Gardening Pleasures

Posts Tagged ‘backyard’

With the costs of food rising all the time, it’s possible to save money and improve your family’s health at the same time, simply by growing some of your own vegetables. It’s always good idea to choose vegetables your family likes and those that cost a lot in the grocery store.  Don’t grow the ones that are really cheap unless those are your favourties.  Plan carefully and you will have vegetables to harvest early in the season, as well as in the middle and during later parts of the growing season.

Vegetables generally require at least 6 hours of light each day, with some needing 8 hours. Some quick growing veg like lettuce and radishes can be grown between the rows of other planting, like beetroot or corn, which take longer to mature. This way you make better use of the growing area you have available.

Throughout dry periods, vegetable gardens will need extra watering. Depending on what you are growing, most vegetables benefit from at least an inch of water each week, especially when they are fruiting.

It’s always necessary to watch out for insect pests. The earlier you discover a bug problem, the easier it will be to deal with it, but be careful about using pesticides when the vegetable are close to harvest unless it’s absolutely necessary and always read the label.

Organic gardening, using natural remedies rather than chemicals, and is often the healthier and more environmentally-friendly option. Part of the organic cycle is, of course, recycling the vegetable waste onto the compost pile once you’ve harvested your crop.

It is important to protect your vegetable garden from animals looking for a tasty meal. Surrounding your garden with a fence can keep out dogs and some other animals – birds, rabbits, moles and mice are another matter. Other types of protection for your crops will have to be devised to thwart these critters.  The damage done by animals during one growing season can equal the cost of a fence and other protective devices. And, of course, a fence can serve a second purpose as a frame supporting peas, beans, tomatoes, and any other plants that need support.

Careful planning, choosing the right plants for your conditions, installing the right protection for your plants and keeping a vigilent eye on yoru plants as they grow will all add to improving the yield from your vegetable garden.  Yes, it can be hard work but the dividends can be very tasty.

Once you have picked what garden you want, there are many other factors you need to decide before you actually get to work with your gardening tools. Mainly you need to choose its location. This is usually decided by several factors: How you will water it, how much shade it needs, etc. Some of these questions can be very important in deciding whether your garden lives or dies, so don’t take them lightly. You need to take each one into special consideration.

 

Choosing the garden’s location within your yard is one of the more important things to decide. You want to choose a location that will provide an ideal climate for the plants in your garden. I don’t know what type of garden you’re dealing with so I can’t give you specific advice, but if you do a Google search for the plant you’re dealing with then you’ll find a plethora of sites informing you about the perfect conditions for its growing. After this, it’s just a matter of finding the most shaded or most sunny spot in your yard.

 

Another deciding factor is how you plan on watering your garden. If you have a sprinkler system already installed for your grass, then it could be a good idea to put your garden in the middle of your yard. Then it will get watered at the same time, and require no extra work from your part. But if this doesn’t provide for a good location for your garden, then you might end up watering it by hose or dragging a sprinkler out there. In this case, just make sure your garden is within the ideal distance for a hose to reach. While this might not seem like a good thing to base the entire location of your garden on, you’ll be surprised at how nice it is to plan out in advanced.

 

Getting the perfect amount of shade for your garden can be a difficult endeavor. Once you have a basic idea for where you want your garden, you might want to watch it and record how many hours it spends in sunlight and how many it spends in shade. Compare your findings to an online web site, and you should be able to determine whether the spot you chose is ideal or not for planting and starting your garden in. Of course the amount will change as the seasons change, but this should give you a good idea of what to basically expect for the rest of the year. If necessary, later you can put up some kind of shade to protect your garden from getting too much sun.

 

After you’ve determined the ideal place for your garden and whether it has the right amount of sunlight, and whether you will be able to conveniently water it, you’re one step closer to actually starting your garden. Of course there are other factors that I have overlooked here, but mostly you should be able to decide whether your location is good or not based on common sense. Just think: If I were a plant, would I be able to flourish here? If you can honestly answer yes, then I think its time for you to head out to your local gardening store and buy the necessary soil and fertilizer to get started! Have fun!