Top Tips for Growing Vegetables for the First Time
by
Craft Invaders
(IC: blogger)
3 Materials
$20
1 Day
Easy
In this post, we share our top tips for starting a vegetable patch at home even if you have never grown vegetables before.
There are so many advantages to growing veg. Not only are homegrown vegetables far fresher than the ones in the stores, but they also taste better and contain more nutrients too. Growing your own food means you know exactly where it’s come from and how it’s been treated. Having a veggie patch means no food miles and produce as fresh as it can be. Did you know that as soon as vegetables are picked they start to lose the nutrients, they contain? Finally spending time growing veg is great for your wellbeing. It gets you outside, counts as exercise and teaches you all about how nature works. It’s a chance to appreciate the natural world, get some fresh air and to de-stress. So if you’ve decided that this is the year you grow your own, here are our tips for getting the most out of your first season of growing vegetables.
Our top 10 tips for starting your first veggie patch
3. Pick the right location for your veggie patch. Most vegetables need lots of direct sunlight to flourish. The more sunlight vegetables receive, the better they will grow and taste. Protecting your patch from harsh winds will avoid the plants getting battered and encourage pollinating insects to do their work. Rich, well-draining soil that isn’t compacted will mean better root growth and healthier plants. Finally, vegetable plants need lots of water, especially when grown in raised beds. Having a water source nearby rather than at the other end of the garden will save a lot of leg work.
5. Plant your seeds in batches. It’s really easy to fall into the trap of planting a whole packet of seeds in one go, then ending up with far more plants than you could ever eat maturing at one time. By planting rows in succession a month apart, you’ll lengthen your cropping season and make far better use of your beautiful homegrown veg.
7. Keep records. Growing vegetables is a learning experience. What grows well for one person or in one garden depends on a whole host of factors. Weather, soil, pests and quality of seeds all play their part, and every year is different. Make a note of when you planted, what did well and what grew where. It’ll be a huge help with planning and crop rotation in subsequent years.
9. Make space for wildlife. Starting a veggie patch will encourage wildlife into your garden. Expect to find slugs, worms and toads and bees and butterflies too. Planting herbs and flowers is a great way to support local wildlife, and providing a water source like our bee watering station will help them too.
I have to put a cost and time taken on this project when I upload it, so I am suggesting that you can make or dig a small vegetable bed, fill it with soil and plant it with some seeds in 2-3 hours for the cost of $20. With my vegetable garden above we started with the 4 beds you can see in the photo above and have added to it over time. The beds organised as a U are the latest addition and we added those last year :)
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Published February 8th, 2020 3:00 PM
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4 of 7 comments
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Lynette Stevens on Feb 13, 2020
So many pests ate all the kale all the spinach and broccoli.
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Kelly Cason on Feb 14, 2020
Rinse them and set them on a paper towel to dry, you can store your thoroughly dried eggshells in a paper bag (store them loosely, not stacked) until you get enough to grind up and make a decent amount of powder. You can use a little coffee grinder, I find that they work best. Another excellent organic pesticide is diatomaceous earth which is fairly inexpensive and already in powder form (:
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Lynette Stevens on Feb 17, 2020
Used all my eggs around the hostas. Guess I need to eat more eggs!
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Frequently asked questions
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Do I plant my vegetables not in the same spot every year?
For example, do I put the tomatoes on the other side, and the beans where the tomatoes were?
rotate the crop?