So, you've finally decided to try your hand at growing vegetables, but haven't a clue where to start. Not to worry, three simple steps will guarantee your success: Start small, prepare the soil and set the plants in full sun.
START SMALL
If you have never tried vegetable gardening before - start small. Even a little garden (or a good-sized planter) can produce many servings of healthy, organically grown vegetables for your table.
Vegetables grown at home are economical. The cost of a tiny packet of lettuce seeds, capable of producing a season's worth of produce, costs less than a single bag of lettuce. A dazzling array of lettuce seeds are available locally, so try several different types. You can also buy ready-to-plant vegetable seedlings from your local garden centre and just set them into a well-prepared bed (or container), as if you were planting a box of marigolds. Start small, see how you make out and then expand your garden and crops as your confidence grows.
Don't worry about creating a dedicated garden for vegetables unless you really want to. When space is at a premium, just tuck a few vegetable plants in to a sunny spot in your garden. I don't have a separate vegetable garden, yet we have enjoyed beans, lettuce, carrots, tomatoes and peppers from our back garden. Our vegetable crop expands each year.
Last summer, our grandchildren enjoyed checking the progress of a crop of 'Rattlesnake' pole beans as they stretched up and over the top of a trellis (fashioned out of a pair of recycled clothesline supports covered with steel mesh). The beans climbed up the steel mesh, oblivious to the fact they bloomed above a colourful bed of miscanthus, bee balm and daylilies.
A raised circular bed edged in brick and surrounded by four outer beds filled with ornamental grasses, sedum and rudbeckia is the focal point in our backyard. The raised bed is top dressed with compost annually, then planted with tomatoes, peppers, leaf lettuce, basil and parsley. Dill self-seeds where it finds room. A decorative wooden obelisk anchors the bed, and is home to a rambling rose. By mid-July, the bed is neatly enclosed by a hedge of ornamental grasses. At harvest time, the grasses screen the fact the garden has been stripped bare. It's like having a secret vegetable garden right in the middle of the backyard. (I also fill the bed with tulips for early spring colour.)
If you prefer to grow vegetables among your flowers, create planting pockets by amending the soil (as noted above) and then plant.
Fill large containers with a mixture of potting soil and compost, then plant with herbs and vegetables. Choose ornamental varieties to create beautiful (and tasty) planters for your patio or deck.
SUN
Vegetables need at least six to eight hours of full sunlight each day to reach their full potential. The exception is lettuce, which appreciates some afternoon shade.
GETTING STARTED
Plant early season crops, such as peas, beans, lettuce, spinach and radishes, as soon as the soil can be worked, usually by mid-April in Niagara.
For a fun project for the young-at-heart, get a head start by sprouting some pole or bush beans in the house. Sandwich a handful of bean seeds between layers of dampened paper towelling. Seal in a plastic bag and set them aside on the counter for seven to 10 days. Carefully lift the sprouted beans into individual peat pots filled with growing medium; set three seedlings per pot. Set the pots in a tray in a sheltered spot - a cold frame or garage window is ideal - until they are ready to go into the garden. Water daily.
Shape well-tilled garden soil into little hills and then plant one pot per hill. Firm the soil with
your hands and water the hills well. If you keep the soil cultivated, weeds will not have a chance to settle in and the soil will quickly absorb water to moisten the plants' root systems.
For tasty, economical salad greens, sprinkle lettuce seed over friable soil at this time of the year. When the plants are 10 to 15 centimetres tall, harvest a delicious salad by clipping the tops with a pair of scissors. The plants will quickly recover and are ready to clip again in 10 to 14 days. Tight heads of red leaf lettuce make a pretty edging for a garden. My daughter-in-law, Amy, underplanted a clump of miscanthus with red leaf lettuce last summer, to great effect. Many visitors were reluctant to name our unusual groundcover -they assumed it was something more unusual than everyday lettuce.
I would say that's cottage gardening at its finest.
