Starting a vegetable garden

Ed, from Slow Cook, asked bloggers to post about starting a vegetable garden recently, in a post forwarded to me by a gardening friend (CEN).

This is a topic I'm totally keen on. At the Garden where I work, we're having an event next weekend to promote vegetable gardening, with the tagline of 'Building Community, Growing Vegetables.' Those of us who enjoy growing vegetables know the joy of harvesting and eating from the garden, whether it's a couple of tomato plants or a series of raised beds or an expansive 'kitchen garden' -- and we're keen on promoting it to others.

The first season in my 'main' vegetable garden

My first vegetable garden as an 'adult' was modest. We'd just put in a fence (for our old boy, our dog Chessie), who wasn't prone to roam, anyway, but we sprung for picket fence in the most visible areas.

I planted snow peas -- and this was just the beginning.

My previous forays involved trying to plant onions in the caliche soil of the Texas Hill Country as a teenager, taking on WAY too much space as a young researcher in a field station community garden (and being overwhelmed by weeds), and planting apple, peach, and nectarine trees in a shady Southeast Georgia backyard (I harvested some tasty Golden Delicious apples in the last summer we spent there).

But, our soil here is clayey, but our older house has many years' worth of thatch-rich soil below the scruffy lawn, so it's not too bad, with continuous amending.

I started small and used Square-Foot gardening and intensive gardening methods as my inspiration. Some years later, I'm talking about vegetable gardening to groups.

So, what's my advice about starting a vegetable garden?

First: Start small.

Second: Make it close to the house.

Third: Place your beds close to a water source (within reasonable hose length).

Fourth: Grow what you (and your family) like to eat (and don't plant too much).

Fifth: Garden through the year (as much as you can). Spring, summer, fall (and winter) work for us in the SE US.

Sixth: Remember vegetables are pampered annuals (nutrient and water hogs) and need both rich soil with added (preferably) organic fertilizer and water to be optimally productive.

Seventh: Harvest frequently (daily in prime season for beans, tomatoes, etc.).

Eighth: Keep it fun!

Here are a few kitchen gardening tips from a short video clip (where I somehow was the featured weekly blogger on a local TV station recently).

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Growing vegetables

I'm so delighted that people are interested in growing vegetables again, even if it's encouraged by a combination of wanting to know where some of your food comes from (driven by scares produced by our industrial food system and regulatory difficulties), but also spurred by difficult economic times. Here in the U.S., vegetable gardening been a dormant activity for way too long.

I just read an excellent article by Barbara Damrosch in the current AARP magazine about 'Dirt Cheap Eats' extolling the benefits of growing (some) of your own vegetables. Unfortunately, the online version doesn't have a link to her piece, or I'd provide it.

Damrosch is an accomplished garden writer and gardener, and along with her spouse, Elliot Coleman, are totally inspiring with their gardening endeavors in Maine. Coleman's 'Four Season Harvest' transformed my thinking about vegetable gardening here in a mild winter area.

She suggests, quite wisely, starting small, but points out that a small plot (12 ft x 12 ft) can produce up to $500 worth of vegetables for a modest investment in soil amendments, organic fertilizer, and seeds (approximately $50), if you don't have to fence out critters (add another $150).

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Apples

I was searching around for beginning vegetable gardener layout plans for awhile today, thinking about what might be best encouraged (how big, raised beds?, start small and expand, what to grow?)

But I happened on a wonderful piece from the Herb Companion about a step by step approach. How nice. But what perked my interest is that one of the first things he includes are apples, espaliered in the back of the garden.

I love apples and would definitely enjoy adding them to my garden (if I didn't have to spray and coddle them too very much) either here in the Piedmont or in the mountains. I'm going to poke around investigating good apple varieties-- maybe I'll find something suitable!

And in my searching around the web, I was reminded that the Royal Horticultural Society is doing a GREAT job with their Grow More Veg and Grow More Fruit website. They actually have informative and interesting videos about growing techniques -- check it out!

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Main vegetable garden

In the raised bed garden that's the 'main vegetable garden,' I try to practice intensive raised-bed gardening, loosely based on the square-foot method. I'm afraid I'm not methodical enough to be precise about planting -- frankly, I like to play with my garden, but I do try to rotate vegetables as I can.

We eat as much as we can from the garden, but having it look nice is important, too. The garden is right out the kitchen door, so I think about it as a perennial vegetable/flower bed, even if it's made up of annuals. I want it to be pleasing throughout the year. Rotating out plants, reseeding, and routinely adding more compost and amendments; all of these things are part of my gardening year.

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