Optimal Enviroment For A Vegetable Garden
Growing vegetables is far easier than growing flowers and fruits. They require less maintenance and reach maturity much faster. However the success of your vegetable garden will depend chiefly on three aspects
- Soil conditions
- Watering and drainage
- Availability of sun
We shall now take each aspect and work on how to make them optimal.
Soil Conditions
garden soilYour garden could be blessed with the best loam soil or you may have to deal with difficult clay soil. The good news is that no matter what type of soil your garden is naturally endowed with, you can always enhance it to meet the needs of a vegetable garden.
Soil places a critical role in the success of a harvest. Vegetable plants are hungry for soil nutrients and care should be taken to ensure they receive it in the best possible manner. Composting is one of the better ways to improve soil quality and nutrients. You can easily make away with chemical fertilizers if you mix good amount of compost into the soil before planting the vegetables.
You can make compost on your own using the household and yard wastes. It is easy and effective, read our article on building your own compost tumbler for more information. If is also viable to purchase compost, several nurseries and seed stores sell sacks of rich compost. The compost or "organic humus" can be mixed with the garden soil using a rake, just dig up the soil to a depth of a few inches, mix in an appropriate quantity of compost. The amount of compost you mix with the soil would depend upon your soil type, the end result should be that the soil becomes crumbly and it drains water efficiently.
Watering and drainage
It is important to water you vegetable plants regularly but it is also vital to ensure that there is no water logging. Soggy conditions are most detrimental to plant growth. If the soil does not drain water effectively, you will need to mix in more coarse organic compost. Keeping the soil moist is the best way to grow vegetables.
It is best to use a water sprinkler so that you don't damage the root system of your plants with a jet of water coming from a hose. You can also use mulch around your plants and cut channels in your soil to facilitate watering. The main thing is to avoid harming the root structure while watering.
If possible, avoid spraying the leaves of vegetable plants with water. Moist leaves invite conditions of mildew and other fungi. Keep the leaves as dry as possible.
Availability of sun
Sunshine AvailabilityIt is best to grow a vegetable garden in a spot which receives the maximum benefit of sun. Vegetable plants require a lot of sun for a healthy produce. In the absence of adequate sunshine some vegetable plants would end up reducing the size of the produce or in extreme cases don't give off any produce at all.
The only vegetables that do well in shade are the ones that are eaten for their leaves. Lettuce and cabbage would be good examples. In fact it is best to plant them in areas where there is partial shade; they don't do too well in extremely sunny conditions.
Tomatoes, beans, cucumbers, pumpkin, okra, squash and eggplant require 6 hours of direct sun to do well. Tubers such as potatoes, carrots, radishes and yams do better in sunny conditions than in conditions of shade.
It is best to plant a vegetable garden on the northern or southern side of the house so that the plants are not shaded by the house. Planting a vegetable garden in the midst of fruits trees and tall shrubs would create conditions of shade for most of the time resulting in a poor produce.
Make the best use of every bit of your yard, plant green leafy vegetables in areas of shade and other vegetables (grow for their fruit and root) in the sunny areas.