How to Start a Vegetable Garden

The activity of vegetable gardening for beginners can be confusing and frustrating if proper planning is not done. Growing vegetables at home should allow easy access to nutritious food. The cost of vegetables gets reduced substantially by growing them at home. There are many factors which have to be considered in order to start a vegetable garden in your backyard. Soil preparation, planting, weeding, fertilizing, etc. are different tasks to be undertaken in the process of gardening.

Starting a Vegetable Garden

The practice of vegetable gardening involves various activities aimed at easing the growth of plants. The basic needs of any plant/crop are availability of adequate space, watering at regular intervals, sufficient fertilizers and maintenance (weeding, pest control, etc.) from time to time. Understanding these needs and taking necessary action is important.

Tilling: It is the practice of preparing soil for cultivation. The soil has to be dug out and churned thoroughly in order to make it suitable for growth of plants. Tilling helps improve drainage and allows roots to penetrate the soil without any difficulty. The beginning of spring is the best season to start cultivation practices for gardening.

Soil pH: The pH of soil for vegetable cultivation should ideally be 6.5. One should carry out the testing of soil pH by sending samples to experts. Depending on the test results, amendments can be made to the soil for bringing pH to the desired level.

Spacing: Plant spacing is an important factor to consider in gardening and agriculture in general. On an average, distance between two rows need to maintained at 1.5 feet. With this spacing, the plant enjoys sunlight and attains a healthy growth. Keeping sufficient space between rows also helps in making the garden easily accessible.

Planting: The planting activity for vegetable gardens should be carried out with above mentioned spacing. Direction of planting should be north-south so that plants get enough exposure to sunlight. Care should be taken to see that taller plants do not overshadow the shorter ones. One should make use of vegetables which grow easily in order to minimize the efforts. Understanding the basics regarding tilling, spacing, planting, etc. should answer most questions about how to start a vegetable garden.

Watering: Regular watering helps maintain the desired moisture levels for healthy growth of plants. Although enough water should be provided to plants, excessive watering can have harmful effects on roots; it causes water logging which creates problems in the respiration of roots. The problem of water logging doesn't arise if raised vegetable beds are used for gardening. Moisture levels in the initial days of plant growth should be high. However, after a certain period of time, is advisable to increase the gap between two watering sessions.

Fertilizing: Chemical fertilizers though are used in cultivation of crops, one should avoid them in gardening. Organic fertilizers allow healthy and natural growth of plants. Cow dung is one of the best organic fertilizers. Advantage of using organic fertilizers is that nutrients are provided in a balanced manner. Unlike nitrogenous fertilizers which promote the growth of only green portion (leaves, shoots, etc.), the organic fertilizers are responsible for overall nutrition.

Weeding: It is an important practice which prevents the nutrients being used up by plants other than main crops. Again, chemicals (herbicides) should be used to the minimum. One should resort to manual weeding.

Maintenance: The maintenance work related to vegetable gardening includes many tasks; weeding is one of these and its explanation is provided above. The other maintenance works involve activities like pest control. There are natural pesticides available in the market and which do not pollute the soil with harmful chemicals. One should make use of such insecticides and pesticides in maintenance work.

The useful information on how to start a vegetable garden is discussed in short in this article. Different factors which play an important role in starting a vegetable garden and growth of plants are considered in the paragraphs above. The vegetable gardening tips interspersed in this article should be useful for the readers.