Starting a vegetable
garden?
Here are some fundamental points to help cultivate success:
·
Gardeners
need only as large a garden as they can easily maintain. Novices often give up
gardening because they plant too much and find themselves overwhelmed with many
of the garden chores: planting, weeding, pest control, soil preparation.
· For some people, it’s a good idea to plan the garden on paper before tilling the earth.
· For those with minimal space, grow crops that produce the maximum amount of food for the area. Radishes, onions, lettuce, bok choy and tomatoes usually produce abundantly in a small space. On the other hand, plants like pineapple, watermelon and pumpkin squash require more room.
· Gardeners need to choose recommended varieties for their area. The University of Hawaii CTAHR seed program, http://www.ctahr.hawaii.edu/seed/, develops and sells vegetable seeds suitable for the Hawaiian Islands; in Hawaii, begin with these varieties. For other areas in the United States, the local University Extension Service will have recommended varieties.
· The best garden sites should receive at least 8 hours of full sun each day; in other words, vegetables will not grow as well if shaded by trees, walls or fences. Nearby trees and shrubs, with roots reaching into the vegetable patch will also compete for water and nutrients.
· Level ground is easier to manage, but if the land is sloping, the rows need to be planted across the slope, not up and down. This will help keep the soil from washing away during heavy rains.
· A garden that is located within easy walking distance to the house is convenient for carrying tools and eventually returning with baskets of produce.
· For those with smaller gardens, growing crops vertically will take less space than those grown horizontally. Vining crops such as tomatoes, squash, cucumbers and pole beans can be trellised or staked to maximize space and increase garden productivity. Wooden structures, stakes, twine, wire cages or nearby wire fences are useful supports.
· Perennial vegetables such as rhubarb and asparagus need to be planted to one side of the garden so they are not disturbed as the ground is prepared for subsequent annual crop.
· Tall crops such as corn should be planted on the north side so they don’t shade low growing vegetables.
· And finally, succession planting is a good gardener’s method to assure continual harvest. A crop like tomatoes can be harvested over a long period of time. Therefore one planting will last for many months. However, with other crops like corn, beets, lettuce and turnips, the entire crop will mature at approximately the same time. With a crop like corn, staggering the plantings at one to two week intervals will enable harvesting ears over a longer period of time.
An
additional note: because corn is wind pollinated, it should be densely planted
in order to achieve good pollination.
Planting just a few corn plants will likely result in ears that lack a
full complement of kernels which is a sign of a lack of pollination. Plantings of a minimum of 3-4 short rows will
be pollinated more successfully than 1 or 2 long rows. It is best to plant 3-4
rows, about 8 feet long.
