Here we will find various useful articles related to vegetables garden. How to start a Vegetable garden from scratch. vegetable garden in balcony, vegetable garden ideas, vegetable garden design, etc.
The summer I finally quit synthetic fertilizer, I was convinced my tomatoes would sulk. I’d been feeding them blue powder every two weeks for years, and the plants looked fine — big, green, glossy. But my Zone 6 raised beds had turned into something closer to dead sand. Dig a hole, and you’d find no … Read more >>
Three years ago I bought a knobby piece of ginger at the grocery store, stuck it in a plastic nursery pot, and shoved it under my kitchen window in mid-January. Nothing happened for six weeks. I was convinced I’d wasted my three dollars and a scoop of potting mix. Then one morning there was a pale green … Read more >>
My north-side vegetable bed used to be my biggest embarrassment. It gets maybe three and a half hours of direct sun in June, and for two summers straight I stubbornly planted tomatoes there. I got tall, floppy plants and about nine golf-ball fruits total. Then a neighbor in my old Zone 6 neighborhood walked past, … Read more >>
My first apartment in Zone 6 had a north-facing balcony about four feet deep. I crammed nine pots onto it that first spring, mostly because the garden center had a sale. By July I had one leggy tomato with three fruits, a bolted lettuce, and a basil plant that looked like it had been through … Read more >>
The first year I built a 4×4 raised bed, I planted it like a checkerboard with no plan at all. Broccoli sat next to tomatoes, onions crowded my beans, and by mid-July the whole thing looked like a traffic jam of leaves. Cabbage worms found the brassicas in about a week, and my basil never … Read more >>
I still remember the first cucumber patch I planted in cool, heavy spring soil. The vines sat there for weeks, looking healthy enough but refusing to grow. Once the weather finally warmed up, weeds exploded around them, and every cucumber seemed to hide under damp leaves. Growing cucumbers on black plastic changed that routine in … Read more >>
If your vegetable bed feels hard, dries out too fast, or grows plants that look hungry by midsummer, your soil may need more organic matter. I’ve dealt with that in my own Zone 6 backyard, especially in a 6-by-10-foot raised bed where tomatoes and cucumbers pull a lot from the soil every season. Mushroom compost … Read more >>
A plant that looked almost unchanged last Monday can suddenly tower over its neighbors by Friday. I see it every summer in my backyard vegetable patch, especially when the cucumbers hit warm weather, and the tomatoes finally settle into their raised bed. But growth is rarely steady. A basil plant may add an inch in … Read more >>
A backyard vegetable bed teaches you patience. You wait for rain, pull weeds, and hope the soil stays loose enough for roots to spread. But when I wanted fresh basil, lettuce, and herbs during a cold Zone 5 winter, I started growing them indoors with water instead of garden soil. Hydroponic gardening sounds high-tech at … Read more >>
Picture the first warm weekend of spring. A gardener stands in the garden center, one side lined with shiny packets of vegetable seeds, the other packed with sturdy little tomato and pepper plants. That quiet moment of staring back and forth is the heart of the Vegetable Garden Seeds Vs Plants decision. This choice shapes … Read more >>
