Growing Vegetables for Beginners

For the city-dweller who has never gardened, it’s harder than it looks to grow edible plants. Simply casting seeds into the backyard won’t work. Ground needs to be dug up and soil prepared. The right varieties for your climate need to be planted at the right time. You need to look after them. Some first time-gardeners simply give up, and there have been stories of well-heeled seekers of fresh vegetables stealing from community gardens.

Nevertheless, people are increasingly looking to grow some of their own herbs, fruit and vegetables. Garden shop owner Bonnie Bill (New Zealand Gardener, January 2009) reports a 400 per cent increase in sales growth of vegetable seedlings over last year. That can’t all be accounted for by established gardeners out of control.

If you are keen to give it a go, here’s how to avoid common “traps for new players”.

1. Start small. Peter de Vaus in his book Vegetables for Small Gardens and Containers in Australia and New Zealand (South Yarra: Hyland House Publishing, 1998) warns against attempting “to grow too much with too little expertise”. You might wish to start with less exotic food-plants such as carrots and radishes, but if you’ve always dreamed of growing musk melons, and the climate is right, it might be worthwhile having a go.
2. Have a plan. Not everything will grow at all times of the year everywhere! David Prosser in his beginners’ guide to organic vegetable growing, Down to Earth (Christchurch: Shoal Bay, 1995) recommends using common sense to decide when to start your garden. “Obviously if you live in Central Otago [in South Island Zealand, an inland place with cold winters] and the vege patch is under 15 cm of snow, it might pay to wait until spring”. Have you thought about what you will plant when you have harvested your first crop? Vegetable types should be rotated, and there are rules about how to do this to get the most out of your soil.
3. Don’t forget to feed and water your plants. This seems obvious, but it’s surprising the number of first time gardeners who imagine that the fruits and veggies will look after themselves. If you are working long hours in the city, watering the garden may be the last thing you want to do when you get home. But if you don’t, you may learn the lesson of New Zealand Gardener columnist Joe Bennett: “That tomato seeds die more or less immediately, and capisicum and cucumber seeds take longer”.
4. Get in tune with your garden. OK, this sounds a bit “sixties”, but your garden will tell you what it needs. You need to weed, you may have to control pests, you will have to “thin” some plants (eating the early-harvested ones as babies, yum! not replanting them somewhere else). You should harvest your garden at the right time or you will not only miss out on the best tastes and textures, but you may compromise the quality of your next crop. You are likely to become more interested in the weather, in heat and rain.The idea is, pay attention.

Gardening and Sustainable Living

Once you are into the rhythm of it, the satisfaction of growing some of your own food is immense. Gardening is a great way to put your environmental consciousness into practice. You can recycle milk cartons, and even disused recycling bins, as pots. You can enrich the earth with compost, and choose not to use toxic fertilisers and pest control, but garden organically. You can swap seedlings and veggies with your neighbours. Meeting challenges such as water shortages by collecting rain water becomes a pleasure.

And while there may be waste (you can’t save all the vegetables in the world, although it pays to learn how to store them), what is lost is nothing compared to food wasted in supermarkets and, for example, on luxury cruise ships. Gardening may be the single best thing you can do towards learning to eat ethically.

Despite the warning at the beginning of the article, growing edible crops isn’t that difficult with commitment and a bit of organisation. Rachel Oldham, editorial assistant for New Zealand Gardener, is one of many people who produce an impressive array of food crops in pots and other containers. Her advice to beginners? “Everyone can grow something. Have a go”.