Welcome Growing our own food isn’t hard, it doesn’t require a lot of space, and there are edibles for nearly every growing environment. From sunny suburban backyards to urban patios and even apartment balconies, everyone can grow some amount of food. Food you grow yourself is free of harmful chemicals and travels zero food miles. If you do it right, Mother Nature does much of the heavy lifting for you. While growing your own food is indeed personally fulfilling, it goes way beyond that. It’s not all that difficult to grow enough to feed your family, share with neighbors in need, and lighten your environmental footprint, too. A backyard vegetable garden may be a simple thing, but it can have a genuinely profound impact on you, your family, your community, and the planet. Plant the seeds now. What you grow could last a lifetime. It has for me. Where to start Siting Your Garden After asking yourself why you want to garden, you’ll need to think about where you want to garden. Or, more accurately, where you can garden. This one is often out of your hands. Many would-be gardeners are prohibitively space-challenged, or at least they think they are. Even if you don’t have access to a sprawling back forty of rolling farmland, you probably have ample space for a vegetable garden in some shape or form. You may just need to look at your property in a new light. Sizing Your Garden How big should your garden be? That’s a loaded question, because most gardeners always want at least a little more growing space than whatever they currently have. But when you’re planning a garden, my recommendation is always to start small, especially if this is your first foray into growing edibles. Allow for future expansion, sure, but remember that plants want to grow bigger and bigger. It’s literally in their DNA. Planning Your Garden You may be eager to get out there and start planting. I get it. The excitement over a new gardening season (and especially an entirely new garden) can make it difficult to wait even one more minute. But I hope you see the value in taking the time to develop a smart plan for your garden. Giving just a little forethought to things like sunlight, drainage, overall size, proximity to resources, and the purpose of the garden will help make all the thousands of subsequent decisions fall into place. Primary Nutrients and What They Do For all plants, there are three primary nutrients required for growth: nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium. They’re abbreviated as N, P, and K, respectively. Gardeners always refer to them in that specific order, N-P-K. And a simple mnemonic phrase, up, down, and all around, will help you remember what purpose each nutrient serves in the garden. The Essentials Nitrogen aids in plant growth above ground (the “up” in our little rhyme). It promotes the green, leafy growth of foliage.Phosphorus helps establish growth below ground (or “down”) in the form of healthy root systems. It’s also the component most responsible for flower blooms and fruit production. Potassium provides for “all-around” plant health by building strong cells within plant tissue. That allows the plant to withstand stressors like heat, cold, pests, and disease.Micronutrients. These 3 primary nutrients aren’t the only ingredients that factor into good plant growth. In fact, there are twelve other elements that are considered essential, too. Why Grow from Seed Unlimited options The most obvious benefit of growing from seed is selection. Go to your favorite nursery (or even your local big box store’s gardening center) on the busiest weekend of spring and count how many ready-to-plant seedlings they have for sale. You might end up with a total number of a couple dozen or so. Now walk over to the racks of seed packets. There’s hundreds. More control over timing Most retail garden centers assume that you’re starting a vegetable garden in spring once the weather breaks and that you’ll be shutting your garden down with the late summer or early fall harvest. Growing food year-round would be next to impossible if you were dependent on store-bought seedlings. If you grow from seed, your favorite cool-season crops are ready to be planted whenever you (and the weather) are. The stakes are low This is a simple matter of dollars and cents. When you buy seedlings, someone else has done the work to grow the plants to a certain stage, then they’ve been packaged, shipped, and stored (maybe multiple times). Each seedling will cost several dollars apiece. Not a huge investment but compare it to a packet of seeds that may cost two bucks for fifty seeds, each of which has the potential to grow into its own plant. Allows an earlier start Even if you grow cool-season crops, the time you spend outside gardening likely takes a serious dip for several months out of the year. Starting plants from seeds, though, means you’re kicking off your new growing season indoors, when there’s nothing happening outside, getting your hands dirty weeks or even months before the box-store shoppers are catching spring fever. Plus, complete growing profiles of over 40 favorite crops!
✔ Author(s): Joe Lamp'l
✔ Title: The Vegetable Gardening Book: Your complete guide to growing an edible organic garden from seed to harvest
✔ Rating : 5 out of 5 base on (137 reviews)
✔ ISBN-10: 0760375712
✔ ISBN-13: 9780760375716
✔ Language: English
✔ Format ebook: PDF, EPUB, Kindle, Audio, HTML and MOBI
✔ Device compatibles: Android, iOS, PC and Amazon Kindle
Readers' opinions about The Vegetable Gardening Book by Joe Lamp'l
Jillian Neel
This book completely captured my heart. The characters were so relatable, and their journeys resonated deeply with me. The writing was poetic and powerful, leaving me with a sense of awe. I'm grateful to have experienced this literary gem.
Melody Blake
I couldn't stop raving about this book to my friends and family. It's a literary gem that deserves all the praise. I can't wait to dive into more works by this talented author.
Tasha Cobbett
The themes of resilience and hope resonated deeply with me. This book taught me valuable life lessons that I'll carry with me for years to come.
