We’re getting little glimpses of cooler weather and man, has that felt great. Just the thought of fall encourages us to start fresh with our vegetable gardens. We’ve already started stocking our tables with fall and winter veggie offerings and we know you are excited because they fly out the door just as fast as we bring them in. Today we’ll look at a few basics to keep in mind when growing your garden.
Vegetable Gardens: Planning Tips
Location: When you’re starting from scratch, the location of your vegetable garden is your first decision. You need a spot in your landscape that gets full sun. Most vegetables need 8 hours of full sunlight for optimal yields of quality produce. Just keep in mind that the sun’s strength changes through the seasons so you may need to offer veggies growing through summer and early fall plantings a little shade cloth if the temperatures are still extremely high. Tender transplants, especially, have yet to establish a strong root system and are susceptible to scorching from hot afternoon sun.
New and established veggies will also need a lot of water, so choose a location that will make it easy and convenient to get it to them. Situate your garden where a hose can easily access it. You could also think about using a soaker hose, or installing a drip system where the water could be delivered directly to the root. Lack of water can destroy a well-intended garden in a short amount of time.
Size Matters: How big do you want your garden? Our advice is to only make it as big as you can easily maintain it. You should be able to reach all sides of your garden without stepping on any soil around the veggies themselves. Walking on the soil of your vegetable gardens can cause compaction which is a no-go for the roots of your plants.
Are you going to plant in the ground, or make a raised bed? Whichever you decide, you should know that you need to give your vegetables a minimum soil depth of 15 inches, and more is better. The deeper the soil, the more available space for your roots to grow strong systems. Soil should be loose, well-drained, and loamy. Click here for some advice on soil building for vegetable gardens.
Planning: It would be helpful to make a sketch of the layout of your garden. This will really be helpful reigning yourself in when you are faced with all the vegetable options at the nursery. Consider the mature size of vegetables; fall offerings like broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage and kale can get quite large. It’s best to know in advance rather than trying to move them around later. You can nestle smaller plants in between larger plants. This makes use of your space and smaller, tender veggies like lettuces and greens may appreciate a little shade from the large leaves of a broccoli plant.
Choosing your veggies. After all the work of preparing has been completed, you get to pick out your veggies. Hooray! We have a great guide on our site that gives you the dates of when to plant your fall vegetable crops. Click here to see it. But here are a few ideas of what arrives during the fall: broccoli, cabbages, carrots, kale, asian greens, beets, Brussels sprouts, cauliflower, Swiss chard, onions, radish, spinach, shallots, mustard, and more. Stick to the amount you need for your design you worked out, planting the veggies that you would really like to eat, and it’s okay to add a couple interesting newbies to try something new.
Maintenance: What? You mean you can’t just sit there and things magically grow and you just go out and pluck off your veggies for your dinner every night? Not quite. The key here is consistency. We have a wide assortment of fertilizers, pesticides and fungicides designed to feed your veggies and protect your garden from unwanted pests and disease. When you need help figuring out exactly what you need, come visit us for advice, sign up for our newsletters for tips (especially our monthly supplemental all about edibles), and check out our events for classes from the pros.
~The Happy Gardener, Lisa Mulroy
