Planning A Vegetable Garden
Planning a vegetable garden is very important for the success of your efforts. There are some things you need to consider when planning a vegetable garden. Planning will allow you to make the best use of your space while assuring the highest yields from your garden. You can also read the post on planning an organic vegetable garden here.
The first decision you have to make is the location of the vegetable garden. You must place the vegetable garden in an area where it is exposed to at least 6 hours of sunlight. The location must also be near a water source so you can water in times of drought. The area must also have soil conducive for growing plants. It must have good drainage, and must be free of silt, stones, and other hard objects. The location needs to be accessible so you can get to it easily to work it and harvest your crop.
You need to plan the different plants and how many you intend to grow. This will help determine the size of the plot you will need. You should make a list of all the plants you want to grow in your garden. You also need to consider how much space each plant will need when it is fully grown.
Make a plan for the arrangement of the vegetable plants in the garden as well. The first consideration is the frequency of yield. Put the crops that produce early yield together. These crops include radishes, spinach, carrots, beets, etc. Make some space for replanting successively. Once these crops have been harvested, you can rotate in crops that produce later in the season.
You need to consider also that some plants cannot grow beside other plants. For instance, there are plants that enhance the growth of another when planted together; there are those that inhibit the growth of each other. For instance, potatoes can inhibit the growth of both squash and tomatos. Broccoli also inhibits tomato growth. Beans inhibit the growth of onions. Carrots inhibit the growth of dill plants. This does not stop you from planting all these plants in the garden. This just a reminder to do your research on plants you should separate from one another when planting your garden.
Once you have initial planning completed it’s important to plan how the garden will be laid out. The layout of your garden will depend on what vegetables you want to grow, your planting space and if you would like to opt for companion planting. You should have answered all these questions in the initial planning phase. Here are some helpful tips on how to layout your garden.
Choose your Garden Layout
There are three basic vegetable garden layouts and they are: rows, beds and “potager” style.
The most popular rows style of layout requires planting seeds in a row which could either mean planting one type of seed in a row or different seeds in a row.
The bed type of layout is similar the rows style but in a smaller level. This layout allows access to the plant beds from the exterior of the garden or as you walk through the garden path instead of coming from inside of the plant bed. This is particularly convenient to avoid stepping on the beds which tends to pack in the soil and makes it difficult to dig and aerate in the spring or fall. Plant beds are great ways to maximize a garden space and you can even use raised beds for easy gardening.
The most decorative style of layout is the “potager” which means kitchen garden in French. This layout is described as geometric which allows you to layout your garden in circles or arrange plants by color or even food type.
Consider Companion Planting
The idea behind companion planting involves planting different kinds of plants together so that they help each other grow. A perfect example of this is planting beans, corn and squash together which was commonly done by Native Americans. While the corn gives the beans a place to climb, the beans give its three companions nutrients in the soil and the squash serves as a shade to the roots of the plants beside it. This not only prevents weeds from growing, it also saves water.
Other great plants for companion planting are onions, which scares slugs and aphids away, tomatoes, which grow well with carrots and basil, which improves the taste of tomatoes. Another example is horseradish and potatoes which when planted together give your potatoes protection from disease.
In planting vegetable gardens, companion planting is certainly worth considering. For more information on companion planting click here.
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