It's spring! I don't know about you, but the slowly or sometimes rapidly warming weather puts me into the mood to start getting seeds/plants into the ground. Depending on where you live will dictate when you would be able to start actual gardening. In truth, by the time spring comes, you should already have your garden planned for the spring. Some crops are best planted in the fall rather than spring, so beware of buying this time of year! Onion sets, garlic, bulbs, and most of your bearing trees should be planted in fall, not spring. So hold off until later in the year for these! Even if that means buying them now and babying them along through the summer in their pots.
Ideally, if you are wanting to start some of the slower growing plants such as tomatoes and peppers, they ought to be started indoors around February with a good potting soil. Avoid using peat pellets as there is very little nutrition to be had with it. For the plants to thrive in it, you will need to add fertilizer of some kind. Cow manure is a good source of nutrition to add, as is rabbit manure. Avoid using poultry litter as fertilizer unless it's been composted as it tends to be too high in nitrogen and can 'burn' the seedlings.
When choosing which seeds/seedlings you want to use, you should take several criteria into consideration. First, and most importantly, how large a plot do you plan to use? What do you plan to do with the produce (eat/cook, preserve, sell)? Will you be planting any perennials (meaning plants that will come back year after year without having to re-plant)? Do you know when to plant each type of plant and how/when to harvest? If not, do you know how to learn this information? Unfortunately, while I can give general guidelines, the specifics will vary from area to area. So what works well for me won't necessarily work well for you. You should check with your local Cooperative Extension office to find out which crops do well for your area. Many have websites that you can browse to learn about when to plant, how to plant, how much to water, and when the best time would be to harvest.
Armed with all this information, you are ready to plan out your garden. Some crops need to be arranged in certain ways in order to best provide for pollination. For example, corn should be planted in a square configuration so as to encourage self-pollination. Some crops will run along the ground while others will need to be planted in rows and thinned out later. Some plants will produce better with hand pollination, such as your melons. Some crops can be planted together. For instance, cucumbers and corn can often be planted together, though you may have to wade through your corn to find the cucumbers. You could also plant cucumbers and some squash varieties together as the two will produce at different times of the season. I would recommend keeping your running crops and low crops separate otherwise you might find yourself struggling to keep vines out of your leaf crops!
Tomatoes are a very dominant plant and have a tendency of taking over a garden. It's a good idea to keep them together and keep them tied up and away from the other plants. Tieing up your tomato vines will make it much easier to keep varmints from eating your crop and easier to find the fruits. Also, tomatoes ripen better when exposed to sunlight, so make the extra effort to keep the weeds at bay!
Try and avoid planting crops that you are unlikely to be interested in eating. For instance, if you really don't care much for beets, it would not be a good choice to add to your garden unless you have another outlet for the produce. Perennial plants such as strawberries, rhubarb, asparagus, and the larger vine/cane plants (blueberry/raspberry/blackberry) should be planted separate from your annuals garden so as to avoid accidentally killing them in subsequent years when turning the soil. Herbs likewise are often kept separate. If you would like an herb garden, plan it similarly, but separately. Herbs have both perennial and annual species as well, but I will get into herb gardens at a later time.
Finally, pay attention to the planting time for the various plants. Some plants will sprout and thrive better in colder weather, such as broccoli, radishes, chard, and lettuces. In fact, often you can get multiple crops with careful planning and timing your plantings for multiple crop yields.
Have fun planning your garden, marking out the boundaries, turning the soil, choosing your plants and seeds, caring for your plants, and harvesting the bounty! While it is work to put in and maintain, the reward is great in the end. Nothing can compare to fresh from the vine tomatoes and cucumbers. Growing your own pumpkins for fall decorating. Stuffed fresh green peppers, home-made spaghetti sauce, an all-home-grown fresh salad, freshly steamed home-grown beans, sweet potatoes, white potatoes, corn, carrots, and so much more!
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