If you believe that wonderful summer weather will once again return to our gardens and our lives, this year is as good as any other to include a small plot of vegetables in your garden. Keep a few things in mind before you begin. Vegetables need plenty of sunshine for steady growth. Like roses, you must plant veggies where you can expect six hours of full sunshine per day.
Choose your location to assure the longest growing season possible on your property. Lay out rows of food plants in a north to south alignment so that each plant receives an even amount of sunlight during the day as the sun moves across the sky from east to west. Everyone needs to learn where north, south, east and west is in their own garden. This information will help you choose the right plant for the right location and will become a key factor in the success of your overall garden plant selection.
Begin with careful soil preparation; you will be repaid with faster growth and a substantially larger harvest. You can start vegetables either by planting seeds outdoors in the garden or by setting out transplants you have started yourself or purchased from a nursery. Vegetables that require a long growing season such as peppers and tomatoes need many weeks of warm temperatures before they produce fruit and are best set out as transplants. Other vegetables, including broccoli, cabbage and lettuce, can be seeded directly or transplanted.
It’s a fact that you will save money by planting seed in a greenhouse and then replanting out in the garden. It is more realistic for most of us to begin by planting established transplants directly out in the garden. This is especially true if your goal is simply to try growing a few vegetables for the first time. Transplants are available for a good part of the growing season, which means you can plant them out in the garden when it fits your schedule. Some vegetables, especially beans, carrots, corn, and peas, grow better when started from seed sown directly in the garden.
There are many reasons for a homeowner to grow a vegetable garden. Nowadays, we can find any vegetables we like to eat at the grocery store, but once you have tasted homegrown, you will agree that flavor is a viable reason to grow your own. Growing vegetables as a family brings us all closer together. Let each member of your group pick their favorite fruit or veggie to grow and share the preparation, upkeep and bounty of everyone’s efforts. Nothing unites people more than a shared purpose.
Pruning pointers
Most pruning is done only once a year. Thinning certain shrubs, which is just another form of pruning, is done only every two or three years. Certain plants that flower on new wood become straggly and bare legged if not pruned close to the base. An example that most of us have in our gardens is the butterfly bush Cut it back to two or three feet each year. Not only will you avoid dealing one day with a 15 foot, out-of-control monster, but your plant will look and flower better than if not pruned.
The general purpose of pruning is not to reduce the size of a plant that has grown too large. Pruning stimulates growth. Weak growth can be stimulated by significant pruning and vigorous growth is best checked by light pruning. This is important to know if you are fighting to keep a large shrub within the boundaries of a small space. The best advice for a plant that is too big for its space in the garden is to move it.
The top reasons for pruning are to help establish the shape of a plant along its natural lines; to improve flower or fruit production; to control the time of bloom (as in pinching back chrysanthemums); and for espalier and hedge shaping. These are all methods of seasonal pruning that enhance a plant’s best qualities. I always recommend buying a good book on pruning shrubs, trees and vines. A book is invaluable when faced with a pruning situation that needs your immediate attention. It’s only natural to need to refresh your memory before tackling a job that you do so infrequently.
Robb Rosser is a WSU-certified Master Gardener. Reach him at Write2Robb@aol.com.
