Go Green Growing Vegetables

January 28, 2010 by admin  
Filed under Nutrition

growing vegetables

growing vegetables

Growing your own vegetables really doesn’t need some special talent but mainly the will and motivation to do it. Knowing it contributes toward your own health and well being as well as to those of the ones you care most, also helps.

You also help the Go Green movement making a difference as to how the world is tackling the climate change.. The truth is that you can easily learn enough to be growing useful crops very quickly, and each session spent in your garden teaches you even more.

You will learn much that is unique to your own situation, such as local soil conditions, your particular aspect in relation to the sun, and oddities that relate to your local microclimate. You will learn most of this by getting out and giving it a go.

The taste of home grown vegetables is vastly superior to that of the commercially grown produce. Have you heard people complain that tomatoes no longer have any taste? They will have when you grow your own – you will never taste better. The lack of taste with the commercial crop is not all the fault of the growers, as they are under pressure to produce a crop, of uniform size and colour, to the schedule of the wholesale market, and ultimately the supermarket.  You set your own schedule.

The freshness of your own crop is a big plus. Vegetables I have bought from the supermarket, and stored in the refrigerator, have started to become inedible after a few days. I have had home grown produce still fresh in the refrigerator after 2 weeks!

Typically, your home garden will produce a generous yield, and can readily help pay for the cost of growing them. You can effectively end up having free vegetables. Summer, especially, is usually a time of abundance, even glut, as family and friends leave your place with perhaps more produce than they had expected to see. A tip – when giving away fresh produce, try to limit your generosity – it is better to give a small amount to many rather than to give to the few more than they can actually use.

One of the turn-offs to trying something you have not done before is the intimidating flood of information (and misinformation) you will receive.

If you are browsing one of the major bookstores, you may find hundreds of books on the topic – which do you buy? To begin with, look for the simple, basic information. Do not bother with those full of jargon – you will learn the technical terms as you go.

You will hear folklore from the family, such as “Uncle Henry always put … (you name it) … on his … (name it again)”. Folklore is part of our heritage, but there is no guarantee of its usefulness.

You will hear from the office genius, who has done nothing, but still knows all the answers – nod wisely, and then ignore him.

Plants evolved millions of years before humans, and they actually want to grow. It has been said that in many cases plants grow despite what we do to help them. If you provide the basics, and these are reasonable nutrition and regular watering, Mother Nature does the rest – let her work for you.

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Garden Fencing Solutions For Growing Vegetables

June 11, 2009 by admin  
Filed under Gardening

Martha Drew asked:

Things were going great in the early stages. I had just recently started growing vegetables in my back yard and things were moving along very well. Certain vegetables were growing somewhat slowly, and I didn’t expect things to be so smooth forever, but I had faith things would turn out well no matter what obstacles I would have to face. It wasn’t long before I faced one of the first setbacks in cultivating a vegetable garden and discovered that I would have to put in garden fencing.

I had grown vegetables in the past but it was a communal garden and it was ages ago so when the rabbits started to ruin my garden, I was totally caught off guard. Luckily, because of my experience, I not only knew the answer was garden fencing but I also knew exactly what kind of garden fencing was required.

Straightaway I went and purchased the wire garden fencing and had it put in as soon as possible. It’s not necessarily a job you need to hire someone for as anyone with basic construction skills should be able to handle it. Personally my construction skills could use some work but luckily I had the help of my husband. The first thing we did was we checked the border of the garden to determine what length of garden fencing we needed. I decided to include a somewhat larger area than the actual vegetable garden because I knew I would be adding more vegetables when things were under control. Now what we used was wire garden fencing with a green vinyl coating. It wasn’t panels but a rolled up sheet of fencing that was unraveled around metal posts. We had each post installed on the border of the garden and then had the wire fencing affixed around the garden.

One thing you may want to be sure of is that there are no spaces within the garden fencing. Shortly after having the fence put in, I went into the yard to discover a rabbit trapped inside of the garden. The rabbit must’ve gotten in through a gap but couldn’t find its way out! What we did was check the fencing and make sure all gaps were gotten rid of and we also made sure that the fencing was firm against the ground so that no rabbit would be able to sneak under the garden fencing either.

The wire garden fencing turned out great and not only did it keep animals from ruining my garden, but some vegetables ended up developing better with the fence as support. Wire garden fencing is very functional and practical but after we had it for a while I found some time to have it replaced. In the end I put in a much more visually appealing one that still protects my vegetables. Not all garden fencing can be used for keeping rabbits away from your vegetables but there is garden fencing available that can do the job of protecting vegetable gardens and is also much nicer looking than simple wire garden fencing.

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