Vegetable Garden Planning Down To The Basics

Vegetable Garden Planning Down To The Basics by Alan Stables

Sometimes being spontaneous is the way to enjoy a project, but vegetable garden planning is essential if a healthy productive garden project is expected. As people in the country and cities are faced with less space, and less money for groceries, the idea of growing vegetables is a good one.

When many people think of a garden, they think of a commercial farm or greenhouse lot with perfectly straight rows of cabbage or corn as far as the eye can see. While beautiful, it can seem quite intimidating to the do it yourself gardener. Even a person that has an acre to plant can seem to have endless rows when it comes to weeding, fertilizing, or harvesting. For most smaller and compact gardens the idea of row cropping has all but disappeared. The idea of leaving enough space between rows for tilling to automate weed control wastes planting area that some gardeners do not have to spare.

A newer idea called intensive cropping is replacing the row cropping system especially for people who are using their yard as a vegetable garden. The idea of having a garden space in a front yard may not be appealing to neighbors or the homeowners association if there is one. But planting compactly and placing ornamental plants with the vegetables can make a visually appealing landscaping layout.

The downfall to intensive cropping is the necessity to weed by hand, so make sure the area of garden that is chosen is not going to be larger than the gardener has time to tend. Remember that the entire garden area does not have to be planted all at once. Combining multiple plantings of fast growing veggies combined with slow growers, gives the garden an ever changing look and feel.

Intensive cropping includes the idea of square layouts that are further divided into grids rather than straight rows. This system can allow for easier management of the plants by plots or squares rather than having to maintenance an entire area all at once. Using the system of planting fast growing, fast harvesting plants in the outer grids with slow growing plants in the center gives the slow growing plant room after the fast growing plants are harvested and gone.

Making a sketch of the entire area including the gridded areas and a listed of planned vegetables, and ornamental plants will make the vegetable garden planning an interesting project.

Alan Stables is a freelance writer on nature and gardening. For example he writes articles on growing broccoli, growing watermelon and other vegetable garden planning activities.

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Growing Cilantro In Your Kitchen Garden

Growing Cilantro In Your Kitchen Garden by Alan Stables

Growing cilantro in your kitchen garden is an easy and productive hobby. These plants produce an abundance of tasty, young leaves that you can harvest throughout the year. This species is very suitable to growing year round in a sunny windowsill or with the use of fluorescent lights. By following these easy tips, you can make sure that your plant thrives and gives you many tasty leaves for your favorite meals.

Cilantro is also known as Coriandrum sativum. Most experts recommend that you begin growing these plants from seed, as they are not good at being repotted. It is easy to start seeds. All you need to do is sprinkle them on top of your pot, and then cover them with a light layer of potting mix. This should be kept moist, and in no time you’ll have the plants sprouting through the surface.

Space and light are two of the main requirements that must be met in order for your plant to reach its full potential. Artificial lighting, such as fluorescent lights, can meet all of the plants needs as long as they are on for at least 14 hours. If you have a sunny window that will provide at least 6 hours of sunshine this will also suffice. The pot should be rather large to provide for the herb’s central tap root.

You should regularly harvest the young leaves while they are at their peak flavor. This also helps to keep the plant from flowering and going to seed. Fresh leaves are the most flavorful, as dried leaves lose their distinctive taste. Freezing is not an option.

If you want to save your seeds for next year’s crop, this can easily be accomplished. As long as you wait until the seeds are fully mature, you can easily store them until next year. You should take care to keep the seeds in a dark cool environment. These requirements ensure that your seeds will be viable when you choose to germinate them.

Growing cilantro in your kitchen is easy to do if you follow a few simple precautions. This herb requires a lot of lighting, at least 6 hours of sunlight or 14 hours of fluorescents. Since the plants have a central tap root, they need plenty of pot room and they don’t like to be repotted. It’s best to harvest and use the leaves while they’re young and fresh for the most flavor.

Alan Stables is learning how to grow herbs indoors including growing cilantro and is currently experimenting on fertility herbs. Check out his findings.

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Do You Grow Watermelons?

Growing Watermelon As A Tradition And Decoration by Alan Stables

When a person sets out to plant a garden, growing watermelon especially in the south is one of the first vegetables that come to mind. Rich soil with good organic materials is perfect for watermelon production and can brighten the summer buffet tables in more ways than one.

In order to have really sweet watermelons, the growing season needs to be long and the ground should be well drained to prevent molding or mildew, but also retain enough moisture for the growing melons. Some people with a long growing season extend their harvest time by planting incrementally thus staggering the growing and harvest times. If there is enough room for vine type plants, they generally produce better melons than the bush type plants, however, if the bush type plants are thinned to only a couple of melons per plant, the melons tend to grow larger using more of the plant’s resources.

If a long growing season is not in the cards, or if a person plans to have multiple harvests, they can get a jumpstart by starting seeds inside about three weeks before the desired planting time. If the seeds are soaked in water or other liquid growth mixture for about an hour, it will help soften the seed cover and allow the plant to break through even sooner. The key is timing and transplanting while the plant is still small. If a person waits too long and the plant gets more than a couple of leaves, the shock of being moved to new soil can be too much for them.

Another popular gardening tip is to cover the seedbed prior to planting. Black plastic covering will help the ground attract and hold heat better than uncovered soil. Even after transplanting a loose covering will help to protect the new seedlings as well as help to hold in ground heat. Keep in mind that if the weather is still too cool to uncover the plants completely and they begin to bloom, hand pollination may be necessary. Pollinating by hand and recovering the plants is not uncommon in areas that have very short growing seasons.

The actual idea of carving watermelons is thought to have come from the Thai Loi Krathong or Floating Lantern festivals of centuries ago. Many fall festivals especially Halloween gatherings have used pumpkins for carving jack-o-lanterns with creative faces, expressions, and designs. Want to start a new tradition? Do you have a yearly Hedgehog Festival, competition, or animal caretaker’s fair? Growing watermelon to be used as decorative centerpieces for summer parties, brunches, weddings, anniversaries, or any other gathering can start a tradition to last for years.

Alan Stables is a freelance writer on nature and gardening. For example he writes articles on growing broccoli, growing watermelon and other vegetable garden planning activities.

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