Vegetable gardening has had a huge resurgence in popularity the last few years with increases in demand reported by mail order seed companies and huge growth in the numbers of home gardeners reported by industry experts. This increase means that the resources and selection have never been better so it is time to join the ranks if you haven’t already! Growing your own food can be rewarding, tasty and may save you some money in the long run: it just takes a bit of elbow grease and some careful planning.
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Growing from seed may seem complicated but it is cost effective and extremely satisfying to see plants start out in a paper package and end up on a plate on the kitchen table. The variety of crops to choose from are greater as well when you choose to grow from seed.
Perusing seed catalogues can produce some excellent information about what to choose and how to grow it and is a great place to start researching. It is important to choose the right varietals for the area you live in – using a local seed company will help make this task easier. Westcoast Seeds and Saltspring Seeds in South Western BC have wonderful catalogues with lots of handy growing tips. The planting guides provided by these companies are invaluable. Seeds will need to be started at the right time and planted out accordingly to ensure success.
It is important when planning the area for a garden to really look at it critically. How big is the area? What is the drainage like? How much sun does it get and at what time of day? A vegetable garden is going to need to get plenty of full sun every day, have good drainage and be in a convenient place for watering to really be productive.
When planning where to put the plants within the space it is important to remember that different plants require different things when it comes to soil, moisture, light, temperature and space required so do your research.
Certain plants will do well in small gardens, like lettuce, herbs, tomatoes, peas; and others, like potatoes require a fair amount of space. If a few containers are the starting point then herbs and tomatoes may be the way to go. Choose plants that have a good return for your space, time and effort.
The desired outcome for the garden is something to keep in mind. Don’t get too ambitious. A garden should be enjoyable and also easy to keep under control. If the workload or the amount of produce that comes out of the garden becomes too much to handle, the level of enjoyment can lessen dramatically. Be conscious of how much the plants you choose will produce and plant accordingly. Resist the desire to overplant one particular type of vegetable.
Keeping track of successes and failures will be helpful in planning a garden from year to year. Write down where things did well and where they didn’t and which experiments worked out and which didn’t. It will save money and time in the long run and maximize harvests.
The most important thing is to have fun. There are many things that can go wrong in a garden: bad weather, pests, making the wrong choices on what to grow where. Gardening is all about trial and error and things change from one year to another – ask any farmer. Don’t sweat the failures and celebrate the successes! Just go out there pick some favorites vegetables, plant some seeds and see what happens.
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