that's just vegetables and fruits produced in the United States. Increasingly, produce is being imported from foreign countries, such as China and Chile. The fossil fuels used to transport these vegetables increases air pollution and global warming. So, one of the big-picture reasons for growing your own produce is to fight these effects on our planet.
Plus, by growing your own vegetables, fruits, and herbs, you also reduce the amount of pollution that's created on the farm. Regardless of it being a conventional or organic farm, many large operations tend to use lots of fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides to grow their crops. Unfortunately, some of these additives end up as sources of pollution (and their creation requires fossil fuels). By growing your own produce using a minimal amount of these inputs (I show you how in Chapter 15), you can reduce the amount of chemical and fertilizer pollution that ends up in waterways around the country. For more information on gardening sustainably, check out Sustainable Landscaping For Dummies by Owen Dell (Wiley).
Increase your quality of life
A less tangible (but still important) reason to grow your own vegetables is related to quality of life. Vegetable gardening is a great way to unwind after a hard day. You can achieve a simple pleasure and satisfaction in roaming through your garden, snacking on a bean here and a cherry tomato there, pulling a few weeds, watering, and enjoying the fruits of your labors. It's an immediate, simple satisfaction in a world that so often is complicated and complex.
Also, if you garden with others in a community garden, you'll create new friendships and bonds with your neighbors. According to the NGA food gardening survey that I describe earlier in this chapter, more than a million community gardens exist across the country. Often community gardens become a focal point for neighborhood beautification, education, and development projects. When the gardens are sown, people start taking increased interest and pride in their neighborhood and how it looks. Often crime, graffiti, and vandalism are reduced just by creating a garden where people can gather together. And you thought all you were doing is growing a few vegetables!
For more information about starting a community garden or to find one in your area, contact the American Community Gardening Association at communitygarden.org.
Chapter 3: Planning Your Veggie Garden
In This Chapter
Finding the right spot for your garden
Getting the scoop on vegetable varieties
Knowing how to time your planting
Mapping out your garden design
Before you go out and till up the whole yard to create a vegetable garden, you need to do a little planning. I know, I know. You're dreaming of luscious melons, mouth-watering tomatoes, and crisp salad greens picked fresh from your garden. But as my dad used to say, "You gotta have a plan, Charlie." So, in this chapter, I provide you with a basic plan for locating and mapping out the perfect vegetable garden to suit your yard and needs.
Deciding Where to Put Your Vegetable Garden
When considering where to plop down your plot, think of these three main elements, which are necessary for the perfect spot: site, sun, and soil. The following sections describe each of these and give you some things to think about when surveying your yard for the best possible spot for your plot. Figure 3-1 puts some of these ideas into visual perspective.
Don't be discouraged if you lack the ideal garden spot — few gardeners have one. Just try to make the most of what you have.
Figure 3-1: A sample yard with possible (and impossible) sites for a vegetable garden.
Considering different sites
Choosing a site is the important first step in planning a vegetable garden. This may sound like a tough choice to make, but don't worry; a lot of the decision is based on good old common sense. When you're considering a site for your garden, remember these cons
iderations:
Keep it close to home. Plant your garden where you'll walk by it daily so that you remember to care for it. Also, a vegetable garden is a place people like to gather, so keep it close to a pathway. (I talk about garden paths later in this chapter.)
Vegetable gardens used to be relegated to some forlorn location out back. Unfortunately, if it's out of sight, it's out of mind. I like to plant vegetables front and center — even in the front yard. That way you get to see the fruits of your labor and remember what chores need to be done. Plus, it's a great way to engage the neighbors as they stroll by and admire your plants. You may even be inspired to share a tomato with them.
Make it easy to access. If you need to bring in soil, compost, mulch, or wood by truck or car, make sure your garden can be easily reached by a vehicle. Otherwise you'll end up working way too hard to cart these essentials from one end of the yard to the other.
Have a water source close by. Try to locate your garden as close as you can to an outdoor faucet. Hauling hundreds of feet of hose around the yard to water the garden will only cause more work and frustration. And, hey, isn't gardening supposed to be fun?
Keep it flat. You can garden on a slight slope, and, in fact, a south-facing one is ideal since it warms up faster in spring. However, too severe a slope could lead to erosion problems. To avoid having to build terraces like Machu Picchu, plant your garden on flat ground.
A bit of science also is involved in choosing the right site. Microclimates are small areas of your yard whose temperatures and related growing conditions are slightly different from the overall climate of your yard, neighborhood, or town. These differences usually are caused by large objects, such as your house, a wall, or a tree. For example, the south side of your house may be hotter than the rest of your yard, because the sun reflects off the walls and the house blocks prevailing cold winds. Or an area under a large tree may be cooler than the rest of the yard because of the shade provided by the tree's canopy.
How big is too big for a veggie garden? If you're a first-time gardener, a size of 100 square feet is plenty of space to take care of; I like to tell beginning gardeners to start small and build on their success. However, if you want to produce food for storing and sharing, a 20-foot-x-30-foot plot (600 square feet total) is a great size. You can produce an abundance of different vegetables and still keep the plot looking good.
Speaking of upkeep, keep the following in mind when deciding how large to make your garden: If the soil is in good condition, a novice gardener can keep up with a 600-square-foot garden by devoting about a half-hour each day the first month of the season; in late spring through summer, a good half-hour of work every 2 to 3 days should keep the garden productive and looking good. Keep in mind that the smaller the garden, the less time it'll take to keep it looking great. Plus, after it's established, the garden will take less time to get up and running in the spring. And if you use some of the time-saving tips throughout this book, you may be able to cut down the time commitment even more.
