The last time I wrote, I gave a general idea of how to get a garden started by asking yourself a few different questions: Where do you live? What do you want to grow? How big of a garden do you want?
For today's post, I plan on following up more on the previous post by continuing on from these questions and also elaborating on some tips that urban gardeners can use to grow fresh veggies in a small space.
Once you have, you get an idea of what you want to do, you should draw up a plan of what your garden might look like. This will help to organize your garden and help you to rotate your crops during later seasons. It will also help to give you an idea of what you can plant with the space that is available. Here is an example of what a garden plan might look like:
An important note to keep in mind is the height an spacing of your plants. Many plants you don't want to over crowd like tomatoes and peppers. It is important to have space between these types of plants because the can become very bushy and you want as much air flow as you can get. It is also important to note that some plants are bigger than others and a few squash plants for example will take up much more room than a bunch of peppers because squash plants tend to spread out on the ground. Extra room will also make it easy for the gardener to get about.
There are numerous tools that can be used for gardening, but a few basic and essential tools would be a shovel, garden rake, hoe, and some sort of bucket or wheelbarrow. With these tools, any gardener should be able to get along pretty well. They will come in handy for most gardening projects.
Once you have a plot of land cleared down to soil, its time to plant your seeds. Many seeds can be planted when your garden is ready to go in the spring. However, some that have a longer germination period should be germinated inside to give them a bit of a head start.
Growing Upside Down
For those who don't have a large amount of space available, it is worth considering growing plants up side down. The idea sounds a big strange but the results are very inspiring.
Lets say, a person really wants to grow some lettuce, tomatoes, and peppers but they just don't have the room to have a big enough garden. But using the idea of upside down, all the would need is about eight feet of vertical space.
To build an upside down, you need to drill a roughly two inch hole in the bottom of a five gallon bucket. Then place around the hole (on the inside of the pail) some sort of organic material that will hold your plant in place. (Coffee filter, newspaper, etc.) Once your plant is in place, begin filling the bucket with soil making sure to pack around the roots well. Fill almost to the top of the bucket. Once the buckets are full, they can be hung from some sturdy location and watered as needed. The beauty of the these is that by growing the peppers or tomatoes out of the bottom you can also grow something smaller on the top like lettuce. Feel free to plant a few lettuce plants in the tops of your buckets.
Here are a couple additional links that provide information on growing vegetables upside down.
