For those people who love to have fresh vegetables in the spring and summer, home vegetable gardening might be the best way to go.  The great thing about home vegetable gardening is that the person is growing their own vegetables which mean that there isn’t a bunch of chemicals on the vegetables. 

Also, there is something wonderful about taking a seed and nurturing it until it grows up, and picking the vegetables from something that the person raised.  Home vegetable gardening is a wholesome hobby that reduces stress while being outside under the sun.  When a person is out in the garden, the stresses of the day seem to go away and a person might find themselves just picking weeds and enjoying the day. 

Vegetable gardening reduces blood pressure and clears the mind.  People are also saving money by growing their own food.  People know that home grown vegetables are always the best tasting because the vegetables aren’t picked until they are ready to be eaten.  As long as a person has dirt somewhere where they live, they can garden at their home.  Even if there isn’t any dirt where someone lives, people can buy some large pots and grow the vegetables in them. 

They might need some extra watering but they will grow well and that’s the whole point.  So if a person likes to eat the vegetables like grandma used to have, start gardening and bring those old memories back to life in this next growing season.   

Vegetable Gardening Problems

Anytime people have a garden, they will also have bugs.  Unless a person wants to use chemicals, they will have to get outside and kill any harmful bugs on the plants.  If the person has access to good bugs like ladybugs or praying mantis, this works great for most of the smaller bugs.  For large bugs like grasshoppers and larger bugs, they will have to be picked off by hand. 

Another problem a person my have in vegetable gardening is staying on top of all of the weeds.  If a person doesn’t go out daily to pick the weeds, the weeds will choke out the plants and take over.  Vegetable gardening also means that the person needs to water the garden regularly.  Watering the garden not only keeps the plants alive, it makes the plants healthy and able to withstand some of the bugs that might be on the plants.  

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Gardening, Gardening Tips, Vegetable Garden

A vegetable garden is becoming a long lost art as land continues to diminish in the wake of growing and connecting communities. But it still remains true that a purchased vegetable never tastes the same as one grown in man’s own soil with man’s own hands, the culmination of your sweat and tears to provide a healthy harvest.

To ensure the most satisfaction in vegetable-growing make sure that the soil be rich and thoroughly subdued and fined. Arrange your plantation rows so that the tilling can be done with wheel tools which will help you greatly in maintaining your crops. If you’re really into going bigger, keep some planned room just in case you get into using horse tools. Keep in mind that this could be a big undertaking as the old-time garden bed consumes a lot of time and labor, and can be more trouble and expense than what most would consider, worth the effort. Make sure you’re up for the gardening challenge.

Try and make the garden vegetables rows as long and continuous as possible, to allow you to work easier with tillage and wheel tools. You can keep each row to one kind of vegetable but if you don’t have the room, consider adding several different species, one following the other. Some care should be taken to plant vegetables with similar requirements together in one row. One long row, for example, might contain all the parsnips, carrots, and celery. One or two long rows containing a dozen kinds of vegetables are usually preferable to a dozen short rows, each with one kind of vegetable. See what fits your situation best and work from there.

It is a good idea to plant the permanent vegetables, such as rhubarb and asparagus, at one side of the garden, where they will not interfere with the plowing or tilling. Try and ensure that the annual vegetables are grown on different parts of the garden in the following years; this is basically a crop rotation and can be a healthy stimulant for your garden. Crop rotation can also be used to unsure you’re not growing on an infested plantation. For instance, if radish or cabbage maggots or club-root take over and fully established in the plantation, don’t plant anything in that area of the garden for a year or more to rejuvenate the plot.

Many gardeners when building a vegetable garden only use the space for simple kitchen garden products and leave areas of bare earth. Flowers can be planted in these spaces, wherever you have a vacant corner or a plant dies. Gardens with such informal and impromptu mixed gardens usually take on their own distinct personal character that adds greatly to the garden’s interest and value. Most are generally impressed with this informal character of the home-garden in many European countries, due to their planting history that arises from the necessity of making the most of every inch of soil available. It’s not uncommon to stroll the European country side and look over the fence of a Bavarian peasant’s garden and to see, on a space about 40 feet by 100 feet in area, a delightful medley of onions, pole beans, peonies, celery, balsams, gooseberries, coleus, cabbages, sunflowers, beets, poppies, cucumbers, morning-glories, kohl-rabi, verbenas, bush beans, pinks, stocks, currants, wormwood, parsley, carrots, kale, perennial phlox, nasturtiums, feverfew, lettuce, lilies! It certainly is a beautiful sight.

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Weeds are unwanted plants in gardens in general, but certainly must not be allowed to thrive in the vegetable garden. They reduce available moisture, nutrients, sunlight and growing space needed by the crops. Their presence can reduced crop growth, quality and yield. In addition, they can make harvest difficult. Weeds also provide cover for diseases and insect pests.

Garden weeds are hard to control because they grow rapidly, produce vast numbers of seeds, and spread aggressively by vegetative structures (e.g. runners, forming new plantlets) and/or seeds. There are several methods that should be used in a combined, coordinated effort to control weeds; they include both cultural and mechanical methods.

Organic Mulches: Some of the most commonly used organic mulching materials are manures; bark chips, sawdust, grass clippings, leaves, and newspapers (shredded or in layers). Organic mulches allow some flexibility in fertilizing and watering since they can be raked back from the plants. They should normally be applied uniformly 2 or 3 in. (50mm-76mm) deep around the base of the vegetable plant.

Inorganic Mulches: Black plastic is the most frequently used inorganic mulch. Clear plastic is of little use, as it does not exclude the light that aids weeds seeds to germinate. Gardeners should make sure there is adequate moisture in the soil before any mulch is applied. There are also several durable weed fabrics that are very effective in weed suppression. The decision of whether to use organic or inorganic mulch really depends on the season of the year and what the gardener is trying to accomplish. Organic mulches should be applied after the soil temperature has warmed in the spring. If applied to cold soils, the soil will warm slowly and the growth rate of most vegetables will be reduced. Inorganic mulches can increase the soil temperature by at least 6 to 80F. Therefore, their greatest value is early in the growing season when soils are naturally cool.

Mechanical Methods

Since emerged weeds present at seeding or transplanting are capable of growing rapidly, it is important to kill all weeds prior to planting. Weeds that emerge after planting should be removed early before they are past 3 inches tall. Large weeds are difficult to remove without uprooting vegetable plants. Early season competition to the crop by weeds will reduce crop growth, yield, and quality may also occur. Therefore it is vital that a continuous weeding programme should continue throughout the season to ensure that weeds are eliminated from the vegetable beds. Generally this is done by hand and by using a suitable tool is a quick and easy operation.
With removal by hand, weeds can be hand pulled or removed using hand tools. Several small hand tools are available that are very effective on small weeds and for working near garden plants. There are a variety of effective tools that allow the gardener to stand while removing weeds.

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