PLANTING VEGETABLES

Planting vegetables is mans’ oldest hobby! There is nothing more satisfying to a gardener than consuming the vegetables and fruit that have come from his or her own labor in the vegetable garden. Planning a vegetable garden is a wonderful hobby that will save you money, give you fresh vegetables and of course keep you occupied during your free time. Apart from vegetables and fruit you can also grow your own herbs and spices for cooking and medical application. In former days it was rather a housewife’s hobby. Today, with many people starting to work from home, it is everyone’s dream to be able to ‘eat what you grow’. More and more men are getting interested and turne from sports to gardening. In many ways we are going back to nature on one hand, while we are reinventing ourselves greatly in technological terms on the other! What vegetables you plant largely depends on what you love to eat, and keep the whole family in mind while you plan this.

Preparing the soil

You need to make sure you are using a rich fertile soil free from too many stones and granite. It’s a great idea to till the topsoil before plantation. If your soil is unusually hard, well dig it down to a few feet and replace it – nothing is impossible. A good mixture would be a part of sand to a part of clay – this would give you a firm yet porous soil, just perfect for planting vegetables. Even if you are planning on planting saplings/seeds at a later date, you may want to start preparing the soil right now, maybe when you have some spare time?

 

Plantation

If you plan to sow seeds, you should check out the weather forecast before you do so – a hard rain may ruin your plans for a vegetable garden! Seeds don’t germinate in cold wet ground – they need to be moist and that’s it, not drowned in water. Or else, you could consider planting vegetable saplings, which of course need less care when compared to seeds. Once you have a harvest you you’ll be wanting to experiment more. You may want to start keeping a list of crops you’d like to try out at this stage – maybe you could expand your vegetable garden. Rotating your crops is a nice way to make sure you have something growing all through the year. Not just that, it even helps you completely remove all signs of weeds, and keep the soil fertile.

Never be under the impression that certain months are ‘wrong; to start planting vegetables. In frosty months like April and May, cabbages and onions can withstand the chill. On the other hand, you want to wait for the end of May before planting tender vegetables like tomato. In fact you could plan a month-wise sowing list once you have a little experience and are eager to check out the more complex branches of your new found hobby!