how to grow a garden

                                                             

 

 

                                                               welcome to

                                     how to 

                                 grow a garden

                

Thousands of years ago humankind took the leap in evolution when we made the transition from hunter-gatherer to depending on agriculture for food. Today we are very dependent on the large-scale agriculture that is the life’s blood of our survival. Without the transition to an agriculturally based civilization, we could never have been able to sustain our population growth to its large numbers. The growth of plants for food has both liberated and cursed us as a species. 

We are now more directly dependent on the earth’s weather and its ecological stability. Any change in its stability can affect us far greater than when we primarily ate animals. Our diets have become more specialized and so we need to grow a wide variety of foods. As we evolved in our methods of producing food we started with grains and now grow a very large number of different plants. 

We now grow vegetables, fruit, and even herbs to sustain our dietary needs. In this day and age we depend on large factory farms to grow everything and so we don’t have to grow our own food, we just buy it from the producers. But the family garden still exists either as a hobby or as a necessity. Someone may grow a garden in order to subsidize his or her food costs. Gardening is a very enjoyable activity to add to ones life. 

The new gardener has to realize though that he/she has to have patience and be willing to get dirty, the process for the gardener is learning where to place the garden, how to grow it, and how to maintain their new project. Even with all the hard work the rewards out weigh the negatives.

When deciding on where to place our garden we have to take many factors into consideration. To begin we have to know what are the primary needs of plants? Plants depend on the sun for growth but the sun alone can not sustain life. Water and soil are the other two primary needs that plants must have in order to grow.

 So we now know the basics but these are only the basics, plants need soil that is rich in nutrients, and that is at a base acidity level. One way to find this out is to buy a kit, but there is another way. A good trick to learn is don’t ever plant near pine or ever green trees because they grow in acidic soil and most food plants need neutral or base soil to grow. Usually where there is grass growing is generally neutral soil. It is best to have a garden in full sun or at least 8 hours of direct sunlight. 

Most gardeners will prepare the soil the fall before by adding leaves, grass clippings, or manure to enrich the soil with nutrients that will be used by the plants the following growing season. By adding the leaves, clippings, or manure the fall previous this will allow the ingredients to "compost" and break down into a more readily available source for the new plants to absorb, thus increasing the health and eventual yield of the garden. Once we have prepared the soil we should surround our garden with 1-inch chicken wire at a recommended height of 3-4 feet in order to keep out predators such as rabbits and the occasional groundhog.

Most gardeners will begin from seed or we can buy our seedlings from a nursery. If we begin from seed we have to start early in the year since most plants have a slow transition from seed to plant. A good way to start is first decide what we want to grow, what do we like? Once we have decided we then buy our seeds and some small containers, most people will use saved up yogurt cups or we can buy small planting containers. 

We will also need to buy several bags of planting mix, which is a special blend of soil and compost designed, especially for doing seedlings. Next when we get home we fill the containers with the soil; a good rule to follow is to always plant much more than needed to compensate for loss due to pests, predators, etc. If we find that we end up with more than we need we can give the rest to a friend or a neighbor. Now we have to place the seeds into the soil and label each one for later reference. 

Next we water the soon to be seedlings and place indoors in a nice sunny window. We have to keep the soil moist but not too wet; we usually water once a day, preferably in the evening. In 3-5 weeks we will have healthy seedlings. We need to keep in mind to start our seeds in late February and they should be ready for the garden just after the last frost late March to early April. Planting time is always one of the most exciting times of gardening; it is when our seedlings are ready to be put into their new home. 

So we make it a special occasion, as we gather our seedlings and plant them in rows. It is good to remember to put the soil in a donut shape around the seedlings so that the water will reach them more efficiently through out its youth. Now that all the seedlings are planted we have to water the garden; it is good to use a nozzle that puts out a fine mist so that the plants get watered gently.

We may think that we are done and now its time for the garden to do its job, well we have only begun to work. The basics to gardening have been put into place, now we have to feed, weed, and maintain the new garden. Even though we have rich soil that we worked on last fall the young plants will quickly absorb these nutrients and so much like small children the seedlings have large appetites. 

A good source of food for plants, which we could use, is one we can purchase from our local garden supply; we have to know the three main chemical compounds used by plants. Those are N-P-K this is nitrogen for vegetative growth needed most right after planting, and which will be most needed throughout life, then phosphorus for root and flower development, which also is needed to form the vegetables. And last is potassium which promotes strong healthy plants by adding elasticity and strength to the stalks of the plants, it also helps with the formation of healthy seeds. When selecting the fertilizer we have to remember three separate numbers usually all in this order 5-6-2 This evenly supplemented food will cover all our needs, we should follow the instructions and this should cover our feeding requirements. 

Now that our garden has established it self and is doing well we notice all the other plants growing that we didn’t put there these are the "weeds" and we have to remove those now and for the remainder of the season. It is good to remember that a healthy garden will produce lots of veggies and a garden that is choked up with weeds will not perform well. As the plants grow we may have to thin out carrots, broccoli, and any thing that seems too close together. 

As far as watering we have to water every day at sunset this is because the water will be used as the plants grow at night. Plants spend their day absorbing sunlight, then at night they take the stored energy which is stored as sugars and turn it into chlorophyll which make the plants get bigger. 

Plants are constantly working to bring us our food, its only us that get to rest in between weeding, watering, and doing the basic maintenance of our garden. Time sure passes when we work hard on our garden and its starting to pay off, we have so much food we are having a pot luck almost every night, now time to relax and reap the bounty of our wonderful garden.

The almost sacred act of taking seed, soil, and water and producing life is ingrained into our DNA. It has become part of who we are as a species, when we grow our plants we are doing the very act of creation its self and this brings us closer to our source. Gardening has been introduced to many therapeutic communities as a means to allow its patients to gain a sense of self worth and accomplishment. The very act of putting forth effort and from it getting result is one of the greatest models that all things are possible with time and a little hard work. It seems that the garden is more than the birthplace of our food but the birthplace of inspiration.