Starting a vegetable garden

Ed, from Slow Cook, asked bloggers to post about starting a vegetable garden recently, in a post forwarded to me by a gardening friend (CEN).

This is a topic I'm totally keen on. At the Garden where I work, we're having an event next weekend to promote vegetable gardening, with the tagline of 'Building Community, Growing Vegetables.' Those of us who enjoy growing vegetables know the joy of harvesting and eating from the garden, whether it's a couple of tomato plants or a series of raised beds or an expansive 'kitchen garden' -- and we're keen on promoting it to others.

The first season in my 'main' vegetable garden

My first vegetable garden as an 'adult' was modest. We'd just put in a fence (for our old boy, our dog Chessie), who wasn't prone to roam, anyway, but we sprung for picket fence in the most visible areas.

I planted snow peas -- and this was just the beginning.

My previous forays involved trying to plant onions in the caliche soil of the Texas Hill Country as a teenager, taking on WAY too much space as a young researcher in a field station community garden (and being overwhelmed by weeds), and planting apple, peach, and nectarine trees in a shady Southeast Georgia backyard (I harvested some tasty Golden Delicious apples in the last summer we spent there).

But, our soil here is clayey, but our older house has many years' worth of thatch-rich soil below the scruffy lawn, so it's not too bad, with continuous amending.

I started small and used Square-Foot gardening and intensive gardening methods as my inspiration. Some years later, I'm talking about vegetable gardening to groups.

So, what's my advice about starting a vegetable garden?

First: Start small.

Second: Make it close to the house.

Third: Place your beds close to a water source (within reasonable hose length).

Fourth: Grow what you (and your family) like to eat (and don't plant too much).

Fifth: Garden through the year (as much as you can). Spring, summer, fall (and winter) work for us in the SE US.

Sixth: Remember vegetables are pampered annuals (nutrient and water hogs) and need both rich soil with added (preferably) organic fertilizer and water to be optimally productive.

Seventh: Harvest frequently (daily in prime season for beans, tomatoes, etc.).

Eighth: Keep it fun!

Here are a few kitchen gardening tips from a short video clip (where I somehow was the featured weekly blogger on a local TV station recently).

Nutrients for vegetables

A question in a recent kitchen gardening program has had me thinking about nutrients and vegetables again. Vegetables are so much more nutrient-intensive than perennials, shrubs, trees, or any 'landscape' plants, it's hard to realize sometimes how much they appreciate excellent, fertile soil to grow in.

The person who asked the question wondered why her vegetables just seemed average, in their compost-enriched raised beds (but with no added fertilizer). Her soil test was 'fine' for vegetables, according to our state Ag Services Lab.

But another participant had just told us about her two Early Girl tomato plants last season that produced so many tomatoes that she was giving them away to her friends, neighbors, people at her church, etc. But she was fertilizing her plants.

Hmm. Most of my vegetable plants are a lot more in the average category - nice and productive, but nothing overwhelming. But I don't fertilize much either, after adding compost at each rotation or bed preparation. It's hard (as a plant ecologist) to get my head around nutrient and water hungry vegetables.

I think the key is that if you look at the advice for sustainable gardening using compost and green manures, it takes a LOT more than you'd ever think to keep soil nutrients high. 4-5 inches of compost is often recommended for additions to each year's bed -- that's a lot of compost!

And actually, now that I think about it, the Ag Services Lab recommendations are probably assuming that you'll add fertilizer (whether inorganic or organic) to your vegetables over the growing season.