Vegetable Gardening For Beginners

The first step toward planning a vegetable garden is deciding what to plant, when to plant it, and how long it takes to mature. This guide is a starting place that will help you to get growing.

Spring and Fall Planting Dates

North Carolina has a long growing season that is ideal for growing vegetables. Cool springs, warm summers, and mild winters enable gardeners to have three seasons in which to produce a bounty of crops. Many vegetables can be planted twice during the year. For example, plants in the cabbage family, such as broccoli, cabbage, collards, kale and kohlrabi, can be grown during the spring and again in the fall and into winter.

Some warm-season crops, such as tomatoes, squash, pepper and beans, can be grown only in months when there is no danger of freezing temperatures. Understanding the climate and length of growing season in your location will help you decide when to plant a garden.

Planting Method

Depending on the crop and length of growing season at your location, gardeners can directly sow seeds of some crops into the ground (think pumpkin, squash, beans, lettuce, carrots), while other crops perform best if started indoors (for example, tomatoes, peppers, kale, leeks).

Crops that do not transplant well should be sown directly into the garden beds. These crops are labeled in the planting guide as “direct seed.” To grow transplants by planting seeds indoors, fill a growing container with a peat-based potting media. Sow seeds to the depth given in the planting guide, and grow transplants in a sunny window or under grow lights for the time listed in the planting guide.

Plant Indoors

For vegetable and herb crops that will be sown indoors, this column lists the number of weeks you need to plan for until seedlings are ready to be transplanted into the garden. Use the planting date, and count backwards by the number of weeks a seedling needs to be indoors to determine the sowing date.

Days to Harvest

Vegetables have a broad range of days they need to grow until they are ready for harvest. For example, radishes might take only 30 days, whereas an asparagus crown takes nearly three years to mature and produce spears that are ready for picking. Climatic conditions and cultivar choices can also have a big influence on the number of days to harvest.

Planting Depth

A common rule of thumb is to plant seeds at a depth that is two to three times the width of the seed. Most seeds prefer to be covered by soil at the recommended depth. But some seeds, such as carrots and turnips, only need to be gently pressed into the soil with a bare covering of soil.

Planting Space

This column lists the proper spacing between mature plants to ensure optimal growth and development. Many seeds have variable germination percentages and rates and can be sown closer together and later thinned to proper spacing.

To Get Started Today With Growing Your Own Vegetable Garden >>> Click Here!

What Is Mixed Vegetable Gardening?

Mixed vegetable gardening is an example of a polyculture. The word means growing lots of different types of plants together. The growing mix in a polyculture can include vegetables, herbs, flowers and even fruit. People have used this approach all over the world for hundreds of years, often with great success. Examples include the English Cottage Garden, Caribbean kitchen gardens or the allotments of Bangladeshi communities in London.

How does it differ from other forms of gardening?

In a conventional vegetable garden, each type is planted in rows or patches. Usually similar species are grouped together, such as brassicas, beans and peas and so on. Plants of the same or similar species compete for the same nutrients, and are an attractive habitat for pests of that plant. Usually, the patches are rotated every year to prevent the build-up of pests and diseases and so as not to deplete the soil of nutrients.

By contrast, in mixed cropping a large number of different vegetables are grown together in the same space. A well-chosen combination can result in less competition for nutrients, and other beneficial relationships between the different plants mean that plants are healthier.

Some benefits of mixed vegetable cropping:

• Better use of space - a lot of food is produced and many types of vegetables can be grown in the same space over a longer time.

• Fewer pests and diseases - the different colours, shapes, textures and scents of the leaves confuse pests, and diseases can't spread as easily from one plant to the next.

• Less weeding - there is no space and no light on the ground, so weeds can't germinate.

• Less need for watering - greater soil coverage means less evaporation.

What does it look like?

• Different layers above and below ground – Similar to a woodland or a forest garden but on a much smaller scale, the mixed vegetable garden has a canopy, understorey, groundcover, roots and even climbers. This way, plants occupy different spaces or niches above and below ground.

• Development over time – Early ground cover plants give way to slower growing, later crops.

• Plants from different families – Genetic diversity prevents build-up of pests and nutrient depletion.

• Diversity of leaf shape, colour, texture and scent – this is the traditional ayurvedic approach to mixing vegetables for plant health. Pests use their sense of sight and smell to find their food plants. If there are no obvious large patches of similar looking or smelling plants, they will find it harder to find their favourite food.

So how does a polyculture work?

It’s this simple:

1. Choosing your plants

2. Preparing the ground

3. Planting seeds and seedlings

4. Tending the crops

5. Harvesting!

Starting a mixed vegetable garden

If you have your own good method of growing vegetables, don't stop it all at once to try mixed vegetable gardening. Tryow it out in a small area first and see how well it does.

If it works well, you can increase the area next year, or you can spend further time adjusting your methods and plant mixture.

To Get Started Today With Growing Your Own Vegetable Garden >>> Click Here!

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