In the spring of 2010, I decided to start my own vegetable patch. With little practical experience and relying primarily on gardening shows and the Internet, I encountered many small setbacks. Planting in the ground is quite different from container gardening, with its own advantages and disadvantages. I have gathered here the things I learned and wished I'd known before beginning.
- First, determine the best location for your garden. Obviously, it should not be in a spot in the yard that easily floods or has no sun. If the earth is consistently wet, cracked, or bare, it is not a good spot for your vegetable patch. Try to place the beds north and south so that the whole thing will be in the sun all day. Also, for the sake of convenience, try to place your garden near the kitchen door so as to encourage maintenance. If it's too far away from the house, it will get neglected more easily.
- Also related to the location of the vegetable patch, consider whether you might ever add something else to your back yard, such as a shed or swingset, and don't place the vegetable beds there.
- Consider what types of vegetables you are planting and read about how much sun, shade, and water they each need. Those with similar requirements should be grouped together. Typically, leafy plants prefer shade while flowering ones prefer sun. An unavoidable shady spot in your garden could work to your advantage this way.
- Mark off the location of your garden with landscape timbers, rocks, or some other edging. This is less for decoration than to discourage weeds and to make sure it doesn't get mowed over. Don't buy more decorative edging until after the whole thing is finished, that way you don't buy anything you won't wind up using.
- Before digging, get the earth as bare as possible. You don't have to pull weeds by hand; a sturdy garden rake or pitchfork will work wonders.
- If the soil is hard, water it and let it soak for about twenty minutes before digging.
- Digging up rocks is hard. The soil around my house is terrible, and rocks are inevitable. Use a large crowbar to help pry them loose from the dirt; then you can save them and use them as edging.
- A pushalong cultivator is a boon in decent soil, but I couldn't use one since the rocks would have torn the blades to hell. If you can rent or borrow one, though, by all means do.
- Get plenty of dirt. I used twice as much as I thought I'd need. There's a difference between garden soil and potting soil; make sure you get the right kind. Garden soil compacts and isn't airy enough for use in pots; potting soil would not be sturdy enough for in ground use.
- Speaking of dirt, it's a good idea to wear gardening gloves if you have any. I tend to get dirt inside my gloves and therefore they don't do me much good, but at least wearing gloves will help keep dirt out from under your fingernails. Also, gloves will help prevent blisters and splinters.
- Pay attention to the instructions on the packet when planting your seeds or seedlings. If it says start indoors, start indoors. You can make your own potting mix with a mixture of nine parts peat moss to one part perlite (a rocky mineral substance—actually, it's a volcanic glass—that helps drainage and aeration of the soil).
- Make sure you space the plants according to directions. Smaller plants, such as herbs, can tangle a bit in each other's roots without it mattering too much, but larger plants definitely need room to grow. This is as much for the benefit of the root system as it is for the vegetables or fruits themselves; you want everything to be in the sun and also easy to reach when it's time to harvest.
- Acid loving plants such as blueberries love peat moss. Love love love it. If you're growing blueberries, plant them in at least fifty per cent peat moss. Also, make sure they get lots of sun.
- Really keep up with the maintenance. Check your vegetable patch every day and make sure it has enough water, but don't overdo it. Flooding it will wash away seedlings and soil and damage existing plants.
- When it's time to harvest, there are different rules for each plant. Some plants, like squash, you should pick early and often to encourage further growth. Green onions you can either pick early or allow to reach full maturity. Leafy vegetables can be eaten at any time and don't have to ripen. Tomatoes can be determinate or indeterminate (fruiting all at once or spread out over time), so you may wish to plant a couple of varieties so as to ensure a steady harvest.
- Wildlife of course will be interested in your vegetable patch. You could try a scarecrow or crappy rubber owl for the birds, or you could place cages around your plants. Tomatoes will want some kind of cage anyway, but it will probably require an extra step to keep the birds out.
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