Growing a simple garden - there is plenty of time!

GROWING A SIMPLE GARDEN IS EASIER THAN YOU THINK

With more people staying at home as this year slowly ticks by, many people are thinking more and more about starting a small home garden.

We think this is a great idea!

Like many things, gardening can be easy and cheap or complicated and expensive – today we are going to concentrate on easy and cheap!

DON’T WORRY – IT’S NOT TOO LATE!

Even though it is the second half of May, there is still plenty of time to establish a garden – we will go over some of the crops and methods here, and I will supply some great links on some more specific information. In fact in North Carolina and a lot of southern areas a fall crop is available for all kinds of plants!

Don’t worry! If you don’t have any tools, gardening tools are pretty simple – the maximum you need are a shovel, a hoe and a hula hoe (for weeding once the garden is established). If you don’t want to dig a small plot, hire a local handy-man or go with container gardening!

Containers are easy to build and not super expensive, such as this one:

https://www.wayfair.com/outdoor/pdp/gracie-oaks-buckingham-wood-raised-garden-w003038440.html?piid=1107936670

This bed is 71” long by 35” wide and 5.5” deep, and is suitable for all kinds of vegetables and flowers. It is only $119 dollars online, but is not deep enough for some vegetables, especially carrots, potatoes or other types of tubers or root vegetables.

However you do it, whether you break the earth with a shovel and hoe (as seen in the picture below) or use raised beds, the first thing you will want to do is think about what veggies you like and eat on a regular basis.

When using a shovel, start by digging up the earth in the outline of the plot you want to construct, and then turn the earth of inside that area. Once all the earth has been turned by shovel, break up those chunks with the hoe. A great way to use the old grass is to throw the grass/root sections in a pile or wheelbarrow and compost them, they will make great nutrients the next year you build your garden, and since the soil will already be broken up it is very easy to turn the earth each year in your plot. 

Some crops, such as carrots, radishes and lettuces are cool weather crops and it is probably to late to plant them, but there is plenty of time to plant tomatoes, peppers, artichokes, and vine plants such as cucumbers, squash and zucchinis.

I personally like scattering my veggies out and incorporating them with my flower beds, and there are many flowers which actually help garden veggies grow (for instance, marigolds help tomato plants by keeping away insects and treating the soil naturally against certain types of molds). This is called companion planting, and it also really dresses up your garden beds. You can learn more about companion planting here!

https://www.farmersalmanac.com/companion-planting-guide-31301

SEEDS OR NURSERY PLANTS?

This is where things can get expensive – it is a lot easier to grow nursery plants as opposed to planting seeds, but the cost can be quite a bit higher. For a normal tomato strain, such as an heirloom or a nice Roma, it is usually less than three dollars for a packet of at least 25 seeds (some veggies such as lettuce often come in 100 seed cou

nts).

Compare that with plants of various sizes – you can find small seedlings of many different plants for 3 – 4 dollars per plant (sometimes less than that), but the larger the plant is the more expensive it will be. An 18” tomato plant can run up to $15 - $16 dollars, but there is a certain satisfaction to seeing the plants in the ground and ready to go.

It also makes weeding easier.

But there is another sense of satisfaction in seeing the seeds you plant coming up out of the ground in neat little rows and seeing how the plants form themselves as they grow. It does take a little more effort in weeding until the seeds reach a certain size, but a few minutes at the end of the day is well worth the effort, and helps you keep a close eye on the growth of your plants.

EXPECT THE UNEXPECTED

Growing flowers and veggies can be a lot of fun, but it can also be aggravating – from rabbits and other animals eating the plants to various diseases and rots, and sometimes just poor soil, growing a garden can be a lesson in humility, but it is a lesson well learned, and the rewards in my experience are much greater than the (inevitable) failures and pitfalls.

There is something deeply satisfying about seeing a plant that you planted and tended producing food which you eat at your table, and it is a great lesson for children of any ages to actually see how some food is produced.

The larger plant to the left is squash, the smaller plants are a bush bean

There is more than enough time this year, and if you don’t want to do much just get a few large pots (3 – 5 gallons) for some tomatoes, peppers, or other veggies. Smaller pots are great for herbs, and these are great to add to any recipe – I plant sage, oregano, basil, cilantro, parsley and rosemary each year, and it is a great way to spice up nearly anything you are cooking – some sage and oregano added to a jarred tomato sauce gives it a whole new, full and rich flavor.

You can find a great list of the most popular herbs here:  https://www.delallo.com/blog/fresh-herbs-spices-primer/

Gardening can be easy and fun, and it is more than satisfying once you start eating the fruits of your labor – so take advantage of the outdoors, whether you are in a condo with a small patio or small front yard or you live in a house with a yard big enough for a big garden, it is great fun, great exercise and in the end a delicious lesson on how nearly everyone used to live, by growing the food they would eat themselves.

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