5 Tips on How to Grow Your Family Vegetable Garden

As people are growing more aware of the importance of healthy food, naturally, they want to know what they put in their body. The best way to do this is by growing your own food. While having an animal farm may be a bit demanding, growing your own vegetables isn’t. Everyone can do it with these 5 tips.

Estimate the size

 

Depending on the size of the lot available, and the number of people in your household, a sufficient size of a vegetable garden is approximately anywhere between 10x10 feet, to 10x18 feet. Don’t be discouraged by this, you can have your tiny vegetable garden on a balcony or even in an indoor window box. A smaller-sized garden will not provide a season’s worth of vegetables, but it will allow you to grow your favorite herbs and some vegetables e.g. cherry tomatoes.

Choose a location

Most vegetables need a lot of sunlight, even 6-7 hours of sunlight a day. While you cannot affect the weather, you can choose the best location in your backyard/balcony to allow enough sun for your plants on a sunny day. With each type of vegetable you grow, you need to find out exactly how much space a single plant needs so you know how far apart to plant them. Also, pay attention to which crops you’re putting next to each other as you don’t want smaller plants to have to grow in the shadow of larger plants.

Prepare the soil

It is up to you to decide whether you want to use raised or sunken beds in your garden. They each have its advantages and are suitable for certain regions. For good yield, it is crucial to prepare the soil by mixing it with homemade compost and mulch. There are certain plants known to enrich the soil, legumes, such as peas and beans. You can move these around your garden each season, and plant something else in their place to secure a sufficient nitrogen level for the new crop. Different plants need different amounts of water but they all need it. By rule, you water plants early in the morning, or in the evening when the sun is not too strong. Hoselink retractable hose reels are a good solution for a smaller garden that does not require a big water system.

Don’t forget compost and mulch

Take some time to make your own compost. Basically, you want to create conditions for organic matter to decompose and its nutrients be absorbed into the soil. You can use dead plants and weeds from cleaning your garden to make compost and thus create less garbage. You will need a container to do this. You can make one yourself, or you can buy it, whichever suits you better.  Same goes for mulch, you can have it made naturally out of wood, pine straws etc. Make sure you clean the garden regularly and avoid using chemicals as it may affect both the fruit quality and the soil. 

Read this also : How a composter works.

Pick the right vegetables

When deciding on vegetables for your garden, you should go by two rules, make it something you and your family like the most and make it easy to grow. The things we usually have in our gardens are tomatoes, potatoes, peas, carrots, radishes, cabbage, zucchinis, lettuce. Some of the vegetables yield more than once so they may be a good choice, as those that yield only once, leave you with empty space in your garden. When this happens, you need to find a crop that can be planted later in the season so it may still yield in due time for your family to enjoy. Make sure you know what seeds you are buying. An organic garden may grow less yield but it is a healthy one.

Growing your own vegetables provides fun, a nice piece to look at in your backyard, a money saver and a nutritionist.