Early spring is when you need to start thinking about getting your garden ready to plant. This article will help you with choosing the area and preparing to plant your garden. If you've never put in a garden before, prepare yourself, gardens are a lot of work. There is a lot of personal satisfaction and ultimate reward, but definitely a lot of work! And always the kind that will get you into a hard sweat and have you filthy and worn out at the end of the day. The first thing to remember is that gardening has regional aspects that you need to investigate. If you live in the north, you really need to wait until the danger of frost has passed and the ground has thawed enough to work. Farther south will be best to work the ground as early as possible to take advantage of the cooler spring days . Be careful in areas that have a specific wet season, planting too early could mean the death of your plants to drowning!
Some questions to ask yourself when getting ready to put in your garden should be: how large of a garden will I need to plant the crops I want to grow? How large a garden can I physically install and maintain? Where can I install my garden such that it will be exposed to the maximum amount of sunlight each day? Don't rule out some of the alternate gardening concepts such as vertical gardening for running plants (using a trellis for cucumbers, beans, tomatoes, squash, and even melons), container gardening (great for a wide variety of plants), raised garden beds (best when your soil isn't the best to work with or grow crops in), or square-foot gardening (share-cropping, or planting compatible plants in small areas). In truth, the best homesteader should consider employing all of these methods, especially if you are dealing with a restricted-space issue.
Once you have decided on the size and placement for your garden it's a good idea to mark off the corners. This will give you a real-time idea of the amount of space in which you will be working. If there is grass growing in the area, leave it long and uncut for a little while. This seems to make it easier to remove later, especially if you'll be working the soil by hand. Some essential tools you will need to have include a sharp shovel, garden rake, hoe, and hand-trowel. It's nice if you know someone that has a tiller that will either help you or lend it to you. Regardless you will still need to break up the soil. Use your shovel and use your foot to push as far into the soil as you can, push forward and then back to loosen the chunk and then move to the next spot. If you are not using a tiller, then you'll need to lift these chunks and turn then over. When the entire garden is either loosened or turned you'll move onto the next step. If you are using a tiller, now is the time to get it going and till the plot. The loosened soil should till fairly easily. If you are not using a tiller, get your hoe out and use it to break up the dirt. If using a tiller, plan to turn the soil at least twice. In between tilling use the garden rake to remove as much vegetation as possible, start in the center of the garden and flatten out the 'rows' that the tiller creates. The more wild plant matter removed at this point, the less you will have to pull out later. Turn the tiller the other direction and turn the soil again. At this point it's a good idea to wait a week. You can then walk through and pull out anything left wild that tries to grow. Most of what was left should die off from the paired tilling.
If your garden is on an incline, it's best to setup your rows perpendicular to the incline, so that water and soil will be retained and not permitted to run downhill. If you are using a tiller, till the garden into even rows all the way across. If no tiller, use your hoe to accomplish the same thing. Even running crops can be planted into the rows, you do NOT have to create fancy dirt mounds as the seed packets claim. Just be careful of your spacing. At this point, try to avoid stepping on top of a row mound. Use your hand trowel or the corner of your hoe to create a furrow in the top of the rows you plan to put seeds into. You can then sprinkle your seeds carefully and evenly across the row and use both hands to cover them with dirt. Plant any seedlings purchased spaced carefully apart and well into the soil. Put up any necessary trellises. Set up your watering system to insure that all of the garden will benefit from the extra water.
Keep an eye on your garden over the next week. Your seedlings should sprout in even rows. Anything growing out of place can be pulled carefully out. Careful weeding, watering, and pest control will give you the most abundant yields. Above all, enjoy!
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