Letting the sun shine on your plot
Vegetables need enough sun to produce at their best. Fruiting vegetables, such as tomatoes, peppers, beans, squash, melons, cucumbers, and eggplant, need at least 6 hours of direct sun a day for good yields. The amount of sun doesn't have to be continuous though. You can have 3 hours in the morning with some shade midday and then 3 more hours in the late afternoon.
However, if your little piece of heaven gets less than 6 hours of sun, don't give up. You have some options:
Crops where you eat the leaves, such as lettuce, arugula, pac choi, and spinach, produce reasonably well in a partially shaded location where the sun shines directly on the plants for 3 to 4 hours a day.
Root crops, such as carrots, potatoes, and beets, need more light than leafy vegetables, but they may do well getting only 4 to 6 hours of sun a day.
If you don't have enough sun to grow fruiting crops, such as tomatoes and peppers, consider planting a movable garden. Plant these crops in containers and move them to the sunniest spots in your yard throughout the year. I discuss this technique more in Chapter 18.
Keep in mind that sun and shade patterns change with the seasons. A site that's sunny in midsummer may later be shaded by trees, buildings, and the longer shadows of late fall and early spring. If you live in a mild-winter climate, such as parts of the southeastern and southwestern United States where it's possible to grow vegetables nearly year-round, choosing a spot that's sunny in winter as well as in summer is important. In general, sites that have clear southern exposure are sunniest in winter (refer to Figure 3-1).
You can have multiple vegetable garden plots around your yard matching the conditions with the vegetables you're growing. If your only sunny spot is a strip of ground along the front of the house, plant a row of peppers and tomatoes. If you have a perfect location near a backdoor, but it only gets morning sun, plant lettuce and greens in that plot.
If shade in your garden comes from nearby trees and shrubs, your vegetable plants will compete for water and nutrients as well as for light. Tree roots extend slightly beyond the drip line, the outer foliage reach of the tree. If possible, keep your garden out of the root zones (the areas that extend from the drip lines to the trunks) of surrounding trees and shrubs. If avoiding root zones isn't possible, give the vegetables more water and be sure to fertilize to compensate.
Black walnut trees pose a particular problem to vegetable gardens because their roots give off a substance called juglone that inhibits the growth of some plants, including tomatoes. Plants growing in the root zones of black walnuts often wilt and die. Try to leave at least 50 feet between your garden and any walnut trees.
Checking your soil's drainage
After you've checked the site location and sun levels of your prospective garden, you need to focus on the third element of the big three: the soil. Ideally you have rich, loamy, well-drained soil with few rocks (as I describe in Chapter 14). Unfortunately, that type of soil is a rarity. But a key that's even more essential to good soil is proper water drainage. Plant roots need air as well as water, and water-logged soils are low in air content. Puddles of water on the soil surface after a rain indicate poor drainage.
One way to check your soil's drainage is to dig a hole about 10 inches deep and fill it with water. Let the water drain and then fill the hole again the following day. Time how long it takes for the water to drain away. If water remains in the hole more than 8 to 10 hours after the second filling, your soil drainage needs improvement.
Soils made primarily of clay tend to be considered heavy. Heavy soils usually aren't as well drained as sandy soils. Adding lots of organic matter to your soil can improve soil drainage (I tell you a lot more about how to do that in Chapter 14). Or you also can build raised beds on a poorly drained site (see "Deciding on hills, rows, or raised beds," later in this chapter).
But slow water drainage isn't always a bad thing. Soil also can be too well drained. Very sandy soil dries out quickly and needs frequent watering during dry spells. Again, adding lots of organic matter to sandy soil increases the amount of water it can hold.
If you encounter a lot of big rocks in your soil, you may want to look for another spot. Or consider going the raised-bed route. You can improve soils that have a lot of clay or that are too sandy, but very rocky soil can be a real headache. In fact, it can be impossible to garden in.
Don't plant your garden near or on top of the leach lines of a septic system. I'm sure you know why. And keep away from underground utilities. If you have questions, call your local utility company to locate underground lines. If you're unsure what's below ground, visit www.call811.com to have lines or pipes identified for free.
Understanding Veggie Varieties
Before you go drooling over the luscious veggies in catalogs, in garden centers, and online, it's good to know a little about the varieties you can choose from. If you select your veggie varieties before you design your garden, you can ensure that you hav
e the proper amount of space and the best growing conditions. (I explain how to design your garden later in this chapter.)
A variety is a selection of a particular type of vegetable that has certain predictable, desirable traits. These traits may include the following:
Adaptation: Some varieties are particularly well adapted to certain areas and climates. For example, some tomato varieties produce good-tasting fruit in the cool, foggy coastal climates of the Pacific Northwest. And certain bean varieties are better adapted to the hot, dry deserts of the American southwest.
Appearance: You can choose from a rainbow of fruit and leaf colors, such as purple peppers, yellow chard, and orange tomatoes. Leaf textures and shapes range from frilly to smooth to puckered. The flowers of some vege-tables, such as okra and eggplant, are attractive in their own right. You get the idea. The more beautiful the vegetables, the more beautiful the vegetable garden — and the more stunning the food.
Cooking and storage characteristics: Certain varieties of beans and peas, for example, freeze better than others. Some winter squash varieties may be stored for months, but others need to be eaten immediately.
Days to maturity (or days to harvest): Days to maturity refers to the number of days it takes (under normal conditions) for a vegetable planted from seed (or from transplants) to mature and produce a crop. This number is especially important for vegetable gardeners who live in short-summer climates. Average days to maturity are listed for each type of vegetable in the appendix. You can find specific variety information on individual vegetables in Part II.