Over the past couple years there has been a huge resurgence of interest in vegetable gardening in America. Motivations include the poor economy, avoidance of genetically altered food, the Locavore (local food) movement, desire for more organic products and several other factors. All good reasons to be sure, and the result is that more and more people are getting their hands dirty for the first time. Whatever the motivation, we approve!
Last year was the first time we attempted to grow vegetables on a large scale. All the years of dreaming, all the hours of planning and effort paid off for us quite handsomely. That said, we also remember how overwhelming it seemed at times — worries about seed varieties, watering schedules, seed starting, labor, pests and many other things almost caused us to not start the garden.
Does this sound familiar to you? If you are one of the many visitors to this website that are considering starting your first vegetable garden we want to offer some advice:
- Growing vegetables is easier than you think — Vegetable gardening comes down to a very simple process at it’s core: place a seed into the soil, water and nurture the resulting plant, and harvest your vegetables. The plant does most of the work — all you have to do is keep an eye on it and make sure it is happy.
- Don’t read too much (at first) — Back when Meadowwood Garden was just an idea we went out and read everything about vegetable gardening we could get our hands on — books, magazines, seed catalogs, websites, etc. All great information to be sure, but if we had to do it over we would put off reading most of it until AFTER our first season when we could compare and contrast all the knowledge we were gaining to the experiences we had in the garden.
- Learn to experiment — Try new things! Have an open mind! One of the beautiful things about gardening is that what you do isn’t set in stone. Unsure whether to grow tomatoes supported or not? Try it both ways and learn what does best for you. Not sure if you will like that variety of cucumber? Try it out with a sample planting. Worried about lettuce bolting in your climate? Grow a small patch and find out when it bolts.
- The soil is everything — Good soil is literally the foundation of your garden. Good soil leads to healthy plants and abundent yields. A common thread among the best vegetable gardeners is that they see their primary job as tending to their soil quality FIRST, knowing if they do so then everything else falls into place.
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Brian-this is a great article!
Carrie
@ Carrie — Thank you!
Great post, but I’ve got to disagree with reading up on gardening. Maybe don’t read everything in sight, but as a first time gardener I didn’t know which end of the seed was up, so to speak. I researched good gardening books and came up with two ‘bibles’ to guide me through the process. Without them the pitfalls would have been immense – from when to start seedlings in our cold climate, to insuring they have enough light, so building a raised bed – without a good book or two the idea would have been dead in the water.
@ Coldprairie — We are in agreement. What we are basically saying is if you read too much in the beginning it can get confusing because you are trying to distill a ton of information and not every gardening book agrees with each other. And when people get too confused they tend quit or not even start things.
Obtaining a good gardening “bible” or two is strongly recommended. Reading every gardening book on Amazon.com isn’t…
Thank you for the comment!