July in Meadowwood Garden
Part 2 in a series of posts about one method of easily building a vegetable garden.
Some Things to Take Into Consideration
So you are excited about the possibility of growing your own vegetables. You are super-motivated and ready to run outside and get started.
Hold on a second!
OK, stop rolling your eyes! Before you run out and get dirt under your fingernails there are a few things to think about. Building a garden and growing vegetables is probably easier than many people think, but it DOES require some thought, time and effort on your part. So, before you begin please think about the following things:
Do you have the time to devote to a garden? Like everything else in life, gardening takes time and effort. Initially you will need a few hours to plan out your garden and gather the materials to build it. Constructing the garden beds and fencing it will probably take the better part of a weekend depending on how much help you have.
On an ongoing basis you will need to check the garden daily. Some chores like weeding, fertilizing, pest control and others can take up some time on a periodic basis. When harvest time rolls around you will probably need to be in the garden at least once every 2 days to gather up your bounty! Meadowwood Garden has required about 15-30 minutes/day on average so far this growing season for these tasks.
Do you have the resources (or resourcefulness) to build and maintain it? Good topsoil costs money believe it or not! So do tools, fencing, seeds, fertilizer, etc…
The good news is that your initial costs for the soil, fencing and tools should only occur once at the beginning. And since these things will all last for a period of many, many years it makes the initial lump sum a little easier to swallow (at least that is how I justified it to myself!). Meadowwood Garden is approx. 1000 square feet and cost about $500 for the initial materials. Don’t let that number scare you — it could have been done for a lot less if I was better at being resourceful.
Is it the right season to build a garden? If you are in New England and it is the middle of Winter than probably not! There isn’t a best or worst time to build a garden necessarily. But if you build it shortly before the growing season you will be able to plant right away and get a sense of accomplishment for your hard work, not to mention the dividends later in the year in the form of your harvest! Late Fall is another good time to build a garden — that way it will be ready to plant cool-weather crops as soon as the ground warms up the next year.
Do you know your USDA Hardiness Zone? Say what? Hardiness zone? What is he talking about? And anything involving the USDA can’t be good, can it?
Well, in this case yes, it is good. Different vegetables do well in different climates. Some like it cold, some like it hot. So a system of climate zones was created to let you know what will grow well in your particular climate. And better yet — most of the seed companies refer to these zones in their plant descriptions so you will be able to tell if you can grow a particular variety even before you purchase it.
How do you find out your USDA Hardiness Zone? The easiest way is to click on the banner below, enter your zip code and you are good to go! Meadowwood Garden is zone 5 if you want to compare your climate to ours.
Do you know your Frost Dates? There are 2 dates that all vegetable gardeners live by — the date of the last frost in Spring and the date of the first frost in Fall. These are known as your frost dates. So why are they important?
Most vegetables (except a few cold-loving varieties) will die in a frost. So the frost dates literally define the length of your growing season. It is especially important in the Spring as you are setting out your plants or sowing your seeds because if you start too early you could kill everything if a late-season frost occurs.
There are 2 ways to find out your frost dates. You could consult the handy chart here that lists frost dates for each state. Kudos to Victory Seeds for producing this resource! If you want to double-check the frost dates with a more local source you can consult your local Cooperative Extension Office. Most of the Extension Offices have a website that lists the frost dates — or you can call or e-mail them and ask!
Have you decided what you want to plant? Now this topic could take up pages and pages! But to distill it down for sake of simplicity let’s just say that you need to have a general idea about what vegetable varieties you want to plant before the growing season begins.
Now, you could go through the various seed catalogs and research how large each vegetable gets and graph it out to make sure you have room for everything. Or you could do what I did and construct as many beds as you could in the space you had and just fill them with vegetables. The first approach is probably the most sensible… (looks at the piles of Zucchini surrounding the computer)
Bean Trellis of Awesomeness v 2.0
Seriously, though, some varieties take up substantially more space than others. Tomatoes, Eggplant, Summer Squash, Zucchini and Pepper Plants can all get pretty large! And Cucumbers, Pole Beans, Gourds, Melons, Winter Squash and other vining varieties will grow best (and take up less space) if grown vertically on some sort of trellis.
For the first year just follow the spacing recommendations from the seed provider. Experience will dictate how much and where you can plant things in future years.
Conclusion:
This list isn’t meant to scare you out of wanting to grow your own vegetables, and hopefully it won’t. Rather, I’m hoping that if you go into your experience with a little realistic knowledge about what it is going to take on your part it will make your garden even more successful! Researching seeds can be a lot of fun. Eating something that you planted and cared for is an amazing feeling! And best of all — the time you spend in your garden literally surrounded by the fruits of your efforts will probably be a well-deserved and cherished respite from the rest of your hectic schedule!
