The Tips to Growing Your Own Fresh Produce at Home
While Americans are eating more food than ever, fresh vegetables remain an area in which we are nutritionally deficient. We don’t take the time to pick them out at the store, and they are often left off the choices of side items at restaurants — particularly those restaurants that cater to children. Use these tips to start your own home garden.
Knowing what climate zone you are located in will go a long way toward helping you make a successful vegetable garden zone. You don’t want to grow apples in Texas, nor would you want to grow grapefruit in New Hampshire. The Internet can tell you the particular climate zone where you live; once you know that, you can use that information to find the right sort of crops to grow in your home garden. A nursery professional can help you make the best decisions, if you are still at a loss after looking online.
Choose plants that suit a number of criteria: they match the climate zone in which you live. They should also be vegetables that your family will eat. Most people under the age of 20 stay away from Brussels sprouts as a matter of pure survival, so if you have a bunch of children in your home, your Brussels sprouts patch should be much smaller than the area that you have devoted to carrots or tomatoes, which are usually more popular among children. Also, make sure that the plants that you choose will grow in the amount of sunlight that your garden plot permits. Some vegetables do better in direct sunlight, while others require almost total shade to thrive.
Your soil may need some adjusting, particularly if it is too sandy or has too much clay. Those conditions can threaten vegetable crops.
Mulching is a sound idea for a number of crops, particularly if you do not plan on growing tubers in most of your garden. A layer of mulch keeps weeds from growing up through the ground and attacking your plants, and it also helps the water stay in the soil longer, instead of evaporating quickly. If you live in a part of the country that is arid much of the time, you will lose a lot of rainwater to evaporation. Mulch can keep it in your soil longer, giving your thirsty roots more time to drink it.
Compost has a number of benefits for the gardener. First of all, it is a way to turn your household food wastes and grass clippings into fertilizer, so you’re saving money on fertilizer (and not dumping all of those chemicals into the water table). Compost adds nutrients back into the soil, making your garden more fertile. It also helps you build the discipline that you will need to heed the lengthy growth cycle of a vegetable garden.
It will be easier to start your home vegetable garden than you think it will be. Use the tips in this article to get started making a crop of healthy and yummy vegetables.